Posts by Edward Hammond

Snowden, Dotcom, throw bombs into NZ election campaign

And the New Zealand Herald says...

I was slightly surprised by the reaction of the NZ Herald. Blatantly demonstrating that they have their lips stitched to PM Key's arse. This was a paper that used to be quite bold in challenging the official version - look at the Crewe murders, and the Erebus crash.

Why has it changed direction? Where is the impartiality and investigative journalism on behalf of the public? Oh sorry... that's old journalistic principles, ones that have been replaced with "say what the masters want us to say - we daren't risk the consequences of not doing so.".

Brits' borked Samsung kit held up after repair centre slips into administration

Bigger Systemic Problems in Samsung's Support Operation

Samsung were invited to correct any in the following sad tale that they thought was incorrect or unreasonable but they declined to comment.

We were keen Samsung mobile users since the first Galaxy S, but as the buyer for our company, I am now blocking all orders for Samsung kit – the amount of time spent on support, even on warranty goods, is just too high and they have no appetite for remediating very dubious practices by their support contractors.

When they receive a phone and somehow lose the service request details on their system, they just put the device aside, despite the details and customer contact details being included with the device. The customer is expected to chase this to ground and resolve it.

But you rarely get through to speak by phone to anyone in less than 10 minutes; Anovo and Samsung play customer ping pong by each claiming the other is responsible.

They recently sent me a photograph of damage and demanded £158 for repair before they would do the warranty fix. I was certain there was no damage – I’d only paid to have that device fixed 5 weeks before. When they sent it back, the device back, the damage wasn’t present. A closer look at the photo of the previous damage showed that wasn’t damaged as claimed either. Once might be an accident but twice seems like a scam.

Samsung knows about it, and they don’t appear to be doing anything about it. Meanwhile, the insurance claim has resulted in our premiums going up by over £300 a year.

Escalating is just another invitation for exasperation – they send Anovo an email and wait 72 hours, but they don’t follow up, or get back to customers, when that period lapses. Any other company caught so knowingly delivering a really bad customer experience would show a little contrition, enough to show they take complaints seriously, but not Samsung UK.

What businessman can afford to spend hours a day on the phone trying to get basic warranty repairs done on staff phones? Learn from our mistake – avoid Samsung.

Abbey online banking takes 24-hour lie down

They're onto a winner here

If I can't move money from a deposit to a cheque account and the latter goes into the red, they'll charge me £30 for it - its called "free banking" in Abbey-speak.

While they make so much money out of operating inadequate systems for customers, there is a real incentive for them not to improve - and they haven't.

Abbey in bank holiday meltdown

A Winning Strategy

If a customer fails to move money from a desposit to a cheque account so that the latter goes into the red (no matter how many tens of thousands you have in the deposit account), a charge of £30 is levied. Its called "free banking" in Abbey-speak.

My RBOS account had an automatic transfer to keep the cheque account always topped up from the deposit account. I was told Abbey had this but it isn't automatic at all - hence the charges.

My point is that Abbey makes so much money out of running poor service to customers that it has no real incentive to change: it is the customer who has to change. When they've had enough defections, they'll spend far more than the cost of fixing the original problem on an advertising campaign to lure more customers on board. Will they fix the fundamental problem? I doubt it. Maybe Spanish Mgmt are smarter but I doubt that too.