Dear Editor, I have read issue 205 of Consumer News with interest and thought I would offer a small contribution for the next issue. I received a message from Egg (the Internet Bank - Ed) in relation to a complaint about a rogue entry for over £500 on my credit card account (since cancelled out). Egg are normally very keen on Internet working but not when there is a dispute! Despite me spelling out in a secure e-mail that I had no knowledge of the firm (a cleaning services firm in Dorset) which had raised the charge against me, they wanted me to use their standard form to give the same information and even refused to e-mail me a copy of the form which they posted to me! Clearly they wanted to slow down the process but I was lucky - I had logged on to my credit card account and spotted the rogue entry the same day it first appeared (at the start of the account period) and it was eliminated before the end of that account period, so I was never actually overcharged.
Dear Mr. Wilson,
I was delighted to pick up a leaflet about the Turbostar upgrade on May 10th. Even better, I boarded a train with such an upgraded carriage which I inspected eagerly. To be sadly disappointed - again! When the Turbostars, were first introduced I wrote commenting that the seats were very comfortable. Even now people seem surprised that I prefer to travel Turbostar rather than HST unless speed is essential. But the problem that I identified then has still not been rectified, despite the letter from the Customer Relations Officer promising that it would be. The seat markers on the wall of the compartment are still the silly, tiny, virtually invisible, double arrows with digits too small to read, in blue on silver or silver on blue. I usually book my seat. I would like to be able to find it. I cannot be alone in the world in requiring better colour contrast than that described, and we need numerals of a size that can be read from the centre aisle. I reiterate the question from my earlier letter - who was responsible for accepting so ludicrous a design to identify seats? Look at Central carriages. In this respect, at least, they are far superior. Another point of concern to me - can you promise that the all-seat service will continue? The trolleys have been sadly lacking far too often in recent months and I cannot walk the length of even a Turbostar carrying fluids.
Remarkably Patricia received a reply within seven days. It did not address the problems she identified directly but what it did do was to promise to pass her concerns about identifying seats to the designers of the next generation of Turbostars which will come into service in two or three years time. It's a long time to wait and they didn't do anything about it the first time she raised the matter, though there was an opportunity, so what are the chances that there will be an improvement? - Ed.
As a member of the Central Herts Group and a former bus operator, I was surprised and somewhat disappointed to read on page 2 of Consumer News for August/ September the comment "Because these bargains were limited in number it would be more satisfactory to the majority of travellers to do away with them and make small reductions on other fares".
This kind of uninformed comment might be expected in a tabloid newspaper, but surely one can expect consumer activists to have a better appreciation of marketing economics? Clearly the purpose of off peak and other specially-reduced fares is to attract passengers who would not otherwise travel, and who can be accommodated with little or no extra cost, since the cost of the track, the trains (or buses) and the staff has already been met. This improves the overall economics of the operation. The result of the proposed removal of such "bargain fares" would be quite the opposite of that which is desired. It would bring about, not "small reductions" but "small increases" on other fares. Please correct this misapprehension in the next issue. We consumer activists must be well-informed and get our facts right if we are to achieve our goals.
With reference to the first column/last paragraph of Editor's Endwords in the August/September Issue of Consumer News am I right in assuming that the "difficult question" was in fact a rhetorical one? Otherwise, I feel that there is a simple answer. The shirt, having just been freshly ironed, would have remained warm thereafter, and that warmth would be what attracted the cat to lie on it, rather than on any other part of the bed! You no doubt recall how cats love to lie on the bonnets of cars which have been recently parked while the engine retains some warmth.
In February I purchased a Packard Bell Computer from PC World. In August the modem refused to work and I took it back where an engineer declared it the modem "dead". I was requested to phone the helpline as PC World does not deal with these things. This I did, and waited and waited over a period of days for a connection to the helpline, being repeatedly told I was important to them. After huge frustration, one day I got an answer, and was passed to a very efficient lady who helped me for over half an hour, but we were suddenly disconnected before we found the answer. I had to phone the helpline again. It took 22 minutes to get through. When I asked to be connected to my helper I was told no women work there!! I then replaced the phone and took myself to PC World, but was told that they still could not help me as the helpline was the only way forward. At this I wrote to the Trading Standards Officer with a copy to the Head Office of PC World. Fifteen days later I received a letter from a customer relations officer at PC World, telling me how valuable I was to them and, strangely enough, "we recognise that customers are the most important factors in our business"!! The letter requested that I phone the helpline so that they could assist me. I sent a fax and await an outcome. Be warned - dealing with these big companies can damage your health. June Small - Individual Member.
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