OT - Call Centres......Arrrggggg!

I **HATED** the tv license changeover system when I had to do it last year. Is it still the dodgy voice recognition thing that tells you what you said?

The only bit of sense that I got from them was that as long as I had the old license, and could prove that I had moved, then if the boys with the revolving roof rack turned up then I would be ok.

Did you find the "moving house" website? we used it and it was mostly ok, you just fill in who your suppliers are and where you're going to and it notifies them all, or prints the letter in a way they will understand.

the joys ;-)

Si

Oh, and Dell - you lost an order for a PC yesterday - I coudn't understand a bloody word the bloke was on about!

Richard

They can't do anything until they send someone round to find out who you are and if you really are watching telly, so I wouldn't bother if I were you. I paid TV license for about 2 years, the rest of the time I never got visits other than when living in very densly populated areas. My aerial broke in January and quite frankly TV wasn't worth the hassle of getting it fixed, I've been TV free since then and don't miss it. I told them that and I've not had hassle from them since.

AAARRGGHHHH

DELL

Ordered two identical laptops a couple of weeks back.

Arranged to have them deliverd on Monday.

Gest a call from driver, got your delivery will be with you between

Excellent I thought, and the driver appeared on time.

With one laptop.

Rang Dell.

"Nothing to worry about sir. Second one is in a separate shipment which will be delivered after 17.00 this evening."

HOW CAN IT MAKE SENSE TO SHIP 2 IDENTICAL LAPTOPS, PLACED ON THE SAME ORDER, IN TWO DELIVERIES 5 HOURS APART?

Still, had a moan at "customer service" and they have pacified me by sending 2 free printers. Whats the betting they come on two separate deliveries...

David

No! Thank god - but Parcel Force have got one that doesn't understand English!

That's what I was told. Unfortunately Mr. McTaggart must be very unpopular for some reason, as no one seems to talk to him.

I didn't use the site for the TV licence, they are so heavy-handed I didn't want to risk any mistakes. I tried the NTL "Moving Home" page, but they don't make any provision for not continuing with them, they just grab your new address, presumably in the vain hope you will give up and stay with them. I really can't understand how they have any customers at all - 15 minutes on hold on 5 occasions, being told repeatedly how good their customers service is, and how it's getting better, is probably the biggest wind-up I've ever come across.

NPower were fantastic, they answered the phone, took the details, closed the old account, opened a new one and put the readings in on the day we moved. Even Lloyds did a good job - I went into the branch and got the bloke to change everything, personal and business, over in one go. Severn Trent - a doddle, their web page was obvioulsy not done by a "designer" but by someone who knows what's required - no frills, no bells, no whistles - just the right questions and done.

Stoke-on-Trent city council also don't seem to be able to grasp the concept of someone leaving the city, so I filled the page in as best I could - god knows what's going to happen - there's been no feedback at all so far....

Richard

reminds me of a joke about training call centre workers in India - - bear with me i might not recall it properly. Something along the lines of "to be able to answer the phone in this call centre you must be able to deal with UK citizens. To this end we require to test you on your knowledge of english. please write a sentence with the following colours in it. Green, Yellow, Blue, Rose, Black,

When the telephone rings, it goes "green green-green green", i answer and say "yellow" "how are blue" "rose calling please" "do you want a ring black"

oh well, i thought it was funny

Wolfie

What's a bet they are 2 different models, and one won't work.

It would be funnier if it wasn't so true!

And don't actually print!

They can do better than that! I tried again just now..... finaly got through ("transfering you to the small business advisor" - the number I'd just rung from the web site!)......

It says on the web site "Dimension 3100 - £299 + VAT & delivery"

I finaly get the woman to accept I don't want any extras, execpt McAffee at £21.00 plus VAT. The total miraculously becomes £429.00

- they want £50.00, yes *FITY* pounds, for delivery! + VAT!

Hang on a min, that's *exactly* the same as the "home" price, which includes McAffee & Delivery! I have to say feel I've been conned there, that's way beyond even sharp practice!

Needless to say I won't be dealing with them again! No wonder their results have been disappointing.....

Now, PC World have a suitable system (I only want it run MicroCat since I tipped coffee in the laptop) for £329 inc VAT. I wonder where I'll go?

I'm having a really good ranty day to day :-)

Richard

I wouldnt be hugely surprised if dell go bankrupt or similar soon. I keep seeing stuff on the news saying theyre making a loss - but they are still useless. They have lost around 150 orders from me over the last 6 months and are also quickly loosing custom from many of the other places i supply mainly due to messed up orders and being hard to deal with. The indian call centres dont help either I wanted to buy lots of PC's and they refused to negotiate on delivery. The money they wanted just for delivery came to more than it would have cost me to buy a transit van, then along with a paid employee drive to ireland and spend a weekend there whilst picking them up..

And if not for the fact that the people in Indian call centres speak better english, with a better accent and better understanding of our geography than those in many of the UK ones 8-(. Greg

The standard procedure when receiving anything from Dell is to shake the package and if it rattles with broken bits hand it straight back, in our experience this happens about 50% of the time.

Greg

The simple way to handle it is to forget the telephone, just write to them. I discovered this when I became a land lord a few years ago, the letting agent handles the change over between tenants and believe me they don't spend days on the phone each time, they just write a standard letter and post it to each utility. The utilities don't like it because of the cost of handling mail, but have no choice legally. Greg

That is one of the reasons I don't use Dell stuff any more.

I'm curious about how the TV licence rip-off affects non-electromagnetic wave propagated signals. I understood that the licence was a licence to receive television which, up until recently meant you poked an aerial up onto the chimney, connected the wire and the pictures appeared on the telly. With so many other methods of receiving moving pictures, digital cable satellite web-based, I'm wondering if the licence is still valid or whether we're actually being ripped off because we now don't actually need one unless you're still using the old aerial/chimney arrangement (whether it be connected to TV, video recorder, TV tuner card in a PC etc). I can get all kinds of moving pictures via the internet, including streamed news and other broadcasts, down the broadband line and which to me seem not to be telly in the sense of the licence wording. Any ideas?

ISTR this being covered on the TV licensing website's FAQs, something like if the streaming media is going out at roughly the same time as the radio signal then you need a license to receive it as you're deemed to be receiving the signal by proxy. That's from memory, so precious little point in asking me to comment further on what I've just said, as I've shot my load on that subject.

It all depends on whether the content originates in the UK. Before we moved away, we had satellite in order to watch EWTN (Catholic television). Had a nice conversation with a bloke at TV licensing, who eventually told us that the licence is required to receive any kind of television type stuff, but only if it is broadcast (or webcast) from within the UK. So we could watch EWTN (which comes from the US) plus any number of European channels without paying a licence. Which is exactly what we did.

Stuart

Provided it's in the script.

Lee D