Strange Thoughts of a Strange Man

"Thank you for waiting" is, I think, my current top phrase of annoyance when I am out shopping.

I encountered it once before in Uni Qlo (I think I blogged about it) when two old queens held up the one assistant by camply praising the tiles behind the till. The assistant, when he finally got to me, said "thank you for waiting" and really wasn't impressed with my response of "I didn't really have an alternative."

I popped into M&S in Oxford Street at lunchtime today to buy some emergency socks - I developed a hole in one and couldn't face the afternoon with a strangled toe. The two assistants were helping some belligerent customers and so another assistant came along and immediately said "thank you for waiting". I bit my tongue on the obvious response and did so again when I was paying for my lunch and the words drifted over to me.

Why does it annoy me?

The switch from "sorry to keep you waiting" to "thank you for waiting" is subtle but implies a rejection of any degree of ownership as to why I'm waiting. It sounds like something a management consultant has dreamed up to justify some hugely overinflated fee.

"Sorry to keep you waiting" says "we haven't enough people on the tills and we're sorry about that" whereas "thank you for waiting" says "we're doing our best but it really is your own fault for choosing this till. You saw those women. Did it look like they were going to be two minutes buying a shirt? No. You're stuck."

"Thank you for waiting" is yet another nail in the coffin of service and a refusal to accept responsibility for poor service.

Labels: Complaint, service, Shopping

I went to Sainsbury’s last night for a few bits and bobs. Not a great deal but slightly more than a basketful so I took a trolley.

The store was nearly deserted and there were only two cashiers open. When I went to pay for my shopping I saw one was quite busy so I went to the other one only to be told by the cashier that it was for baskets only.

That’s fine. I understand the need to have basket only tills but what I didn’t like was the way she told me. She had a look on her face that was both derisory and insulted, the look I would have expected had I wandered around the shop completely naked because I was obviously too stupid to dress myself.

What I realised while I queued at the other checkout was that I couldn’t see that the checkout was for baskets. The “baskets only” sign was obscured by some rather large and garish signs hanging from the ceiling advertising the stores latest bargain promotion. I couldn’t possibly have known the checkout was for baskets only unless I was approaching it from the right angle, which I wasn’t, or I had remembered that that till had always been for baskets only. I shop at about eight different supermarkets. I am not in the habit of memorising the checkout configurations of each one.

I should have complained about this but didn’t. There weren’t any obvious managers around and I doubt if the sulky girl on the till would have given a toss anyway.

Labels: Complaint, Rudeness, Sainsbury's

At the end of April I made a complaint to ING Direct about not being able to close an account. I wrote a letter of complaint that sounds frothing-at-the-mouth mad as I read it now but it got the facts across. I perhaps shouldn’t have used so many capitals but I was excessively angry.

Basically what happened was that I had an account that had a notice period but when I rang to give notice to close the account I was told to call back the next day. I did and I was told that it was all sorted out. A month later the money was still in the account and when I called to ask why I ended up speaking to some patronising woman who told me I should have given notice and that I would have to wait six months for the next exit window before I could get my money out.

So I wrote my letter. I didn’t expect anything to happen. I just wanted to vent my anger. However, every so often I would get a letter back from ING to say that they were looking into my complaint. I thought nothing of that. Form letter, I thought.

Then on Friday, I got another letter from them to say that they thought my complaint was quite just and were closing the account now (two months before the next exit window) and giving me my money and £30.

I just checked the account online and they have done as they said. The money is out of the impossible to touch account and in my regular savings account.

I did say in my complaint that I was going to close the savings account as I was so unhappy with their service but now I’m not so sure.

Labels: Complaint, Good, ING direct

On the train last night (not one of my usuals as I’d stayed in town to have dinner with an old Uni friend) a man was a bit bothered by the sound of someone’s iPod.

He was so bothered he got up and asked someone to turn it down.

The problem was that there were two men in the same part of the carriage who were listening to music. One was a rough-looking guy in his early twenties and the other was a business-type chappy in a suit and tie.

The complainer asked the younger man to turn his stereo down but on the way back to his seat realised he’d made the mistake of judging someone by their appearance as it was the suited bloke who was listening to loud music (on the awful rubbish headphones provided by Apple).

He motioned an apology at the younger guy who seemed very puzzled by the whole incident and then asked the other man to turn his music down. If he did it wasn’t by very much but by that time it would have been impossible for the complainer to ask again.

By the way, the older bloke in the suit was listening to complete garbage.

Labels: Complaint, Music, Stereotype

I’ve had an account with ING Direct for many years. In better times they paid a decent amount of interest and were easy to work with.

A few years ago I took advantage of one of their new accounts and opened something called a Guaranteed Investment Account which promised to pay interest proportional to any rises in the FTSE index.  Unfortunately, since I opened the account the stock market has done nothing but fall and my £500 has sat in the account doing absolutely nothing.

So I thought I would be better off closing the account and taking my money elsewhere. That’s when the problems started.

It appears that these accounts have two “exit windows” a year when you can close the account: Mar 31st and September 30th. Miss the window and you have to wait for the next one.

The procedure is that you need to call BEFORE the exit window to give notice that you want to close the account and then call again on the day to actually do it.

However, the staff taking the calls don’t know this and tell you to call on the day of the exit window only. If you do that, the person taking your call will attempt to close the account but it won’t work.

I was only told this a month after I asked for the account to be closed when I noticed that I still had money in the account. I was told by an extremely snooty and patronising woman who became very annoyed when I suggested that her staff had lied.

Anyway, here’s the letter of complaint that I have sent them. I’m posting it here in case anyone else is struggling to find a way to close their ING GIA account. You can see the procedure as it was related to me and you can have the complaints address.

Hopefully the letter isn’t too ranty but I was very annoyed about this:

Wednesday, 29 April 2009

Savings and mortgages

ING Direct

FREEPOST NATW1784

Reading

Berkshire

RG6 1BR

Dear Sir/Madam,

Re: Guaranteed Investment Account ######## / Customer number #########

I have a complaint regarding my Guaranteed Investment Account and the attempts I have made to close it.

Some months ago I decided that I wanted to close the account and remove the money. To that end, I called your customer services department and asked to close the account. I was told that I could only close the account on one of two exit windows per year and that the next one would be on March 31st.

I asked if I needed to give any sort of formal notice and I was told that I did not and that I had to call on the exit window to have the account closed. Actually, your operator changed her mind just before the end of the call and told me to call on March 30th but she did not explain why.

I made a note to call on March 30th to close the account. When I called on that date I was told that I would have to call again the following day on the date of the window. I did this and was told that the account would be closed and the £500 I have in the account would be made available to me.

I checked my account this morning, nearly a month later, and found that the account had not been closed.

I called customer services again. After a very lengthy series of button presses I eventually spoke to someone who noted that I had asked for the account to be closed and passed me on to someone else. He was the wrong person. He tried to put me through to someone who could help and, after a very long wait, I was eventually put through to a very patronising and unhelpful woman who informed me that I should have given notice before the exit window that I wish to close the account. She apologised that I had been misinformed but would offer me no further assistance.

This is disgraceful! You, and therefore your staff, have a moral obligation to give your customers information that is accurate and timely. To apologise and say that the information was incorrect is unacceptable. To to refuse to let me close the account now despite having done everything I had been told to do by YOUR staff is arrogant in the extreme.

I wanted to retrieve this money several months ago and now I cannot get at it until September at the earliest. Let me be clear now: I WANT TO BE ABLE TO CLOSE BOTH MY ACCOUNTS WITH YOU AS SOON AS I POSSIBLY CAN. If I need to give notice for whatever arbitrary exit window you have chosen then consider this letter as sufficient notice. I would prefer to have the money sooner than that. I consider it YOUR fault that I was not given the correct information about closing the account. I would have hoped that you would be more accommodating about this and let me close the account NOW. Please inform me if this is possible.

Assuming that this will not happen, I have made a note to call at the beginning of September to give notice again. If necessary I shall call every day in September to make sure that your people KNOW that I want to close the account.

Labels: Complaint, Exit window, Guaranteed Investment Account, ING direct