Easy Complaints...

I recently read a webpage giving advice on how to "turbo" a complaint to get it resolved after you've reached a dead-end with regular customer support. It's at The Art of Turboing. So I thought I'd share my experience of a successful conclusion to a complaint with EasyCar in London.

I booked a car for a week, and showed up to collect the car on the Monday. When I arrived at the collection place there was a small crowd of people standing around, and the van had a sign on it saying that the staff would be back in 10 minutes. One of the people waiting around told me that they'd been there at 10am for 2 hours, and then came back a few hours later and nothing had changed. There were also people there returning cars and leaving the keys.

I managed to call EasyCar customer services (a premium rate phone number) and they told me that the man who was supposed to be working at the pickup place had been delayed somewhere. I asked what everyone was supposed to do to return cars, or pick them up, and the guy on the phone was completely useless. I even asked whether people collecting could just take the keys from people returning cars, and was told that we couldn't do that. (Some people had already done so earlier in the day.) I also asked if EasyCar would reimburse the costs of using a taxi until a car could be collected, was told no, and the guy hung up on me. I ended up hanging around for nearly 2 hours to get nothing.

I took a taxi home anyway, and kept the receipt. Once I got home I tried to get back in touch with EasyCar, and sent them an email detailing my complaint at that time. I got a response by the morning telling me that they'd cancelled my rental. Not what I wanted, as I needed the car for the week to move house. I sent another email before work saying that I didn't want a cancellation and asking that my rental be transferred to be collected from near where I was working. I phoned to confirm the reservation during my lunch break, and was told it would be ok.

After work I showed up to collect the car, only to find that they had no record of my booking. The guy at the collection place was as helpful as he could be, and called the reservation helpline for me. He then tried to help me find a car at another of the collection places, and managed to find one for me. Although it would cost me over £350 versus the £100 for the original booking. And I'd have under 30 minutes to get from Finchley to Shepherd's Bush in rush hour. I took it.

Fortunately, while I was there I also 'stole' the landline phone numbers that the man in the collection van had for the customer services people. It became obvious that I wasn't going to make it to Shepherd's Bush in time, so called the numbers I had to try and get them to have the man wait for me. They said they'd try... I told them that they should do whatever it takes or I'd be mightily pissed off.

I arrived at the entrance to the carpark the EasyCar pickup was in, paid the taxi (kept the receipt), and started to walk in. Just in time to see the man who'd been waiting for me driving out. (I knew it was him because he was in an EasyCar.) Luckily for me he turned around and took me back up to give me a car.

So things worked out and I got the car for the week. Even though I'd have to return the car to Shepherd's Bush, not Wandsworth, and I ended up spending over £100 on taxis.

Unsurprisingly I wasn't particularly happy with the service I'd received, having to pay over £200 extra for my rental, and over £100 on taxis. Understandably I complained.

I started off by calling the landline numbers I had and seeing what they could do to help sort me out. They couldn't do anything. I tried an email to customer services and they didn't help either. So I effectively did what is recommended in the article I linked to at the top of the page. I went online and checked out the Easy website and managed to find the name of the director of customer services. I also phoned directory enquiries and got the main company phone number for the company address.

The phone system let me enter the last name of the person I wanted to talk to and I was through to his voicemail. I ran through the problems I'd had and left my contact details. The next morning I got a phone call from the director, and he asked what I'd like them to do for me to make it right with me.
I said that I'd like all the expenses I'd incurred covered, and the cost of the hire refunded. He told me that he would look into everything, and have someone get in touch with me.

Later in the week I got a phone call telling me that they'd be able to do everything I wanted. All I had to do was send them a copy of the receipts for the taxis I'd taken.

So, in conclusion, EasyCar effectively paid me to look after their car for a week. Result!

The things that helped me to get everything sorted were:

i) Copying the phone numbers from the van in Finchley - which saved me having to call the premium rate numbers, which would have ripped through my phone bill.
ii) Trying to stay calm and just explain the situation to the EasyCar people.
iii) Ignoring the apparent dead-end situation.
iv) Getting the direct company switchboard phone number, and the name of the Director of Customer Services.

So I have first-hand experience of "turboing" working to acheive the desired result, and can happily say that it works.

Download Films from Warner?.... I think not

Apparently Warner Brothers are planning on selling film downloads over BitTorrent.

This appears to be an attempt to give people a legal way to download films direct from the studio... To try and reduce piracy.
(Ignore the fact that pirates typically kill people to steal everything they have, and that what they really mean is 'copyright infringement'. It's not as scary that way round is it?)

Let's look at the reasons this is total bullshit:

Legal: The downloads will be available on the same day as the DVD gets into the shops.
Not so: The free version will probably be available before it even makes it to the cinema.
Score 1-0

Legal: It'll cost the same as a DVD.
Not so: You get NONE of the benefits of a DVD. If your hard drive dies you've lost the film. And you can't even play it on a DVD player, only on the computer you download to - How big is your screen?
It'll take at least a few hours to download a decent quality film on a good broadband connection. Versus putting the disc into a player...
Score 3-0

Legal: You download through BitTorrent.
Not so: You paid for that bandwidth. And now you have to UPload too. Bye bye high speed internet connection.
Score 4-0

Hmmm.... I can feel the benefits already. Please let me give Warner more money for an inferior product. Please?

So, let me see, would I ever use the service? NO!

Warner "believe movie fans will prefer to pay a reasonable price for a legal downloaded movie". Well that's true. Many would.
Unfortunately for Warner a reasonable price for a download is not the same price as a DVD... maybe £1 for a film, 50p for a show.

It makes me wonder... How much do advertisers pay per viewer for all the advertising slots in a TV show? Or film?
Why can't I pay the same amount and get the program free of all advertising, or pay nothing and get the adverts?

I'd be willing to even have the adverts play, rather than fast-forwarding through them if I got a decent quality show, and could do what I like with it.
Hell, make it an ISO image, I'll burn it, and watch the whole thing, that I might otherwise download without adverts.

Wafty

How to disrupt the ID Card system

The only only only only way that you will be able to not have your biometric data, and probably your DNA eventually, kept on the National Identity Register is by refusing to get a card.

Forget trying to fool the system by wrecking your biometric measurements, taking the 'wrong' documents, lying in the application interview/form/whatever, or anything else. All this will do is provide the system with a reason to focus on you, and try to get the *right* information.

Just Say No.

No. I won't get an ID Card.
No. I won't apply for an ID Card.
No. I won't attend an appointment for an ID Card.
No. I won't allow my biometric data to be recorded on a database.
No. I won't pay for an ID Card.
No. I won't carry an ID Card if I'm given one.
No. I won't show my ID Card to anyone if they ask.

NO.

On the flip side: Yes. I will be renewing my passport this year.
I'll have 10 years + 9 months before the system wants me again... Although, I am wondering about what to do when my photo driving license expires?

Wafty


(PS You can renew your passport whenever you want - it doesn't have to be near the expiry date. The only caveat is that irrelevant of how long you have left on the old passport, you can only transfer a maximum of 9 months to the new one.)

Disrupting your Biometric Data

The ID Card system will record 3 types of biometric information:

• fingerprints


• iris scan


• head and shoulder photograph

So I would suggest trying to disrupt all three.

1. Disrupt your fingerprints
   
   • Use sandpaper - sand your fingerprints off
   
   
   • Soak your hands in water for as long as you can until the skin turns prune-like - try to keep your hands wet throughout the entire ID Card application process (Keep them in plastic bags full of soaking wet towelettes, etc.)
   
   
   • Superglue your fingers together - "Sorry I was making a model plane and the glue spilt and went everywhere."
   
   
   
2. Disrupt Iris / Retina scanners


• Use drugs to expand your pupils - this will make it harder to scan your retina as there will be less of it visible. I won't tell you what to use as a lot of this stuff can be seriously dangerous.


• Wear contact lenses - preferably slightly altered lenses with scratches and colouring on them. Mind you don't put anything in your eye that will damage it permanently.


• Make your eyes water uncontrollably - again you could do yourself some permanent damage, so be careful. Pepper spray and Mace would both probably work really well, but I have no intention of spraying myself in the eyes with them. Cut raw onions will do the trick. Try not to lose the contacts though.



3. Change shape of face / head.
   At the moment the Passport Service will accept photos you send to them, and they never even see you, so you could just try handing over some shocking quality photo - like that from a camera phone on lowest setting...
   Apparently your ears are apparently the least likely to change as they're made of cartilage, so fat doesn't affect them, and age does little to the shape. Bear this in mind.


• Use stage makeup - you will not look normal


• Men grow a full beard, then shave it all off after the photos are done. Hairy women do likewise.


• Grow your hair to cover your ears.


• Pad your cheeks with wadding - you should be able to get it from any stage makeup or costume shop or just use cotton wool


• Gurn in the pictures

The idea is for your whole appearance to change almost the instant you leave the ID Processing centre - you could even try doing a Superman and getting changed in a phone box outside...

As an added bonus: it has been suggested by some that the system might not be able to cope with names more than 300 characters long, even if it can someone still has to input the data...
So change your middle name to the entire works of Shakespeare or the Encyclopedia Britannica or if you're feeling keen Wikipedia or Linux 2.6 kernel source code, make sure you throw in a few spelling mistakes so they can't just copy and paste.
It has also been suggested that you could try to hack the system using programming code as part of your name, but I don't know what kind of stuff you could use as I'm not a programmer. I don't imagine del *.* would work...

Wafty

ID Cards

So it turns out that ID Cards will now be compulsory from 2010. Thanks for the opt-out that lets people pay for the card, register their details on the National Identity Registry, but not have to take the card until 2010. That's very kind of you to let us pay to put all our personally identifying information on your database.

ID Cards have problems - biometric data just does not work for everybody. In fact, despite using 3 identifying unrelated biometric measurements, some people can't be registered at all. What good is that?

And if even the government doesn't think the ID Cards will do what they are supposed to do, why should the public?

I still don't see a valid purpose for the ID cards. Despite all the rubbish that the public wants them to stop this, that and the other, I don't see how they will.
The government has the following reasons for introducing ID cards:
Terrorism, sex offenders, illegal immigrants, organised criminals, benefits cheats, failed asylum seekers...
I don't see how any of them will be stopped by ID Cards unless people are:

1. forced to carry them at all times


2. forced to produce them at any and every point of interaction with anything remotely official (like a bank, post office, credit card, landlord, employer, etc)

I for one have no intention of doing either, and not because I feel I have done anything wrong.

Taken from a comment
on Slashdot

"If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"

Ever heard that one? I work in information security, so I have heard it more than my fair share. I've always hated that reasoning, because I am a little bit paranoid by nature, something which serves me very well in my profession. So my standard response to people who have asked that question near me has been "because I'm paranoid." But that doesn't usually help, since most people who would ask that question see paranoia as a bad thing to begin with. So for a long time I've been trying to come up with a valid, reasoned, and intelligent answer which shoots the holes in the flawed logic that need to be there.

And someone unknowingly provided me with just that answer today. In a conversation about hunting, somebody posted this about prey animals and hunters:
"Yeah! Hunters don't kill the *innocent* animals - they look for the shifty-eyed ones that are probably the criminal element of their species!"
but in a brilliant (and very funny) retort, someone else said:
"If they're not guilty, why are they running?"

Suddenly it made sense, that nagging thing in the back of my head. The logical reason why a reasonable dose of paranoia is healthy. Because it's one thing to be afraid of the TRUTH. People who commit murder or otherwise deprive others of their Natural Rights are afraid of the TRUTH, because it is the light of TRUTH that will help bring them to justice.

But it's another thing entirely to be afraid of hunters. And all too often, the hunters are the ones proclaiming to be looking for TRUTH. But they are more concerned with removing any obstactles to finding the TRUTH, even when that means bulldozing over people's rights (the right to privacy, the right to anonymity) in their quest for it. And sadly, these people often cannot tell the difference between the appearance of TRUTH and TRUTH itself. And these, the ones who are so convinced they have found the TRUTH that they stop looking for it, are some of the worst oppressors of Natural Rights the world has ever known.

They are the hunters, and it is right and good for the prey to be afraid of the hunters, and to run away from them. Do not be fooled when a hunter says "why are you running from me if you have nothing to hide?" Because having something to hide is not the only reason to be hiding something.

Next week: Big Sticks to Beat People With

Wafty

The Budget '06

Another year, another budget speech...

I'm so glad I don't have to listen to the rubbish spouted by Gordon Brown.

I was recently told by the taxman that he wanted another £1,000 from me. Fortunately it was a mistake, and I only owe him about £30 according to his calculations, but I'll see what I can do to get that down...

Apparently this year it's a 'green budget'. Gas-guzzling chelsea tractors are going to be charged more road tax, with the most fuel-efficient cars paying nothing. I don't really understand the concept of road tax. Why bother making people pay road tax, when they can just be charged tax on the fuel they fill it up with? That way the most fuel efficient cars pay the least per mile, while also discouraging pointless journeys. Although I do agree that people should be checked that their car is safe to drive and that they have insurance, but if they don't have either why would they bother with road tax?

Oh, and in addition to charging more road tax, some more houses are going to get insulation. Why not provide double glazing? I could do with some, my house is freezing with the heating off.

That said, Brown's missed the point of a green budget. It doesn't charge any tax on aviation fuel, or discourage people from taking flights to whereever they want. (It can be cheaper to fly within the UK than to take the train. What's up with that? Stupid DfT.)
There's no big scheme to encourage people to recycle, or reduce their energy consumption. How about having some kind of competition... whoever can reduce their household energy consumption the most wins a Toyota Prius or whatever car is the most environmentally friendly on the date? Can you imagine the number of people who'd stop using electricity and gas from the mains? They'd be buying canisters of gas, campstoves, and starting fires in their houses, ideally not fuelled by their houses, but hey stupidity deserves to die.

Anyway, I don't like the big lug, nor his mates - not even his non-mates like Blair.

Wafty

Israel

Israel was created at the end of the Second World War following the revelation of the atrocities committed against Jews by the Nazis. This is not to say that the Nazis did not commit the same atrocities against the disabled or gypsies, but that the Jews were claiming that they needed a country of their own in which they would no longer be persecuted by reason of their race.

The UN felt sorry for the Jews and took pity on them. Britain withdrew their mandate of Palestine, and the UN split the area up into Arab and Jewish states. This arrangement was rejected by the Arabs. Unsurprisingly, they wanted the land that they lived on to remain their country.

Now I cannot see any reason why rational person would have supported the creation of a Jewish state in the middle of a bunch of Arab states… In fact, all the land in the world had already been claimed as part of countries, including Antarctica. What right did the UN have to dissolve a state to create more? Surely the people living there should have had some say in the matter?

It seems to me that the main problem with the creation of Israel is that it was effectively an invasion supported and paid for by the UN. This is why the Arab world dislikes Israel, and why their hatred is justified. The UN needs to accept that it made a mistake in imposing the Jews on the Arabs.

To rectify this misguided action the UN must do what it can to create a free state – neither Jewish nor Arab, but with appropriate democratic representation for all. The UN has the power and the mandate to solve the problem. They should have stepped in before 1967 to prevent the wars that followed. I hope they will soon.

Of course the response to this will be that I’m anti-semitic. Unfortunately for my critics, I don’t care what religion or race anyone is. I’ll happily say all races / religions / governments and organisations have all and will all be wrong at some point. The true test of them is whether they can admit to their mistakes and try to rectify them, instead of glossing over them, or passing new laws that make it illegal to point them out – Mr Bush.