Pages

Subscribe: Subscribe to me on YouTube

Saturday, June 24, 2006

I hate moving. And I don't just mean physical exercise. It doesn't seem to matter how much I throw out and pack up, there's still a ton of junk left to sort through. I started packing last autumn, and my cat moved out a week ago, so you'd think I'd have it all finished by now. Personally I blame BT and Littlewoods. If they weren't so rubbish, I wouldn't be so distracted by their incompetence, and might be able to get on a bit better.

It started well when I spoke to the man at BT on Monday and he promised to activate my new phone line within 24 hours. I therefore signed up with Bulldog Broadband on Tuesday, after which I got a phone call from BT to say it was all sorted, and my line was oficially active. Marvellous. Unfortunately that was followed by an e-mail from Bulldog saying it wasn't, a letter from BT agreeing with Bulldog, a phonecall telling me to ignore that letter, and an e-mail saying they couldn't find my address.

You'd think that would be enough, but sadly no. On Friday morning the line apparently developed an underground fault and exploded in a shower of static, rendering both incoming and outgoing calls impossible, and making me officially incommunicado in my new flat. Fortunately BT's response was fast and unequivocal - they said they couldn't send out an engineer for six days.

Meanwhile, back here in Shotley Gate, I received the latest Littlewoods catalogue with a letter telling me that as I haven't ordered in a dog's age, they were sending me a £10 voucher to use on my next order. This combined with their current half-price sale tempted me to buy a shelving unit for my new flat, but naturally before I could order online, I had to change my address.

So I tried. It wouldn't let me. I tried again. It told me to phone them. I phoned them. The woman asked me to try changing my address online. I told her I had. She said she'd change it for me herself. She tried. She couldn't. She transferred me to someone who could. They asked me lots of questions for no apparent reason, before finally revealing that due to their computer system being rubbish, she'd got around the change of address problem by cancelling my account and opening a new one. Thereby replacing my credit limit of £1650 with one of £100, wiping out the £12 cashback I'd earned, and rendering my £10 voucher invalid. She finished by saying "Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr Gardner?". I told her she'd done enough.

So I'm not a very happy bunny at the moment. Mind you, having spent over £2,000 so far on moving-related expenses, I suppose £10 off a bit of chipboard isn't really worth worrying about.

0 comments: