A Hacker's Lament

Kwik-Fit

2008-03-24T11:55:00.002Z

Kwik-Fit (GB) Limited
216 East Main Street
Broxburn
West Lothian
EH52 5AS

Dear Sir,

I took my car (**** ***) to your Stockport (154-179 Heaton Lane) branch on 9th August for an MOT test. The failure certificate (************) stated a number of faults. As your garage was not able to rectify them all, I took my car to Electro Mechanical Services (EMS) for repairs. After completing the repairs, EMS completed a full MOT test, which failed on a number of accounts, including brake hoses which were so deteriorated as to be on the brink of failure. The faulty parts are in my possession, should you wish to dispute the extent of the deterioration.

The break hoses are a mandatory part of the MOT test; it is difficult to understand how your mechanic missed such a failure. This could have led to a severe accident, had the test not been repeated by EMS. I therefore wrote to your Stockport branch on 19 August requesting a refund of the botched test, and some compensation for the considerable inconvenience thereby caused.

The Stockport branch manager phoned me to deny any obligation or professional responsibility, and advised that my only recourse was to contact VOSA. I therefore took the issue up with VOSA. They attempted to investigate, initially desiring to interview the mechanic who performed the test. This was complicated by the fact that the mechanic was no longer employed at that particular location. After a considerable length of time, during which nothing of substance was achieved, VOSA advised me to complain to the Trading Standards Officer.

I wrote to the Stockport Trading Standards Service on 6 January. It seems that this issue should have been dealt with by my local office, and as a consequence there was some delay in obtaining a response. Trading Standards have now advised me to write to Kwik-Fit's head office before proceeding to court.

Hence, I am now writing to you. Your Stockport branch were clearly negligent and unprofessional in carrying out the service for which I paid them. I am certainly owed a full refund for the test that was not carried out to any acceptable standard. It would also be reasonable to provide some form of compensation for the extended period of time during which I was without a usable vehicle, and the significant danger to both myself and other road users had I simply gone along with their repairs and retest.

I look forward to a prompt resolution.

Yours Sincerely,

Kwik-Fit's response was indeed quick. I was phoned by the Operations Manager (Andy Bennett), who helpfully informed me that

1) Kwik-Fit do not deal with customer complaints. Go cry to VOSA.
2) They will not put their position in writing. So what if I've sent in two letters of complaint, that doesn't mean they have to document their shoddy service and screw-the-customer policy.

BT (British Telecom)

2007-10-13T23:00:00.000+01:00

BT Correspondence Centre
Durham
DH98 1BT

Dear Sir or Madam,

I moved into the above address (I sent this on headed notepaper) on 1st July. As there is already a BT line installed, but not activated, I attempted to contact BT with regards to activation. Thus began a sorry week of spending all my free time in phone boxes, calling BT customer disservice. Most calls involved listening to music which I did not fancy until I ran out of time, occasionally speaking to an agent who would offer to put me through to the relevant department, only to resume the onslaught of unending hold music. On one occasion, even your busker gave up, and my call was abruptly disconnected. On another occasion, the agent asked what is was that I wanted, and when I requested line activation, he hung up. Perhaps he wished to spare me the futile agony of BT's hold service.

On 5th July, your system was considerate enough to offer a call back. The agent who called took my details, requested permission for a credit check, and promised a call back within five working days from the relevant department. I have not heard from you since, despite the agreed period having elapsed three days ago. I cannot say that I am surprised.

On 15th July, I resumed my regular pilgrimage to the phone box. Following a mostly irrelevant dialogue in some vaguely incomprehensible blend of English, and a language native to the Indian subcontinent, he routed my call through to the relevant department. After a few minutes on hold, your busker tired of tormenting me and dropped the line.

I immediately called back and asked for the complaints department. Your operator routed me through to the faults department; perhaps BT's policy is that anyone complaining about their service must be faulty. The fault operator, like his colleague earlier, was not familiar with the English language (what does the B in BT stand for?), and I had immense difficulties explaining to him that I do not have a phone line to report as faulty. Having surmounted the formidable language barrier, he explained to me that BT's complaints department cannot be contacted by telephone (perhaps they couldn't get a line installed), and that I must write to your correspondence address. Thus, I obediently made a written complaint to this address.

Not having received any acknowledgement of my complaint (or a phone line), I again trespassed upon the inner sanctum of a phone box on 31st July. I explained my predicament to the operator; after several minutes on hold, he put me through to the broadband department. After several further minutes on hold, the broadband department put me through to the foreign languages department; not sharing a common dialect, and communicating through a medium which does not support gesticulation, he was able to convey nothing more informative than that I was through to the wrong department. After several more minutes on hold, the music stopped with the out-of hours department, who told me to call back during normal business hours (which it was when the game started). He also told me that there is no direct number for the in-hours department; pass-the-customer-parcel is BT's favourite game, and I have no right to deprive them of their only joy in life. It may be noted that callers are greeted with a recorded message advising them to call between 8pm and 10pm, when lines are less busy.

On 1st August, I dutifully called back during business hours. Again, after requesting that the line in my new address be activated, I was inexplicably routed to the broadband department. The agent who (eventually) answered the call offered to put me through to the sales department; after a minute's subsequent silence, I got the wrong number tone.

I immediately called back, went through the same automated menu choices as before, and amazingly, was answered by the sales department. Your agent took the same details as the agent who called me on 5th July, and made the same promise about a call back within five working days.

Despite changes in Government regulation, BT still has a monopoly over the provision of new domestic telephone lines, except in a small minority of areas served by cable. Knowing this, you tie new customers into a full year's contract. In common with other abusive monopolies, you also treat (prospective) customers like dirt, knowing that despite your appalling service, they have no one else to go. What do you further require before condescending to grant me a phone line, which I cannot obtain elsewhere? A sacrifice of lambs? My blood on the cross?
I look forward to a prompt resolution.

Yours Sincerely,

Bury Council Tax

2007-05-17T11:29:00.000+01:00

Email sent to council, 18th February

I received my first council tax bill, for £502.63 (apparently covering several months), approximately one month ago. I sent off the enclosed forms, pointing out that

a) I was, until very recently, unemployed
b) I am the only tax-payer living in this property, as I share it with a student.

I have now received two responses; a form for submitting a council tax student certificate, along with a reminder notice for the full some of £502.63, threatening legal action.

As I have already explained, I was unemployed during much of the period covered by the bill, and I am sharing the house with a student; I cannot possibly afford, or be held liable for, this bill.

The reference number on the bill is ***, property reference ***.

Yours Sincerely,

Reply from council

Message [***] triggered rule [Encrypted ] at 17:42:50 18/02/2007

Sender: ***
Recipient(s): counciltax@bury.gov.uk
Subject: Council Tax

An email item you sent to counciltax@bury.gov.uk
has been temporarily blocked because it appears to contravene
the Council's rules for email use, as defined in the Authority's
ICT Security Policy.
The email will be released within 24 hours, subject to review.

9th March

The Magistrates' Court send me a summons for non-payment of £567.63 council tax, plus £65 costs.

Letter sent to council, 11th March

On 4th January this year, you sent me a council tax bill for £502.63. Although this is the first council tax bill which I have received, you allege that this covers the period of 15th October '06 through to 31st March '07.

Included with the bill were forms for various types of appeal. As I could anyway not afford this bomb-shell, having been until recently unemployed, I submitted the enclosed forms, detailing my period of unemployment, and that I am the only tax-payer resident at the billed address.

On 14th February, you sent a reminder for the full bill, threatening a loss of my right to pay by instalments (which I had never been offered). The reminder ended with a paragraph asking me to get in contact if “you do not owe the amount shown above”.

In response, I sent an email to your published contact address on 18th February. You sent a reply the same day, stating that my email would be reviewed within 24 hours.

Having made two attempts to contact you with regards to resolving this issue, both at your invitation, I was shocked to receive a summons to court last Friday. I have not at any time indicated any unwillingness to pay such taxes as I am liable to; I have merely attempted to clarify the correct amount of tax, and to discuss an affordable regime of payments. By ignoring all my communications, and perusing an unwarranted legal aggression, you are clearly guilty of malicious harassment. In particular, your charge for costs is utterly unjustifiable.

I look forward to a prompt resolution.

Yours Sincerely,

On 26th March I called the council to discuss the issue, and the agent who answered the phone informed me that as their computer systems were broken, they couldn't do anything.

On 27th March I called the council again. The person I spoke to gave his name as Mr. Crook, but that could just as well have been his character profile.

Mr. Crook insisted that the council did not ignore the letter which I had sent them, then told me that they had had it on file for two weeks, but had not done anything about it. Apparently, in the council's Revenues/Thefts/Humpty-Dumpty department, not responding to a letter does not constitute ignoring it. He also insisted that they would not ignore any email, although in the 17th May letter (below) they admitted to having done just that.

Mr. Crook's attitude throughout the conversation was the most negative and unhelpful that I have ever experienced, but he did arrange a repayment plan.

Reply received from council, 27th March

I refer to your letter dated 11th March 2007 regarding the summons that was issued to you on 7th March 2007.

You stated in your letter that you had made two attempts to contact the council tax office and had sent an email that the Council tax office responded to. I have searched my records and can not find a copy of this email, please forward a copy of this email in order that it may be investigated further.

You also stated that you live in the above address on your own, however, on 16th January 2007 I received a discount form which stated that two adults lived at the address, (I have enclosed a copy of the form) and that one of the adults was a student. A student discount form was sent, but as yet this has not been returned.

A bill was issued to you on 4 January 2007 for £502.63. As no payment was made a reminder was issued on 12th February 2007. Again as no payment was made, a summons was issued on 7th March 2007 for £567.63 which includes £65 costs. As such the documents have been issued correctly and payment should now be made in full. If payment can not be made in full, please contact the office on 0161 253 5095 to make a payment arrangement.

If you wish to discuss this matter, please contact me on 0161 253 7096.

Letter sent to council, 27th March

On 18 February, I sent an email to counciltax@bury.gov.uk, which I quote in full:

{copy of email}

Your email system sent a reply the same day, promising that it would be reviewed within 24 hours; I have enclosed a copy of this reply. The encryption referred to is my digital signature, a standard means of verifying the senders of email; the text itself was not encrypted in any way.

Three weeks after promising to “review” this email, you did indeed reply – with a summons to court, and a further bill for legal costs. Responding to an attempt at dialogue with aggressive legal action is clearly unjustified, and charging me for the cost of your unwarranted harassment is ludicrous.

I understand that the council's policy is to rebuff any attempts at communication and to reach straight for the legal guns. However, as a reasonable person, I would prefer to settle this out of court. Is there any ombudsman or independent tribunal who could arbitrate?

Yours Sincerely,

10th May

One and a half months having passed, I call the council to nag for a response.

Reply received from council 17th May

The summons that was issued to you on 7th March 2007 is correct and according to my records a payment arrangement has been made. As your discount has now been granted and your bill reduced, I have amended your arrangement and enclosed a new instalment letter.

With regards to your claim for Council Tax benefit, please contact our Housing and Council Tax Benefit office on 0161 253 5008. Please pay as billed until any amended bills are issued.

The email that you received from our ICT unit saying that your email would be reviewed within 24 hours meant that it would be reviewed before it could be sent to the Council Tax office, however, as it contravened the council's rules for email use, it was not sent to us. I am sorry for any inconvenience caused.

If you wish to discuss this matter, please contact me on 0161 253 7096.

18th May

I attempt to call the contact given in the Council's letter; she is away until Monday, but will call me back. In the meantime, my single person discount (on account of my student housemate) and council tax benefit (for my period of unemployment) are finally processed, and confirmation letters received.

21st May

I get a call back, who declares my original email to be irrelevant, thus discarding the High Court ruling that an email arriving at a published address must be considered as a properly served document, regardless of what the recipient's IT does with it.

However, she does agree to withdraw the summons, if I receive council tax benefit for my period of unemployment. She insists that there is no such benefit registered on my account. After I pointed out the specific bill on which this benefit appeared, she backtracked, and said that withdrawing the summons did not mean cancelling the charge for costs.

Complaint to Local Government Ombudsman, 21st May

I was sent a bill for £502.63 council tax while unemployed. I sent an email to the council's published email address, explaining the situation. The next communication I received from the council was a summons to court, including £65 costs. The council have since admitted to receiving my email, but discarding it, since it "contravened the council's rules for email use". They have not been able to explain which rule was contravened. They also cannot explain how an unemployed person with no income could possibly pay the sum which they were demanding. Nevertheless, during my last conversation with the council (Mrs C Stredder), she insisted that they are right, and that the only avenue of further recourse is to contact the ombudsman.

During the course of this conversation, she agreed to withdraw the summons, if I receive council tax benefit for my period of unemployment, while insisting that there is no such benefit registered on my account. After I pointed out the specific bill on which this benefit appeared, she backtracked, and said that withdrawing the summons did not mean cancelling the charge for costs.

The letters which I received from the council regarding this issue listed Mrs C Stredder as the appropriate contact. My account reference with the council is 43291028.

I have been subjected to unjustified legal belligerence, and spent dozens of hours fending off the council's revenue department, which is behaving like a band of robber barons from the Middle Ages. Additionally, they have charged me £65 for costs which the council have incurred while harassing me without cause.

Ombudsman replies, saying that he will resubmit my complaint to the Council's complaints procedures.

4 July

Receive a four page letter from the council, mostly rehashing everything which has happened to date. They state that "council tax legislation is written to imply that all charge-payers are equal and can afford to pay their liability". I.e., they are legally entitled to behave like robber-barons. Nevertheless, without prejudice, and on this occasion only, they will waiver the legal costs.

However, they still consider it acceptable that their e-mail server throws away anything with a digital signature.

One Stop Phone Shop

2007-01-18T21:23:00.000Z

Sent: 12 Sep 2006
To: Customer Support <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

I have received two cheques with regards to my August cash back claim (month 12), which was £68.50 for phone <Sony Ericsson#>, and £65 for phone <Nokia#>. However, both received cheques were for £65. Please forward the remaining balance of £3.50.

This regards Transaction <transaction#>, Customer <customer#>.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 12 Sep 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Thank you for your email to OneStopPhoneShop.

We aim to fully respond to all emails within 5 working days and will be in contact with you soon, although at present we are experiencing an unprecedented volume of queries and as a result this may take longer.

If you feel that your query is of a more urgent nature, our Customer Service Team are available on 0871 423 0404 to take your call.

< misc details ... Please note that it is almost impossible to get through on their customer "service" number >

Sent: 20 Oct 2006
To: support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk

I have received two cheques with regards to my August cash back claim (month 12), which was £68.50 for phone <Sony Ericsson#>, and £65 for phone <Nokia#>. However, both received cheques were for £65. Please forward the remaining balance of £3.50.

This regards Transaction <transaction#>, Customer <customer#>.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 21 Oct 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Thank you for your email to OneStopPhoneShop.

We aim to fully respond to all emails within 5 working days and will be in contact with you soon, although at present we are experiencing an unprecedented volume of queries and as a result this may take longer.

If you feel that your query is of a more urgent nature, our Customer Service Team are available on 0871 423 0404 to take your call.

< etc. >

Sent: 19 Nov 2006
To: support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk

I sent a query regarding my final cashback claim on 12 September. The reply was in the form of an automatic response saying "We aim to fully respond to all emails within 5 working days and will be in contact with you soon", but no such response was made. I sent a follow-up email on 20 October, which triggered the same automatic response, and I have not heard anything from you since.

Please cease ignoring this issue, and send a cheque for the £3.50 which you still owe me, otherwise I shall have to take further action.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 23 Nov 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Dear

Thank you for your recent email.

I have looked into your account and can confirm that I have chase up this matter for you.
I have requested for this cheque to be sent out. Please allow 28 days to receive this.
I do apologise for this delay and any inconvenience this has caused.

We hope that you have found this information useful, however if we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Service Team on 0871 423 0404 or contact customer support on support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk and we will be happy to help you

Kind regards

Sent: 10 Dec 2006
To: support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk

I purchased a Motorola L6 from you (O2) on 24 July. There was supposed to be an Auto Chequeback of £51 "credited within 90 days", but I have yet to see it. This is for Transaction 93305527, phone no. <Sony Ericsson#>, customer no. 44779469. Please could you tell me why this has still not arrived?

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 10 Dec 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Thank you for your email to OneStopPhoneShop.

We aim to fully respond to all emails within 5 working days and will be in contact with you soon, although at present we are experiencing an unprecedented volume of queries and as a result this may take longer.

If you feel that your query is of a more urgent nature, our Customer Service Team are available on 0871 423 0404 to take your call.

< etc. >

Date: 12 Dec 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Dear

Thank you for your recent e-mail.

I would like to start by apologising that you have not as yet received the auto cash back cheque you are due to receive within 90 days of
connection.

I have today forwarded your details to our direct credit team who will arrange for our headoffice to raise your cheque.

I apologise for the delay in receiving your cheque, this is due to a system error were some of our customers didn't receive there automated cheque. This has now being rectified and we are ensuring all customers will receive their direct credit as quickly as possible.

If you have any further queries please contact customer support on support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk and we will be happy to help you.

Kind regards

Sent: 14 Jan 2007
To: Customer Support <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

I wrote to you on several occasions between 12 September and 19 November, regarding a £3.50 shortfall in cashback for phone <Sony Ericsson#>. You finally replied on 23 November, promising that a cheque has been sent out, and that I will receive it within 28 days. This has still not arrived.

On 24 July, not yet being aware of the depths of your dishonesty, I purchased a new phone <Motorola#>. The chequeback of £51 never arrived, and I wrote to you about this on 10 December. You replied on 12 December, promising that a "system error" "has now being rectified", but I have still not received this chequeback.

If these issues are not rectified promptly and satisfactorily, I shall be forced to take the matter further with OFTEL and/or the courts.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 14 Jan 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Thank you for your email to OneStopPhoneShop.

We aim to fully respond to all emails within 5 working days and will be in contact with you soon, although at present we are experiencing an unprecedented volume of queries and as a result this may take longer.

If you feel that your query is of a more urgent nature, our Customer Service Team are available on 0871 423 0404 to take your call.

< etc. >

Date: 18 Jan 2007
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Dear

Thank you for your recent email.

I have looked into your account and can confirm that your cash back amounts for the number <Motorola#> are :

Motorola L6 on O2 125 with £3300 Cashback
Change Date : 2006-07-21
Total Amount : 300
Description : 300 cashback
Direct Credit : 51
Network Contribution : £30
Month 4 Amount : £383
Month 8 Amount : £383
Month 12 Amount : £383

I can confirm that your auto cheque £51 has been raised today, and the only cheque that you have claimed for is £83 on 11th December which has been sent out to you.

I hope that this has answered your query for you.

We hope that you have found this information useful, however if we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Service Team on 0871 423 0404 or contact customer support on support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk and we will be happy to help you

Kind regards

Sent: 20 Jan 2007
To: Customer Support <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Thank you for raising my auto cheque of £51; I hope that this time, it actually arrives.

As regards to my claim for £3.50, this relates to a cashback claim last August. This was for £68.50 and £65, but two £65 checks were sent. You actually promised to send this an email on 23 November, but it never arrived.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 20 Jan 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Thank you for your email to OneStopPhoneShop.

We aim to fully respond to all emails within 5 working days and will be in contact with you soon, although at present we are experiencing an unprecedented volume of queries and as a result this may take longer.

If you feel that your query is of a more urgent nature, our Customer Service Team are available on 0871 423 0404 to take your call.

< etc. >

Date: 25 Jan 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Thank you for your recent e-mail.

The information you have provided us with is unfortunately not enough for us to identify your account. Please can you send us one or more of the following:

Your One Stop Phone Shop account or transaction number.
Your order i.d. number.
Your full name, address and post code.

Once we receive this additional information we can look in to solving your query.

We hope that you have found this information useful, however if we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Service Team on 0871 423 0404 or contact customer support on support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk and we will be happy to help you.

Kind regards,

Sent: 27 Jan 2007
To: Customer Support <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

My email referred to customer <customer#> transaction <transaction#>. My address is ----------.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 27 Jan 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Thank you for your email to OneStopPhoneShop.

We aim to fully respond to all emails within 5 working days and will be in contact with you soon, although at present we are experiencing an unprecedented volume of queries and as a result this may take longer.

If you feel that your query is of a more urgent nature, our Customer Service Team are available on 0871 423 0404 to take your call.

< etc. >

1 Feb 2007

Received a cheque for £51.

Progress ...

Sent: 11 Feb 2007
To: Customer Support <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Regarding: Transaction <transaction#>, Customer <customer#>.
Address: ----------.

On 29 July '05, I purchased two phones from you; a Sony Ericsson (<Sony Ericsson#>), and a Nokia 6630 (<Nokia#>). Both of these phones came with a series of cashback offers; month 12 (August '06) was £68.50 for the Sony phone, and £65 for the Nokia. However, you sent two cheques of £65 each, a shortfall of £3.50.

On 12 September '06, I wrote to you about this shortfall in cashback. You ignored this email, so I wrote again on 20 October, and again on 19 November. On 23 November, you finally replied, promising a cheque within 28 days.

This did not arrive, so I wrote again on 14 January. Your reply on 18 January completely ignored the problem which I had written about, so I responded with further clarification (i.e. repeating what I had already told you) on 20 January.

On 25 January, you asked for a repeat of identifying information which I had already given you, even though all my emails are digitally signed. I sent you this on 27 January, and have not heard from you since.

Please stop evading this issue, and start acting like a mature, responsible company.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 11 Feb 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Thank you for your email to OneStopPhoneShop.

We aim to fully respond to all emails within 5 working days and will be in contact with you soon, although at present we are experiencing an unprecedented volume of queries and as a result this may take longer.

If you feel that your query is of a more urgent nature, our Customer Service Team are available on 0871 423 0404 to take your call.

< etc. >

Date: 13 Feb 2006
From: "Customer Support" <support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk>

Thank you for your recent email.

Firstly, please accept our apologies for the level of service you feel you have received.

I can confirm a cheque of £3.50 has been raised for the shortfall in your final cash back. This is for number <Sony Ericsson#> and can be expected within approximately 14 working days. However, the number of was in fact correct at a value of £65 according to the deal you took the phone out on.

I hope this rectifies any issues you may have had. If you any further queries do not hesitate to contact us by email at support@onestopphoneshop.co.uk or by contacting our customer services team on 0871 423 0404.

Kind regards

Date: 23 Feb 2007

Success! A cheque for £3.50 arrived.

eBay

2007-01-16T23:03:00.000Z

As usual, I've scrubbed personally identifying information. Some of my "emails" were actually sent through the eBay message console, hence the terseness. I've omitted the automated (and useless) replies received from eBay before I finally got through to a human.

Sent: 1 Nov 2006
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Item numbers:
YYY
XXX

I opened disputes on the initial sale of these items (to recover the Final Value fee) after having to sell them by second chance. The dispute console remained in a state of waiting for the buyer to respond, until the disputes were abruptly closed by eBay because 60 days had passed. I reported the failure of these sales long before this deadline had passed; why is it now saying that "The reporting period has elapsed"?

Date: 02 Nov 2006
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for writing to eBay. I'm Andrew and I appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

I understand that you feel that as the item number YYY and XXX was not paid for the Final Value Fee should be credited.

Please understand that as soon as an item is sold eBay charges Final Value Fee, however, if the buyer does not pay for the item then the seller can always file and Unpaid Item Dispute in order to receive Final Value Fee credit. By filing an Unpaid Item Dispute sellers receives Final Value Fee credit and buyer receives a Unpaid Item Dispute strike. However, this should be done within 45 days after the listing ends and closed and the dispute must be closed.

As you are new to eBay and did not know this process, I have forwarded a credit request of £1.60 and £1.36 as a goodwill gesture. You account will soon be credited with this fee.

For more information on Unpaid Item Disputes, please visit the following page:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/tp/unpaid-item-process.html

I trust that this information has been useful to you. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Kind regards,

Sent: 18 Nov 2006
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

When will these credits appear in my account? I have not been able do identify them.

Date: 19 Nov 2006
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for writing to eBay. My name is Kevin and I understand that you would like to know when the credit will be posted to your account.

I have reviewed your account and can confirm that the Final Value Fee charged for item number YYY has been credited to your account on 16th November. You can confirm this from your account status page. The credit for item number XXX will be posted to your account as soon as possible.

We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter.

Kind regards,

Sent: 10 Dec 2006
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Where can I find the FVF credit for XXX?

Date: 11 Dec 2006
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for writing to eBay. My name is Keith and I appreciate the opportunity to assist you with the item XXX.

I understand that you would like to know where you can check the Final Value Fee of item XXX.

You can check the FVF from the dispute console, I have provided the steps for the same. Also, you can check the Account Status Page to verify if the credit for the Final Value Fee has posted to your account.

To view your Unpaid Item disputes, please follow these steps:

1. Go to My eBay. You may need to sign in.
2. Click the "Dispute Console" link on the left side of the page.
3. Click the "Unpaid Items" link on the left side of the page.

A *blue* check mark next to the item indicates that it's eligible for credit. If you close a dispute that is not yet eligible for credit, you won't receive a credit. I verified and found out that the dispute was ended as the reporting time period had elapsed. I have included a link which will provide you with more information about the Unpaid Item Process.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/tp/unpaid-item-process.html

You can review any credits and fees from your account and invoices any time by viewing your account status in your My eBay. Please note that you may need to sign in again to view your invoices or account status page. Any credits will reflect with a negative balance.

To view your account status page or invoices please follow the steps below:

1. Click "My eBay" at the top of the eBay homepage.
2. Click "Seller Account" under "My Account".
3. Select "View invoice" or "View account status" under "My Seller Account Summary".
4. Click "View account status".

The next page will display your account status. If you wish to view a previous invoice, select it from the drop down menu.

I trust that this information has been useful to you. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Kind regards,

Sent: 12 Dec 2006
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Please check the quoted message from eBay Customer Support (Keith Doyle); he says that "The credit for item number XXX will be posted to your account". You seem to say that this will not happen; please explain the justification for this retraction.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 13 Dec 2006
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for your email. I understand you wish to get the fee credit for the item XXX.

I can see that the credit for the item XXX has not been credited to your account so I have escalated the matter and this will get resolved soon.

I hope this information is helpful. I wish you success buying and selling on eBay in the future.

Kind regards,

Sent: 26 Dec 2006
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

It is now almost two months since the FVF refund for item XXX was promised. When will it arrive?

Date: 26 Dec 2006
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for your email about Final Value Fees you have been charged for your item XXX.

You have contacted us from email address <scrubbed>. I have checked your account and I noticed that you have not listed your item XXX from the above email address.

To allow us to help you, please contact us from the eBay user id from which you have listed your item XXX.

Once we have received this we will be more than happy to help you. Wish you a Merry Christmas and happy new year.

Kind regards,

Sent: 26 Dec 2006
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

I am sending this from My eBay, ID <scrubbed>, not my email. The item appears in my September invoice (item date 20 Aug).

Date: 27 Dec 2006
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for your email. I understand your concern credit for item number XXX.

I appreciate your effort for bringing this to my attention and I am happy to help.

I am sorry to hear that your item number XXX has been ended by eBay and one of my colleague have forwarded credit request for all the fees to our concerned department for considering a credit. I can certainly understand your frustration in this matter. However, I assure you that credit request is already under process. Please understand that there are certain procedures while issuing a credit, which have to be followed. Please be assured that your credit will be processed on priority basis.

I trust this information is helpful and wish you all the best for your future trading on eBay.

Kind regards,

Sent: 14 Jan 2007
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

It is now 2.5 months since I was promised a FVF refund for item XXX. Are the "certain procedures" you refer to "ignore our responsibilities until the customer gives up arguing"?

Date: 15 Jan 2007
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for writing to us. I appreciate the opportunity to assist you with your concern about the Final Value Fee credit of the item number XXX.

On reviewing your account and other details, I found that you have already filed an Unpaid Item Dispute for your item number 9109221856. I further noticed that this dispute has been closed for the following reason:

'The reporting period has elapsed'.

You have therefore, not been granted the Final Value Fee credit for this item. I am sorry to inform you that once an Unpaid Item Dispute is closed, it cannot be reopened. Also, you can file an Unpaid Item Dispute only once per item. In this case, I would be unable to grant you the Final Value Fee credit.

I trust this information is helpful and wish you all the best for your future trading on eBay.

Kind regards,

Sent: 17 Jan 2007
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

You have already promised this refund four times; on 2 November, 19 November, 13 December and 27 December. In order to help you escape from eBay's local reality distortion zone, I have documented our exchange of emails at
http://hackerslament.blogspot.com/2007/01/ebay.html

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 18 Jan 2007
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us back regarding the fee refund.

I realise your concern in this situation and I will investigate this further for you.

I have reviewed your account and can see that you have been granted the fee credit for the item on November 16th.

<Item Description> Final price: £31.00

(Auction)Ref # --- YYY Final Value Fee -£31.61

You can review your account and invoices any time by viewing your account status in your My eBay. Please note that you may need to sign in again to view your invoices or account status page.

To view your account status page or invoices please follow the steps below:

1. Click "My eBay" at the top of the eBay homepage.
2. Click "Seller Account" under "My Account".
3. Select "View invoice" or "View account status" under "My Seller Account Summary".
4. Click "View account status".

The next page will display your account status. If you wish to view a previous invoice, select it from the drop down menu.

You need to leave this negative balance on your account to be used towards future listing fees as fee cannot be refunded to any payment method when it is generated due to Eucation or Courtesy credit.

I hope this information answers your question. Thank you for using eBay.

Kind regards,

Sent: 20 Jan 2007
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Yes, the FVF for item YYY was credited on 16 November, thank you. I applied for a FVF credit for item XXX at the same time (in my 1 November email), and your response on 2 November was to promise a refund of both. However, only the refund for YYY was applied.

My last email to you specified that I was enquiring about the FVF fee for XXX. I am confused as to why you responded with historical information about YYY.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 21 Jan 2007
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to write back to us regarding Final Value fee credit for your unsold item. I am happy to assist you with this.

I understand you're anxious to get a Final Value Fee credit after the buyer backed out of this sale.

I've checked your account and you haven't received a Final Value Fee credit for this sale because your dispute closed automatically 60 days after the end of the listing.

To claim a credit for an Unpaid Item you must close the dispute less than 60 days after the end of the listing. If you don't close the dispute yourself it will close automatically without a credit.

We feel that 60 days is a fair amount of time for the buyer and seller to try to resolve the problem. It also allows for personal difficulties or computer problems that might temporarily prevent you from closing the Unpaid item Dispute.

We don't automatically credit Final Value Fees after 60 days because sellers generally only leave disputes open for this length of time if a Final Value Fee credit is no longer required (for example, if the buyer ended up purchasing the item).

Unfortunately we can't reopen a dispute or credit Final Value Fees once a dispute has automatically closed.

I'm sorry if this isn't the answer you were expecting. I hope you have more success buying and selling on eBay in the future.

Kind regards,

Sent: 21 Jan 2007
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

This is, in fact, the answer which I was expecting.

2 November: You promised to refund the FVF for item XXX.

19 November: You wrote that "The credit for item number XXX will be posted to your account as soon as possible."

11 December: You implied that I would not receive this credit, completely ignoring your previous promises.

13 December: You responded to my query with "I have escalated the matter and this will get resolved soon".

26 December: Your escalators seem to have broken, but when I asked for an update, you responded with "I assure you that
credit request is already under process. ... Please be assured that your credit will be processed on priority basis".

15 January: You reverted to denying that any of this had taken place.

18 January: You responded with information about item YYY, while saying nothing about the subject of my query,
item XXX.

21 January: You have again reverted to ignoring this entire sequence of events.

Please note that, in order to carry out business with the public, you must legally fulfil a number of requirements. Two of them are:

Deal honestly with your customers.

Execute your business competently and professionally.

You are in gross violation of both.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: 22 Jan 2007
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for your email. I understand your concern about the credit being not yet posted on your account.

I understand that you have waited for so long for the credits promised earlier to be posted to your account but which is not yet done. I sincerely apologize for the delay in receiving a credit and any inconvenience caused to you because of this.

I am happy to assert that your Final Value Fees credit request of £1.36 related to item number XXX is now again forwarded to the concerned department and the same will be posted to your account on priority.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Kind regards,

Sent: 28 Feb 2007
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

It is now over a month since you promised that my FVF "will be posted to your account on priority". How long do priority credits take?

Date: 2 Mar 2007
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us with your concern regarding the credit of the fees for the Item number XXX.

On reviewing your account, I can confirm that the credit request was forwarded by my colleague on the 22nd January 2007. Please be aware that, we have to follow certain policies and procedures when issuing a credit. As such, we cannot provide you with the exact date on which the fee will be credited. I'm afraid that these may not show on your account for a while and that an invoice may be issued to you in the meantime.
Please let me assure you again that we don't expect you to pay the fees for this listing.

Once the fees are credited, you can see the credit on your account status page in My eBay. Here's how:

1. Click "My eBay" at the top of the eBay homepage.
2. Click "Seller Account" under "My Account".
3. Select "View invoice" or "View account status" under "My Seller
Account Summary".
4. Click "View account status".

The next page will display your account status. If you wish to view a previous invoice, select it from the drop down menu.

Note that the fees for the listing aren't deleted from your seller account -- instead, your account status page and your invoice show both the fees and our subsequent credits for each item. All credits will be denoted by a negative (-) sign.

I hope that this information is helpful. Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Kind regards,

Sent: 15 April 2007
To: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

eBay United Kingdom Customer Support wrote:
> Thank you for contacting us with your concern regarding the credit of
> the fees for the Item number XXX.
>
> On reviewing your account, I can confirm that the credit request was
> forwarded by my colleague on the 22nd January 2007. Please be aware
> that, we have to follow certain policies and procedures when issuing a
> credit. As such, we cannot provide you with the exact date on which the
> fee will be credited. I'm afraid that these may not show on your account
> for a while and that an invoice may be issued to you in the meantime.
> Please let me assure you again that we don't expect you to pay the fees
> for this listing.

It is now over five months since the FVF refund was originally promised (2nd November). What "policies and procedures" are holding up this simple refund? Must a refund be signed off by every employee and registered user of eBay in turn? Have you outsourced your credit processing to civil servants? Or has a government bureaucracy trained your staff to their exacting standards of incompetence and procrastination?

Date: 15 Apr 2007
From: eBay United Kingdom Customer Support <ukcswebhelp@ebay.com>

Hello,

Thank you for writing back to us. I understand that the Final Value Fee charged on the item XXX have not yet been credited back to your account. I regret the inconvenience caused to you because of this. I will be glad to look into this matter and do my best to resolve your query to your satisfaction.

We apologise for the delay in crediting the fees. I have now credited the Final Value Fee charged on the above mentioned item. Below are the credit details that reflects on your account.

<Desciption of XXX>

At present your account is in a credit balance of £2.97. This means that eBay owes this amount to you. You can use this credit balance towards listing items on eBay. Till the time your account is in credit balance you are not liable to pay any fees to eBay.

To confirm the credit, I would suggest you to view the account status page. You can review your account and invoices any time by viewing your account status in your My eBay. Please note that you may need to sign in again to view your invoices or account status page.

To view your account status page or invoices please follow the steps below:

1. Click "My eBay" at the top of the eBay homepage.
2. Click "Seller Account" under "My Account".
3. Select "View invoice" or "View account status" under "My Seller
Account Summary".
4. Click "View account status".

The next page will display your account status. If you wish to view a previous invoice, select it from the drop down menu.

Unfortunately, attachments are automatically deleted by our email system for security reasons. Please copy and paste the content of your attachment into your message and contact us again with this information via our Help system.

Here's how to access our Help system:

1. Go to the eBay site.
2. Click "Help" at the top of the page.
3. Click "Contact Us" on the left hand side.

Choose the most appropriate category for your question. The next page will have links to relevant help pages and below that will be the link to email Customer Support.

Again apologies for any upset caused. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us.

Kind regards,

Conclusion: eBay behave if, and only if, you insult their staff.

(Note: the attachment referred to is my digital signature.)

America Online

2006-11-19T21:49:00.000Z

I seem to have a knack for entering into contracts with thieves. This time it's AOL.

15 August

Commenced a 1 month free trial of AOL unlimited dial-up.

12 September

Due to numerous "technical problems" with the AOL software (i.e. it sucks), I decided to cancel my account at the end of the trial. I phoned AOL's customer disservice line, and got through to a Far Easten by the name of Morris Sebastian. Mr. Sebastian suggested a live chat with technical support, and offered a second month of free trial. He then sent me an email:

hi

this is just to let you know that you will not be getting billed from 13 sep to 13 oct...............ok

You can save my screen name in your buddy list or save my e-mail address to be in touch with me in future.

Please, feel free to contact me through e-mail anytime if you have any future concern.

Looking forward to hear from you soon.........

Best wishes
AOL Member Services
Morris Sebastian

16 September

AOL steal £15.99 from my credit card, but I am not aware of this until I see it on my statement in a few weeks' time.

11 October

I finally cancel my account as technical support are still unable to resolve the issues with their software. (I.e. AOL Technical Support suck as badly as their software.)

15 October

AOL steal a further £15.99 from my credit card.

19 October

I discover both thefts on my credit card statement, and call AOL's customer disservice line. The Far Easten who answers refuses to consider the issue, deciding that there must be no problem, because she has decreed that there is no problem. I send an email to Morris Sebastian explaining the situation.

2 November

I phone customer disservices again, and get transferred to the cancellation department. This is in England (I'm a UK customer). The same thing happened when I cancelled my RAC membership - the Indian call centre transferred me to England as soon as I said the word cancel.

The person I speak to promises to refund these charges, and gave me a new cancellation number.

10 Novemnber

£31.98 is credited to my credit card.

17 November

The kleptomaniacs at AOL steal £15.99 from my credit card.

20 November

The cancellations department has moved to the Far East, but is unexpectedly courteous. Promises to refund the latest theft, and to steal no more.

I hope that resolving this doesn't take me as long as it did Jake, Vincent Ferrari, and Matt Lefkowitz (scroll down).

24 November

The latest theft is refunded.

Academic Programmers

2006-04-07T17:45:00.000+01:00

A few days ago, I completed a piece of CS coursework. The task was to write a PROLOG program to perform some simple iterative calculations. The hardest question was to explain how the task would have been more difficult in ML, and even more difficult in an imperative language. This was a difficult question to answer, because it was in fact easier in ML, and even easier in Pascal.

The current edition of Visual Systems Journal has an article on how to solve Sudoku puzzles in T-SQL.

This has led me to the conclusion that an academic programmer is someone who would consider the investigation of how to fry an egg with a screwdriver to be a worthy pursuit.

Hype and Trends

2006-02-28T10:31:00.000Z

There is a lot of hype in the software development market. ASP.NET, Python, Ruby on Rails, Spring, Hibernate, Tapestry - all these and more are having their day in the limelight. The brightest floodlight, funded by Microsoft, shines on ASP.NET. Thus, the most hyped technology is used by all managers worth their suits. But take away the commercial sponsorship, and what remains? Python, Ruby on Rails, Spring, Hibernate and Tapestry. These are all free of commercial interest. This is not hype, it is a trend. A trend to lightweight frameworks and more productive languages, where the programmer can say what they mean without burying the intent is a heap of compiler crutches. The hype, sponsored by corporate marketing departments, is for ball-and-chain languages and their heavyweight frameworks. Incidentally, victims of the hype tend to require armies of consultants and training, creating a lucrative industry where none is needed. The over-engineering of overly-restrictive languages and over-complex frameworks, and the groaning and straining of developers as they work under this crushing weight, is a dead loss. Nothing is gained, except by vendors, who make oodles of dosh from their consultants and trainers. So the developers rebel. Unencumbered by industry greed, they create their own languages and frameworks. This is the trend. Sun can't even keep Java programmers on their own official frameworks - they write their own lightweight diversions around the gridlocks of JEE.

There is another, older trend - programmers used to be excited by their jobs, but now they tend to view it as a necessary chore. Much like the workers in mass-production industries. The industry pundits, who can't breath while they eat because their lone brain cell is incapable of multi-tasking, consider this to be a sign that the software industry is maturing. Speak to someone working with Ruby, Python or even Lisp about their work. The excitement is back.

Fresh (Carphone Warehouse)

2005-10-05T23:11:00.000+01:00

Fresh is the name of the mobile phone network operated by Carphone Warehouse (UK), of which I used to be a customer. For your pleasure and entertainment, I present an ongoing email exchange I am "enjoying" with them. Personally identifying information has been scrubbed.

Sent: 14 Jul 05
To: onlinebilling@cpw.co.uk

Dear Sir or Madam,

My December bill was not collected from my bank account, despite a direct debit mandate being in force and funds being available. The January bill then contained a statement about the previous bill not having been paid. I wrote to you about this (11 January), and received a reply that this was a one-off mishap and future bills would be taken from my bank account. The next few bills were likewise not deducted from my direct debit, and my phone was disconnected. After spending a great deal of (peak) time on the phone to your customer service line, I was informed that your operators had incorrectly entered the details of my direct debit into your system, and that was why the bills had not been paid. After a few unpaid bills, the line was disconnected. Why you consider disconnecting customers' phones to be an appropriate response to your operators' incompetence, instead of rectifying it, was not adequately explained. This is particularly inept considering that I had written to inform you of a problem months earlier, and you replied that it had been fixed.

My June bill contained an charge for "Unused Calls", to the sum of £10.24 + VAT. I contacted your customer disservice line, and was informed that the calls which were not made (but for which I was being charged) related to a credit placed on my account when my wrongly disconnected line was reconnected, and which had now expired. No such credit had in fact been placed. A great deal of (peak) time was again required to explain the basics of accounting and simple arithmetic to your operator, who seemed to be overwhelmed by the complexity of suggesting that credit which was never paid cannot be later deducted. Having completed his training (at the expense of my time), he told me that that the Unused Calls would not be deducted from my account. As I have come to expect, nothing came of this, and the full amount of the incorrect bill was deducted by direct debit.

The sheer incompetence of your operations and atrocious service would disgrace a student start-up, and it is beyond belief that a publicly traded company behaves in such an abominable fashion.

Whilst I look for a service provider which does not charge for service not provided or punish customers for its operators' errors, I request that you:
(a) Immediately refund the sum wrongly deducted from my direct debit.
(b) Refund approximately two hours of peak time phone calls (much of it being forced to listen to music which I dislike).

Yours Sincerely,

Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005
From: carphonewarehouse@cpw.co.uk

Dear

Thank you for your email regarding the level of customer service you have received. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your e-mail.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the standard of service you have received with regard to the management of your account. This is certainly not indicative of the normally high standards we strive to provide.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank your for your constructive criticism as this information is imperative to find our short comings and when we have not provided the level of service we are proud to provide.
I would like to assure you that you are valued as a customer of the Carphone Warehouse and we as a company are aware of the competition on the Mobile Phone industry.
In regards to refunding the charges for calling our Customer Services please be advised that The Carphone Warehouse does provide its customers with a number of ways in which to contact us, if you do not wish to pay for calling our Customer services Team.

Kindly note, you can contact our Customer Services Team by email at fresh@cpw.co.uk, you are also welcome to take your quire to any Carphone Warehouse store where a sales assistant will be happy to try resolve the issue in person. As we do provide all these services to contact us regrettably we will not be able to refund you the charges for calling our Customer Service Team, please accept my apologies.

Kindly note, whilst we appreciate that we was at fault for entering your details wrong on the system you were still able to make payments towards your account at any Carphone Warehouse store or by contacting our Customer Services Team with your credit card or debit card details.

Please be advised that as explained in your terms and conditions you are responsible for all charges on your account up to the point of disconnection.
As a gesture of goodwill I have requested that a £5 credit be raised on your account for the level of service you received in this instances, and because the issue has taken 7 months to be brought to our attention.

Please allow up to 14 working days for the credit to be raised on your account.
I hope the information I have provided has been of use to you and once again please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your e-mail and any inconvenience it may of caused.

If you need any more help, please reply back to fresh@cpw.co.uk or call our Customer Service team on 0870 111 5000.

Regards
Lincoln Polson
Correspondence Department

Sent: 09 Sep 05
To: carphonewarehouse@cpw.co.uk

I have still not received a refund for the £12 wrongly deducted from my account. I have now received my final Fresh bill for £2.70. Please send me a cheque for the balance of £9.30 within 14 days, or explain why you are not doing so, otherwise I will be forced to pursue other avenues to recover this sum.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005
From: carphonewarehouse@cpw.co.uk

Dear

Thank you for your email regarding your refund. Please accept my apologies for the delay in the response to you.

I am pleased to inform you that your account was credited £5.00 as a gesture of goodwill on the 29th July 2005. We do not have any records of refunding or offering a £12.00 refund or the reason for doing so.

Please reply to this email outlining when and why the credit was due and I will investigate this for you.

For the latest information on products and services please visit www.carphonewarehouse.com.

If you need any more help, please reply back to fresh@cpw.co.uk or call our Customer Service team on 0870 111 5000.

Regards
Intikhab Shah
Correspondence Department

Sent: 13 Sep 05
To: carphonewarehouse@cpw.co.uk

In the email I sent you on 14 July, which you have included in your reply, I clearly stated the details concerning your theft of £12 from my bank account.

Seeing as we have reached a deadlock, I will take up the issue with Ofcom.

Yours Sincerely,

Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005
From: carphonewarehouse@cpw.co.uk

Dear

Thank you for your email regarding your refund of £12. Please accept my apologies for the delay in my response.

I can confirm that the £12 that has been deducted from your account is for expired credit. Kindly note, that on the 31st March £20 credit was applied to your account. On the 6th May £5.18 worth of call charges were deducted from the £20 credit. However please be advised that credit expires after 60 days if not used. The remaining £12.03 was then deducted from your account on the 6th June.
Please note, that this is stated in the terms and conditions of your Fresh welcome pack. Regrettably I am unable to refund the credit of £12.03 on this occasion.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your valued custom since joining with us. If the Carphone Warehouse can be of any service in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us or visit our website www.carphonewarehouse.com.

Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience that has been caused.

If you need any more help, please reply back to fresh@cpw.co.uk or call our Customer Service team on 0870 111 5000.

Regards
Samantha Greaves
Correspondence Department

Sent: 15 Sep 05
To: fresh@cpw.co.uk

Please send me the bill in which a £20 credit appears, as it has not been credited to any invoice which Fresh have billed me for.

Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2005
From: fresh@cpw.co.uk

Dear

Thank you for your email regarding your Fresh account. Please accept my apologies for the delay in my response.

Kindly find below a breakdown of your account transaction history. This details all credits and debits on your account.

DATE   DESCRIPTION         MTH/CHG    CALLS   OTHERS    DEBIT   CREDIT  BALANCE
310305 ICBINSTALL FORDD                                 -20.00                -20.00   -20.00
060405 INVOICE 5036127840
060505 INVOICE 5037812713                 5.18                       5.18                 5.18
060605 MTjUnused Calls                         12.03                     12.03               12.03
060605 INVOICE 5039603921                  2.78                       2.78                14.81
200605 PTDDIRECT DEBIT                                                  -14.81              -14.81
060705 INVOICE 5041604340                  5.83                        5.83                5.83

I can confirm that you currently have an outstanding balance of £2.70. Please be advised that this payment will be deducted on the 19th September.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your valued custom since joining with us. If the Carphone Warehouse can be of any service in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us or visit our website www.carphonewarehouse.com.

If you need any more help, please reply back to fresh@cpw.co.uk or call our Customer Service team on 0870 111 5000.

Regards
Samantha Greaves
Correspondence Department

Sent: 17 Sep 05
To: fresh@cpw.co.uk

As far as I can make out from the email which you kindly sent me (although the unintelligible formatting precludes any certain conclusions), my account should have been reconnected with £20 credit on 31 March, and all calls made up to 31 May should have been deducted from this credit. Please explain accordingly why you deducted £5.33 from my direct debit on 20 May, and a further £14.81 on 20 June.

Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2005
From: fresh@cpw.co.uk

Dear

Thank you for your email regarding billing. Please accept my apologies for the delay in the response to you.

I am happy to inform you that your account has been debited £5.18 on the 20th May 2005 and £14.81 on the 20th June 2005. This is for charges for being overdrawn, you are billed afterwards as has happened in this situation.
I apologise for any inconvenience caused and hope this information is of
assistance to you.

For the latest information on products and services please visit www.carphonewarehouse.com.

If you need any more help, please reply back to fresh@cpw.co.uk or call our Customer Service team on 0870 111 5000.

Regards
Intikhab Shah
Correspondence Department

Sent: 18 Sep 05
To: fresh@cpw.co.uk

How did my account become overdrawn during this period? The total value of calls made was less than that of the credit supposedly applied.

Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005
From: fresh@cpw.co.uk

Dear

Thank you for your email regarding your billing query. Please accept my apologies for the delay in the response to you.

Having looked at your account, I can inform you that your account has been charged for calls made. I have attached in word format the charges for the account made according to invoice number 5045315218 which is £2.70. This can be paid in store or on the number below.

I apologise for any inconvenience caused and hope this information is of assistance to you.

For the latest information on products and services please visit www.carphonewarehouse.com.

If you need any more help, please reply back to fresh@cpw.co.uk or call our Customer Service team on 0870 111 5000.

Regards
Intikhab Shah
Correspondence Department

Sent: 19 Sep 05
To: fresh@cpw.co.uk

The attached document only details calls made in August, which is not relevant to the query which you are purporting to answer. You have still not explained why £19.99 was taken from my direct debit for the April/May charging period, whilst a credit of £20 was supposedly applied at the end of March, and only £7.96 of calls were subsequently made.

Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005
From: fresh@cpw.co.uk

Dear

Thank you for your email regarding your billing query. Please accept my apologies for the delay in the response to you.

Having looked at your account I can inform you that your account has had £5.18 deducted on the 6th May 2005, £12.03 deducted for unused calls on the 6th June 2005, a total of £14.81 was removed on the 20th June 2005. Your total balance is £2.70 in debit.

I apologise for any inconvenience caused and hope this information is of assistance to you.

For the latest information on products and services please visit www.carphonewarehouse.com.

If you need any more help, please reply back to fresh@cpw.co.uk or call our Customer Service team on 0870 111 5000.

Regards
Intikhab Shah
Correspondence Department

Sent: 22 Sep 05
To: fresh@cpw.co.uk

My contract with fresh only required payment for services used, not "unused calls". I demand a refund of this £12.03 unjustifiable debit to my account. After deducting my final bill, you owe me £9.33.

Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005
From: fresh@cpw.co.uk

Dear

Thank you for your email regarding your unused calls charge. Please accept my apologies for the delay in the response to you.

Having looked at your account I can inform you that you were on Fresh One rate, the service offered stated in the Fresh user guide that you can lose your initial credit if not used within 60 days. Your current balance is £2.70 in debit.

I hope this information is of assistance to you.

For the latest information on products and services please visit www.carphonewarehouse.com.

If you need any more help, please reply back to fresh@cpw.co.uk or call our Customer Service team on 0870 111 5000.

Regards
Intikhab Shah
Correspondence Department

Sent: 25 Sep 05
To: onlinebilling@cpw.co.uk

The initial credit you refer to was never actually applied, as evidenced by the fact that I was charged for all the calls made within the 60 following days.

Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005
From: fresh@cpw.co.uk

Dear

Thank you for your email regarding your query.

I am sorry that you have not been replied to earlier.

Please note that you have been advised of Fresh terms and conditions as stated in the Fresh user guide state any unused credit is lost within the forst 60 days. Please explain what the £9.33 you refer to is for.

I look forward to your response.

If you need any more help, please reply back to fresh@cpw.co.uk or call our Customer Service team on 0870 111 5000.

Regards
Intikhab Shah
Correspondence Department

Sent: 29 Nov 2005
To: fresh@cpw.co.uk

We have been arguing around in circles for several months now, and we are clearly at a deadlock. Please send me details of Fresh's formal complaints process so that I can take the issue further.

Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005
From: fresh@cpw.co.uk

Dear

Thank you for your email received on the 5th December 2005. I appreciate your patience in the reply.

I am sorry that you have not been satisfied with the response. You can contact Higher Level Complaints for further assistance by calling on the number below.

If you need any more help, please reply back to fresh@cpw.co.uk or call our Customer Service team on 0870 111 5000.

Regards
Intikhab Shah
Correspondence Department

I phoned Customer Service today (6 December), they agreed to my request for a refund after very little arguing, and promised a cheque in 14-21 todays. Let's see if it arrives ...

Finally! A cheque for £12.03 has arrived, although they sent it to the wrong address.

EU.NET

2005-08-03T11:24:00.000+01:00

Everyone must translate want they want to say into Esperanto shorthand, which will be translated by the listener into their native language. Also, you can talk as much garbage as you want, but the listener will put you on hold every now and again while they clear it out of their brain.

It just doesn't work

2005-07-18T09:27:00.000+01:00

Microsoft's latest Mantra, "It just works", is, as usual, stolen. As usual, it's all marketing hype with no substance. Windows just crashes. No it doesn't: Bill Gates declares it to be free of significant bugs. That a networking error will cause explorer to seize up is insignificant. That an error in a zip file will cause explorer to seize up is insignificant. That windows computers regularly need rebooting (unless you're very lucky) is insignificant. These have been extremely annoying, inadequately addressed problems since the features first appeared.

For an experiment in the delights of the windows experience, take a low-mid range PC, well used, and attempt to perform a disc cleanup on the hard drive. Windows will refuse to do this until it has spent an eternity calculating how much space can be saved by compressing old files. The golden rule of interface design: do not allow a user to complete an important task until lengthily calculations whose results the user may not care for have been completed. This wouldn't have survived more than a few days in an OS OS (open source operating system).

For a final exercise in how Microsoft technologies "just work", install ASP.NET and an application thereunder on your workstation, test platform, and production server. You will then understand why configuring IIS is governed by the Geneva Convention as a cruel and unusual punishment.

Thank God we don't use it for anything important.

Borland CEO Resigns

2005-07-08T12:39:00.000+01:00

Someone took my comments to heart.

The Maturity of Engineering Disciplines

2005-07-04T12:40:00.000+01:00

I came across a classic article by John Berardi, The Winning Formula. It briefly describes the history of the weight loss industry. Therein, he states that the macronutrient makeup of food was discovered around the beginning of the twentieth century. He then goes on to say that, "there is very little that is new", the fad diets have all been there done that and failed their victims during the course of the most miserable century in human history.

The implication seems to be (although this is not definite) that dieting is a mature discipline, and wild fads no longer have a place. This got me thinking (always a bad idea). Engineering is a highly scientific discipline, virtually untainted by commercialism and popularism. Yet we are still learning by trial and error how to build bridges which don't fall down. What can we say for dieting, whose scientific underpinnings (most of which are still unknown) are barely a hundred years old?

What, indeed, can we say for the software industry? The youngest of all engineering disciplines, it is no wonder that IT projects are blowing up left, right and centre. Even Borland, who want to lead with the blather about fixing it all, can't do a half-way decent job with their own products.

Anonymous Posting

2005-06-30T10:54:00.000+01:00

Various commenters have asked, some more politely than others, why I post anonymously.

There are 6 billion people in the world, all of them infuriated by something different, all of whom are potential employers/clients. It is not within my numerical abilities to enumerate the number of possible post subjects, but I will take it as given that it is extremely easy to inadvertently infuriate the future source of my livelihood.

Visual Basic 6

2005-06-29T19:37:00.000+01:00

I have been forced to work on a VB6 project. I want to die.

(Before anyone asks, it crashed the VB.NET upgrade wizard. The original author, who happens to be my head of IT, reckons it isn't worth manually porting to .NET. He's probably right. The entire project would feel very comfortable on WTF.)

Borland: Stupidity Endures

2005-06-08T00:07:00.000+01:00

Microsoft have got where they are by, amongst other things, perfecting the art of software development. Their secret is (I hope that they don't sue me for revealing this):

1) Determine what the market wants.
2) Develop it.
3) Market it.
4) GOTO 1.

All companies claim to follow this formula, but they rarely do. Corporate arrogance, PHBs, and aloofness from the customer base often derail a product at stage 1. If you have a lot of time to kill, browse borland.public.delphi.non-technical. You'll find numerous instances of Borlanders responding to legitimate and often constructive criticism with the aloof and arrogant attitude of we know our business best. The history of Borland's stock price amply demonstrates how well they know their business. Customers, of course, have nothing useful to contribute. Borland is infamously inept at 3.

Where other companies really go wrong, though, is 4. Microsoft almost never gives up. A couple of illustrative examples:

Windows 1 was pathetic. Microsoft took customers' feedback, continued to plough money into Windows development, and produced version 2. This too was pathetic. GOTO 1 again. Version 3 struck gold.
Their first attempt at entering the mobile devices market was the infamous WinCE. GOTO 1. GOTO 1. GOTO 1. Now it's PalmSource's turn to wince.

Granted, Microsoft can outspend the rest of the industry, but money isn't the real issue here. Open source projects and small start-ups have shown themselves more than competent at doing what Borland cannot.

Delphi 6 was released along with Kylix, an Object Pascal IDE for Linux. If you used the cross-platform libraries (CLX), the same code would compile for both Linux and Windows. This is native code we're talking about, no virtual machines, interpreters or intermediate language. Kylix had the same pricing structure as Delphi. Naturally, Linux hackers flocked to pay $1000 for Kylix pro. Unfortunately, so many were killed in the stampede that very few actually made it to the checkout. Those that did soon discovered that the product was so buggy that it was effectively unusable. Kylix is now abandonware. Lazarus, an open source Object Pascal RAD environment, is in an advanced stage of development and runs on multiple platforms.

RemObjects, a small start-up, have developed Chrome; an Object Pascal plug-in for Visual Studio and Mono. This is more than just a Kylix which works and at a sensible price; not being withstrained by backwards compatibility and Pascal purism, they've thrown in all the features which a .NET language needs to make contemporary programming a pleasant experience.

Another Borland misinvestment was WebSnap, a clunky and awkward web application framework available only in the sky-highly priced editions. Recognising quality when they see it, users paid for Developer Express's EWF or Atozed's intraweb instead. Out of the box Delphi web programming is now done with ASP.NET.

While Borland was investing its R&D resources in researching and developing that which customers didn't want or couldn't use, Microsoft was hatching a new plan to fortify its lucrative proprietary platform business against the open source hordes of Linux and MySql (amongst others). The plan was called .NET. Hopefully the head of whichever marketing whiz thought that one up is now on a pike outside the department's offices, but I fear that he yet lives. The technical aspect of the plan was simple; create an API to unify all Microsoft platforms (e.g. Windows and SQL Server). Make that API so fully featured and easy to use that the cost of developing against an all-Microsoft stack will be drastically lower than on any other platform. The realisation of this plan was three-pronged; lots of daft marketing, the .NET platform (libraries and CLR), and Visual Studio. The sole purpose of Visual Studio is to attract developers to the .NET platform and keep them there. Not a company to do things by halves, Microsoft ploughed unprecedented resources into two iterations of their winning formula (with a third iteration, Longhorn, well under way and well delayed). Borland suddenly found themselves barking up a dead tree as Microsoft harvested the orchard. Borland responded with C# Builder, an IDE for C#. The IDE had little to offer above VS, missed a lot of VS's features, and was unsusably buggy. The next Borland .NET product was Delphi 8 for .NET. Ditto. Now we have Delphi 2005, which after 3 service packs has nearly caught up with Visual Studio 2003 (it does C# as well), although still significantly less stable and of atrocious quality. Unfortunately, nearly caught up is not a winning strategy.

Borland clearly cannot keep up with Visual Studio as far as the IDE, language and framework are concerned. They have other plans, though. The "enterprise". As we all know from Star Trek, the enterprise is prepared to spend hideous amounts of money ($3000) for top-of-the range technology. So they abandon the IDE to code monkeys (i.e. it has to be just good enough to stop them revolting against their managers and demanding VS). The focus will now be on software engineering and project management features. The more expensive editions of Delphi 2005 support refactoring, round-trip modelling and unit-testing, and come with a StarTeam (Borland's source control and auditing software) license. This is marketed as "Application Lifecycle Management". They also announced "Core SDP", integrated project management tools under development. Unfortunately for Borland, Microsoft also know that customers want tools which support good engineering practices and project management. Visual Studio 2005 supports refactoring, round-trip modelling and unit-testing, and the Team Suite integrates project management. Not only that, but unlike Borland's Together, the modelling and refactoring are fast enough to actually be useful. Borland still have one up on Microsoft though. The $3000 Enterprise Architect edition of Delphi comes with Enterprise Core Objects, an object persistence framework. Guess what? .NET 3, when it arrives, should finally include Microsoft ObjectSpaces, an object persistence framework.

Borland should have stuck to what they do best, and continued the tradition of producing brilliant development tools for native windows development. But they have chronic ADD; Linux, .NET, anything but what they should be doing. So what does the future hold? Unless Borland change their direction (or rather stick to their direction), Visual Studio will pull far ahead of Delphi for the basic IDE/libraries/language/editor/compiler/debugger, while Borland will keep on finding shiny new enterprise features, which Microsoft will do a better implementation of in the next version. Students, hobbyists and small shops which cannot afford "enterprise" will have every reason to buy VS professional (or express) instead of Delphi professional. The Object Pascal language will become ever more obscure, and without any grassroots support the whole enterprise pyramid will collapse.

Alas, poor Borland, I knew thee well.

Iraq

2005-05-30T17:59:00.000+01:00

We've just had elections here in the UK, and the war in Iraq was brought up yet again. The frequency with which this long-suffering country is brought up by politicians and protesters-looking-for-something-to-protest has got beyond ridiculous.

In February 2003, Colin Powell presented the UN with a mass of clear evidence that Iraq was hiding something nasty from their weapons inspectors. Not even the French argued. Instead, they proposed sending more inspectors, and giving Saddam more time (presumably to finish whatever projects his scientists were hiding). No reason was suggested as to why the new inspectors would fare any better than the old ones. It was pure procrastination. France has never taken the lead in dealing with Iraq at the UN; they only throw spanners into others' attempts. The UN had already (twice) authorised the use of force in the event that their inspectors were not given free access to whatever information they wanted. So the US and its allies took the only logical route; they went to war and invaded Iraq.

The invasion was a success.
The invasion was the last success.
Things had actually started to go wrong before the invasion. Saddam killed thousands of his own people every month. The coalition forces would have had to have extremely bad luck if the war was going to kill less Iraqis than a few more months of Saddam's tyranny would. This humanitarian reason for going to war was an important message to that section of the population which was most opposed. Bush and Blair almost completely ignored it. As well as appealing to the more liberaly minded, this could have been a contingency plan in the event that weapons of mass destruction could not be found. There was every reason to assume that the invasion would create, after a short period of rebuilding, a much more pleasant Iraq. Unfortunately, certain people were so preoccupied with WMD that they ignored the humanitarian aspect.

After the invasion, things started to go wrong fast. The US/UK never revealed their post-war strategy, but we do know two things about it. One is that the powers-that-were (and still be) naively assumed that the Iraqi population, which had only ever know brutal dictatorships and sectarian fighting, would spontaneously settle down to a peaceful democracy. The other is that the State Department and Pentagon disagreed as to how the immediate occupational government should be formed. The Pentagon wanted to instate a government of Iraqis immediately. The State Department, which is so reliably wrong that it could be considered a belligerent foreign power, wanted to install an occupation government whilst waiting to see "who our friends are". "An Iraqi government to govern Iraq?" they must have mused. "Only that war-mongering Pentagon could think up something so absurd." Whenever the State Department says to do x, you can be certain that the correct course of action is -x. Bush foolishly listened to the State Department. Of course, the Iraqi population was delighted with the idea of being occupied by "The Great Satan", whilst it determined whom its "friends" were. The result was resentment, frustration, and an insurgency which blossomed into a bloody civil war.

So what actually happened to the weapons of mass destruction? One possibility is that Saddam Hussein was actually the victim of a scam by his weapons scientists. He was known to have had a liking for high-tech toys; they might have fabricated WMD projects for funding and misappropriated the budget. Another is that they were exported to Syria, a fellow Baath regime. The failure to find them, though, in no way detracts from the cause to go to war. Hindsight is 20/20; in February 2003, there was every reason to conclude that Saddam was preparing new CBN nasties to unleash on his neighbours and citizens.

.NET, Data Binding and Despair

2005-05-05T09:26:00.000+01:00

You have a well-architectured application, i.e. one which uses an object persistence framework. You also want to modularise the GUI code; to this end, the controls to edit each object are wrapped in a UserControl. A control to edit a composite object is made by embedding the constituent user controls in a new user control, along with editors for any other persistent properties. Each UserControl exposes just one property, the bound object. How do you get data binding to work in such a scenario?

Have a look around the MSDN documentation. I'm not going to provide any links to it; I want you to get the "Microsoft experience" yourself. When you've finished, you'll probably need a valium. Unless you're binding a Dataset to regular controls on the same form, it isn't explained properly anywhere, although it will take a lot of wading through spotty and incoherent documentation to discover this. Hence you turn to Google. As you might never find a decent explanation (it took me long enough), I'll point you to one. Don't complain about the English; how good is your German? The most relevant page to the task at hand is this one.

OK, so you've written a dozen or so fooControl.DataBindings.Add("Value", persistentObject, "property"); lines to each control (so much for RAD and compile-time checks). Then you add a fooChanged event to each UserControl, and wire up the event handlers. Finally, you run the program. After tracing lots of mysterious errors to misspelled string literals in the Add(string, Object, string) methods, it might work. It probably won't though.

If you were foolish enough to go through with this frustrating exercise, you'll notice that I've skipped a lot of the steps in the linked page. This is to save you a lot of unnecessary trouble, because you can deduce from the failings in its current form that the missing code won't help. There is also a critical step missing; .NET data binding is so over-engineered, over-complicated and under-documented that it is simply not possible to make it work reliably with anything other than Datasets. I ended up writing the code to flag dirty objects and save or reload them as necessary myself. Don't despair though, we're in good company. If you look around the net you'll discover that (a)hardly anyone seems to be able to get this basic task right, and (b)whenever the question is raised at a Microsoft WebCast, the hosts avoid the question. I.e. Microsoft can't do it either.

From Memory Management to Garbage Collection

2005-04-28T13:39:00.000+01:00

In the bad old days of primitive object oriented programming, all was empty and waste, and darkness covered the face of software development. The programmer was responsible for managing memory. This overburdened the poor programmer with the arduous task of freeing objects' memory when they were no longer needed (unless they were on the stack). Memory leaks could occur; careless and incompetent programmers might forget to free unneeded objects, tying up memory for no productive purpose. (This is also called upgrading.)

Then there was light. In order to free the long-suffering programmer from the terrible responsibility of understanding object life-lines, Sun and Microsoft have blessed us with Java and Java++ (aka C#/.NET), respectively. These are OO (object obsessed) languages, wherein everything must be a class member, so classes such as Math exist solely to contain static methods. (Classes as object templates is such an old-fashioned concept.) Being more familiar with .NET, I will attempt to expound upon the wonders of the latter.

Memory in .NET is managed by a Garbage Collector, which completely absolves the developer from tracking memory usage and knowing when to free memory. Nirvana! No longer do we have to concern ourselves with memory management. Instead of one destructor, we now have three:
Dispose
Finalize
Ensuring that no pointers are pointing to it.

Before releasing a .NET object, you must call Dispose, if it has such a method. This is needed because the object may have to deal with unmanaged resources such as database connections and file handles. Then you can set all its pointers to null, and wait for the Garbage Collector to free its memory. Before doing this, the GC will call Finalize (implemented as a destructor in C#), so that the object can deal with unmanaged resources, such as database connections and file handles. Finalizers slow down the garbage collection, so it is recommended that this is actually done in Dispose. An important consideration is the mid-life crises. If an object is not disposed and nulled as soon as it is finished with, the garbage collector is liable to get out of whack.

So, to summarize: You must call Dispose on a .NET Object as soon as you have finished with it, then set its reference to null. This is so much better the old way of simply deleting/freeing, particularly as you have the added excitement of non-determinate finalization.

When designing a class, things get far more exciting though. Since there may be many references to an object, Dispose must be callable multiple times. It should also call GC.SuppressFinalization(this) for performance reasons. You have more leeway with Finalize; it is protected and should only be invoked by the GC (although somebody playing with reflection can invoke anything they want). You may therefore assume that it will only be called once, and only when there are no live pointers to it. Beware of weak references though. Another problem with finalize is that is not guaranteed to be called at any particular time, so you cannot rely on it to free resources (unmanaged or otherwise) in a timely manner.

If you find any of this confusing, Microsoft have helpfully provided a simple example of all this in action. Luckily, their simple example doesn't actually do anything; if it did, they would have had to consider a huge, steaming pile of horrendous complexities.

Now you understand how Microsoft have eradicated memory leaks. They have made resource management so complicated that incompetent and careless programmers will give up before they start. Competent and careful developers will spend all their time learning how to do it properly, and never get around to writing actual code.

Etymology of Politics

2005-04-18T18:28:00.000+01:00

'tis the season for political parties to throw mud and spread deceit here in the UK, so I take this apt opportunity to enlighten you as to the source of the word "politic". "Poli" is from the Latin poly, meaning many, and "tic" is from tick, a blood-sucking parasite.

Refuting Evolution

2005-04-06T09:15:00.000+01:00

Creationists claim that contemporary biodiversity is too complex to have evolved through random mutation. Evolutionists respond by pointing out that, if enough monkeys were randomly pounding away on enough typewriters for enough time, they would eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.

Well, thanks to the Internet, the creationists have been vindicated. The complete works of Shakespeare have yet to appear on any blog.