LIZ JONES'S DIARY: In which my patience is tested
I honestly want to know. Is your life like this? Are you really p***ed off, angry, exhausted, sick of being treated badly? It cannot just be me. This is what happened last weekend.
I had ordered a cushion for my outdoor bench. Lovely. Expensive. It arrived on Saturday. It was just the cover, no pad. What use is a piece of cloth to sit on?
I contacted the seller. She told me all her customers are ‘lovely’ and she never gets complaints; I’m presuming they don’t mind sitting on a piece of cloth. She also told me that I should search on Ebay for a separate pad.
Next, an alert from Barclays. Ebay has taken £16, leaving me with £2. I haven’t bought anything for weeks. I went on the website, tried to speak to customer services. Having clicked on numerous bridges and motorbikes, I got a robot. It didn’t recognise my complaint. Useless.
I called Barclays. ‘We can’t cancel the transaction until it has gone through, you’ll have to call us again. I will send a new card, but it can take up to ten days.’
Next, I had ordered Sky Glass to watch the football as I no longer have a TV (or a bed; next week’s column). The delivery people turned up three hours early. ‘Can you help me set it up?’
‘Oh no, we’re not authorised, due to data protection.’
They unpacked it. The screen had a large crack in the glass. I have photos. ‘This has never happened before,’ they said. Whenever I complain – about a soggy nut roast, say – the person always says, ‘No one has ever complained before.’ I DON’T CARE! Also, THAT’S A LIE!
They called their head office, and passed the woman to me. ‘You will have to contact Sky, tell them it was cracked, and they will send another one.’
‘Can’t you do that?’
‘I am not allowed to email or call out.’ Fat lot of use you are!
The men left. I called Sky. I was on the phone for three and a half hours. ‘In order to get another TV sent out, we have to cancel that order, do another credit check, you have to sign the agreement again, and send £10.’
‘But I sent you £10 last week. None of this is my fault. You turned up with a smashed TV, it is up to you to fix it.’
He said the £10 refund would take up to ten days. Taking the new payment, he couldn’t recognise the numbers over the phone as I am deaf, and the sound goes to my hearing aids. This stops the buttons working for some reason.
I told him my day had been ruined, my dogs not fed, horses not turned out, the last food I owned in the world was now burnt. He said he was sorry, but that word fixes nothing. He said he had to read out his terms and conditions.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘but as a valued customer, without which you have no company or job, here are my terms and conditions first. Don’t turn up with a smashed TV, don’t say you can’t set it up, don’t then tell me it is MY JOB to rectify YOUR error, oh, and learn how to deal with deaf people on the phone. And now you can send me £500 for ruining my Saturday. What’s the long number on your card?’
Technology has ruined our lives. All it does is make big companies more profitable.
And I am good with tech. I took possession of one of the first desktop Apple Macintoshes in the early 90s and I learned how to publish an ENTIRE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER on my own: captions, photos, texts, legals, oh, and ideas and brilliance.
Tech hasn’t improved anything. Tech hasn’t made us more secure, happier, wittier, kinder. All it means is we are riddled with frustration and anger, like a cancer. How older people cope I have no idea.
And I still don’t have a telly. Having told me the new one would be with me on Tuesday, nothing. I called them, they said the second TV was also smashed, but a third would be with me on Friday. Great!
I emailed David. ‘It’s your birthday on Friday! I have Sky Glass! What would you like to do?’
Him: ‘My birthday is Thursday. Can you imagine what you would write if I didn’t know the date of your birthday?’
Oh dear.
Jones Moans... What Liz loathes this week
- I know people comment that I’m profligate, but at least I don’t add to landfill. I bought some underwear from a cheap company in India. After a few washes, the black is now mauve. Hanro, on the other hand? After 20 years, the knickers are still like new, and hold their shape (unlike me).
Contact Liz at lizjonesgoddess.com and find her @lizjonesgoddess
