I got a reply from the company - A Frances Kennedy (male or female? I went with ‘Dear Mr Kennedy’).
Here is my response.
Dear Mr Kennedy,
Thank you for your reply, and for the sections of text you cut and pasted from your website/customer charter.
Firstly, can you confirm that you have no intention of refunding my rail tickets?
I do not, as you suggest, consider myself to have been discriminated against with regard to the refunds. I believe that I was not given the relevant information at the correct time. This is not discrimination, this is poor customer service.
As I state in the ‘comments’ form I was forced to complete, when I purchased the ticket from a train based ticket seller (guard?), I asked him if I would be able to get a refund. He said,
“Oh yes.”
What he did not say was,
“Oh yes, but be sure to retain your ticket. Especially do not put it into the machines at the station we are about to pull into.”
Back in February, when I paid £2780 for my Gold Card Season Ticket, I did not receive a copy of the season ticket policy. I specifically remember having a light hearted conversation with the ticket seller at Marden, where I asked him if I get a special leather wallet or any other benefits having spent so much money. He said ‘No’. He said that I was lucky to get the last blue plastic wallet in the station.
I also visited your website (http://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk) soon after purchasing the season ticket, and was unable to find any information about the benefits and restrictions of the ticket. I am not saying that your website does not have this information; I am saying that I, with 10 years of working in the internet and new media industries, could not find the information.
With regard to the limit you impose on refunds in a twelve month period. Had I left my ticket at home, rather than at work, I would have been able to buy a return rather than two singles. Therefore I would not have exceeded this ridiculous limit. Having said that, I have yet to try and get a refund on the third ticket I bought recently when, for the second time, I forgot my ticket, because I still harbour some ludicrous hope that your company might part with some cash.
In your letter you also express sorrow that I have ‘experienced some uncomfortable journeys’.
If by this you mean squatting on the floor of the carriage, then yes I have experienced this – however these ‘experiences’ make up a good 50% of my return journeys. Does this constitute the ‘normal circumstances’ you refer to?
I absolutely dread the winter, when passenger numbers will no doubt rise, as fewer people are on holiday, and I will be forced to sit on the floor for an even greater proportion of my journeys – with the added bonus that the floor will probably be wet and muddy.
By the way, are you aware that some passengers are bringing small folding stools with them on you trains? If I hadn’t seen this, I’d have a hard time believing that this happens because it sounds like a joke.
You state that there is a ‘large demand’ for first class seats on the trains. I would suggest that this demand simply indicates that the more wealthy passengers are prepared to pay the extra £1000 to ensure they get a seat. If there were enough seats in the first place, this demand would evaporate – especially as I cannot see any real difference between first class and cattle class seats, other than a grubby antimacassar and a different pattern on the upholstery. Your company has in effect created the demand for first class by running a service that does not provide seats for regular travellers.
I am not wealthy (I had to get a loan to pay for my season ticket), so I am unable to pay this premium simply to get a seat.
You state that the conductor can ‘de-classify’ first class seats if the train is very overcrowded. Two things here.
1) I have never seen a conductor on the London Bridge to Marden train prior to getting past Tonbridge. Never.
2) I doubt he would be able to move through the train, because of the overcrowding.
I suggest that you put the decision to de-classify the seats into the hands of the passengers. This way the conductor can a) move around the train - less over crowding see and b) if he finds people in first class seats when there are empty standard class seats, he can impose a fine. I will not charge Southeastern for my consultancy services on this occasion.
I do not consider my complaint to have been satisfactorily resolved.
To be clear I would like;
a) a refund on the three tickets I have purchased – two of which you have the receipts for.
b) a commitment that you will provide the service you are charging such a huge sum of money for, rather than drawing your customers’ attention to the fact that your passenger charter does not actually guarantee a seat (however, your charter does state that no passenger should be expect to stand for a journey of more than 20 minutes. The first leg of my journey is 30 minutes, after which I still do not get a seat)
Yours sincerely
etc etc
Written by exmonkey on June 21st, 2007 with 8 comments.
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No, not some kind of rural RSS, but the stuff you put in chicken to get eggs out.
We almost didn’t get the chickens today, because I cocked (sic) up buying the feed. Allow me to explain.
I assumed that the choice would be Organic vs non-organic. Wrong.
It turns out that the cheapest feed will be non-organic GM pellets. It will most likely contain Hi-pro soya, which is some kind of hight protein soya with the oil removed. The oil is removed with a solvent - hexane - which is a petrochemical byproduct. Hexane is carcinogenic, and a residue stays in the hi-pro soya. This ultimately ends up in the eggs (allegedly). You can pretty much guarantee that ANY eggs you get, free range or otherwise (unless they are organic) will contain hi-pro soya.
Anyway…. I didn’t know this until I looked up the ingredients of the stuff I bought from Scats* yesterday. Obviously I do not want to be eating possibly carcinogenic eggs.
They also put a variety of other chemicals into feed - most notably something to make the yolks look more yellow.
After a bit of driving around I eventually found Marriages feed, which is mostly organic and does not contain nasty hi-pro. Phew, dodged a petrochemical bullet there.
Aside from the scary thought that we have all been eating potentially nasty eggs all these years, does it not make you feel a bit angry at just how fucked around our food supply is? It makes me pretty bloody angry. It also shows that ‘organic’ can mean a great deal more than grown by hippies
*Scats Country Stores are one of the amazing things they don’t tell you about in the cities. They sell everything, including animal feed, clothes, DIY stuff and hats. They also sell pig oil, which is for dry scaly pigs. I had to ask them. You cannot walk past a tin marked ‘pig oil’ without finding out.
Written by exmonkey on June 17th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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Hopefully the fences will be high enough.
No names for the three ‘Brown Ranger’ hybrids yet. I personally don’t want to name them, but I think I’m in the minority - working on the rule that Milo’s opinion is represented by Debra.
Written by exmonkey on June 17th, 2007 with 5 comments.
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I got a letter back having send them a link (via their website) to this post.
Here is the reply to the letter they sent:
Dear Mr D’Eath,
Thank you for your reply.
Firstly, I would like to point out that your disingenuous expression of sorrow about the scant information I was given is underlined by your patronising statement “For your information I have enclosed with this letter a ‘Season Ticket Guide’, which outlines our policy.” and the inclusion of said guide, which is tantamount to saying,
“Well, if you’d have read this… we wouldn’t be having this conversation would we? No. So run along and we’ll say no more about it, there’s a good boy.”
You are correct in noticing that a form was recently filled out at Marden station. I completed the form at the suggestion of the ticket seller after he informed me that simply having receipts for my ticket purchases was not in and of itself proof of ticket purchase. He suggested that I fill in a ‘comments’ form explaining the situation and attach the receipts. This I did.
As I explained on the form, the reason I did not have the actual tickets was because;
a) The ticket machine at London Bridge took one of them and,
b) I reasonably expected the receipts of the ticket purchase to be sufficient.
If you had read the form you would probably not be asking me to confirm whether its’ intent was to request a refund or to send you some ‘comments’. Incidentally I take issue with the use of the word ‘comment’, as I would describe this entire process as a ‘complaint’.
With regard to your questions about the form being correctly handled, signed, approved, authorised or otherwise – this is not my concern. I do not know, and to my knowledge have not met, the Marden station manager. It is not my responsibility to ensure that the labyrinthine complexities of your internal bureaucracy are adhered to.
I have a third ticket I would like a refund on (this time I kept the actual ticket), but for this one I was told that I can only have two refunds in a 12 month period. It was this that made me write to you via the website.
If your response to this is that more than two refunds in a 12 month period incurs additional admin costs, my answer would be – consider the cost saving implications of allowing the ticket seller at the station to issue refunds. Or do you not trust their judgement?
Finally, I can only assume that you do not travel on the service that I am forced to use, otherwise your hope that my future journeys should be trouble free would actually read as,
“I hope that you occasionally do not have to sit on the disgusting sticky carpet in between the feet of crammed in passengers because the laughably entitled ’service’ we offer is chronically oversubscribed.”
I would rather not pay £2780 a year to sit on the floor of a dirty overcrowded train. I believe that you company operates a monopoly in the south east and therefore has no incentive to improve its service to passengers. I fully expect your company to increase the annual season ticket price year on year in an effort to stem the increase in passenger numbers, while not actually improving the quality of the service.
I find it anachronistic that your trains continue to offer two ‘classes’ of seat – the more expensive of which are often empty, while the majority of your passengers are forced to stand or squat in the gangways (with all of the hygiene, comfort and safety issues this raises).
I genuinely do not expect anything other that a vaguely placatory reply to this letter and an invitation to read the ’season ticket guide’ again. You may even quote from, or direct me to, the passenger charter. Ultimately you know how completely powerless your passengers are and how easy it is to brush us away with a flick of your corporate customer service wrist.
Feel free to prove me wrong by being of real service to your customers.
Written by exmonkey on June 14th, 2007 with 3 comments.
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The forth annual ‘Swing Picnic in the Park’. The venue is a village resident’s personal cricket pitch/back garden.
There was a tombola, raffle, races for the kids and many a tartan blanket. It was in every way possible the antithesis of Glastonbury.
The women on the stage went through 40 odd tunes. Including: Rule Britannia, Land of Hope and Glory and Jerusalem.
Flags were waved at the appropriate points.
The odd thing is, that although it made me cringe a bit - the picnic was a completely irony free celebration of Britishness. Which was unexpectedly enjoyable.
My normal role at events of this nature is to stand at the back muttering sarcastic comments to whoever will listen.
I tried. However the vicar didn’t seem receptive.
All in all, Milo, Debra and I had a thoroughly great time. Met some great people who I would otherwise never have spoken to and drank far to much.
It just goes to show, being a hardened urban cynic has no place in rural England.
Written by exmonkey on June 10th, 2007 with 4 comments.
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Dispassionately, I realise that I am an extremely small cog, in the subsidiary gears of a very big, very complicated and largely uncaring machine.
This does not mean that I consider myself unimportant, far from it. I am right up there in my top 3 list of the most important people in my world.
Here’s a bit of back story to explain the point that you are probably wishing I would hurry up and make.
I have a yearly rail season ticket. It cost me £2780. For this enormous sum of money, I am neither guaranteed a seat nor even a train to travel on. These days, however (having worked out how to be ruthless with my ‘fellow’ passengers) I normally get both.
About a month ago, I left my season ticket at work. Never mind, I thought, I can get a refund for the two singles I had to buy. I even checked with the ticket selling man that this was so, as these tickets were going to cost me around £25 – he confirmed it.
A few days later I present the receipts to my local station ticket office and ask for my refund. The sanguine ticket guy told me that the receipts were no good – I needed the tickets. Tickets that had been swallowed by the ticket machines in the station.
I complained that no one told me that I would need to retain the tickets rather than the receipts. The response was ‘Here’s a copy of the passenger charter.’
He then suggested I fill in a complaint form, attaching the receipts, and that he would send them to the customer services department. Fine.
Last week I forgot my season ticket again. Blame the hot weather, I wore shorts instead of jeans (which contained the ticket). This time I purchased the return with impunity (and a further £25), knowing that nothing would part me from the tickets, the receipts and possibly a picture of me buying them witnessed my two passing German tourists.
This morning I went to my local ticket office and presented my tickets.
“Have you applied for any other refunds?” he asked.
“Yes. You may recall the form I filled in last month.”
He looked through his records and found the carbon copy of my complaint.
“I’m sorry sir, you can only make two claims in any 12 month period.”
Now, I realise that this is just one small middle class nuisance. Nothing in the great scheme of things. So why was I filled, and I mean FILLED, with an all consuming rage followed by a wave of sadness that almost moved me to tears?
Why should it affect me so? This is just the latest in a long line of situations which have culminated with me coming up against a wall of corporate indifference, manned by the legions of centralised ‘customer service’ centres and, in some of the more backward organisations, indifferent automatons ensconced behind thick plastic screens.
After this morning’s events I have come to realise that these feelings are caused by the loss of the most basic control over the things that effect your life. I knew, even before I’d walked from the ticket office, that I was about to embark upon 18 months of emails, phone calls and letter writing with an endless host of ‘customer service’ representatives – having to re-tell the story at every stage, and at every stage becoming more and more angry and upset. And there would never be and end or any kind of resolution. I would just give up. The fact that I would never see that money again is almost incidental, because by the end of the process, I would have lost a chunk of my life and an even bigger chunk of the will to fight.
I think this is why blogs have become so popular. My experiences with O2, BT, British Gas, Network Southeast, Suttons, Apple etc. are being repeated by thousands of normal, little cogs just like me. And there is nowhere to go with this feeling of empty powerlessness. No one to talk to and no chance of ever changing, let alone beating, the system.
So these people publish their frustrations on the internet, and they get a few sympathetic comments from other frustrated souls. Bloggers are the huddled masses, clinging together for warmth in the corners the echoing cave of corporate indifference. Some of these people probably even work in call centres.
I know that this anger is not good for me. This morning I could actually feel my strength ebb and my health deteriorate. If this sounds dramatic, I don’t mean it to be – but this unpleasant cocktail of anger and hurt is not good for you, and today I was actually aware of the effect it was having on my very being.
Writing this has helped me. I do feel a bit better, something has left me. There is even the minuscule chance that someone reading this will be in a position to make some small change that will lead to someone, somewhere not feeling the way I did this morning.
Coming next (when I can work out how to do it )– My campaign for living a call centre free existence.
All suggestions gratefully received.
Written by exmonkey on June 8th, 2007 with 12 comments.
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I have heard and read a number of debates today about the Olympic brand fiasco.
The arguments have moved from the ridiculous to the… even more ridiculous.
Without exception, no one has felt able to defend it, except that is the members of the Olympic organizing committee. One of these committee member’s phoned in to Radio 2 to argue with some nutter, who was unfortunately representing the views of the majority. I say unfortunately, because he just got more and more shouty until they faded him out and played a tune.
The defender of the day-glo splodge of vomit, pointed out that people didn’t like the new BBC weather maps at first either, but that these detractors were unable to ‘move with the times’. In essence, people who don’t like the logo are fuddy-duddies.
I still think the BBC weather maps are shit. The UK is not brown (not yet anyway). And I am fairly sure that most people still feel the same way - it’s just that we’ve all given up worrying about it, because it will not change anytime soon. It;s not that people have grown to like it, they’ve just stopped noticing it. It’s a little like living next to a sewage treatment works. The smell of shit is always there, you just learn to live with it.
So this is the Olympic organizing committees strategy - weather the storm, and then announce (in 10 years time) that people actually learned to like it - once they grew up and moved with the times. Daddio.
They will probably suggest that the silent majority is excited and inspired by the bold branding. Shame they’re so quiet though, isn’t it.
The day ended on a high for me though, when it was announced that the branding video breached OFCOM regulations as it failed the Harding FPA machine test, which tests to see if film footage can trigger epileptic fits. Apparently it caused several people to have seizures.
I really think we should stop this olympic thing now before we spend anymore money - we are, as a nation, clearly too shit to even organize a school fete, let alone the 2012 olympics.
Written by exmonkey on June 5th, 2007 with no comments.
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Click here to see how the 2012 Olympic committee spent £400000 with Wolff Ollins.
This from the Olympic website:
“The new London 2012 brand was designed by Wolff Ollins. The design brief was for an emblem that represented the four key ‘brand pillars’ of access, participation, stimulation and inspiration, culminating in the brand vision of ‘Everyone’s Games’.”
Indeed a noble intent. Unfortunately it looks like the worst kind of 6th form design student street art shit I’ve seen since just before they painted over all the tags that adorn London Bridge station.
It’s worth reading the comments on this BBC article to see just how universally mocked this repellent piece of brand wank is.
Hopefully they will spend another 400k on commissioning a rap song, voiced by Tessa Jowell. That will really get the yoof on board.
I hope I don’t sound to Daily Mail when I say that this logo will make Great Britain even more of a laughing stock than our recent foreign policy already has.
I look forward to what else the mighty Seb Coe has planned.
EDIT: Best comment, and really very true (in a kind of optical illusion, once you see it you can’t miss it kind of way) was that the logo looks like Lisa Simpson (on the right) giving Bart a blow job.
EDIT2:
Here’s a little visual help for another take on what it looks like:
Written by exmonkey on June 4th, 2007 with 4 comments.
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There are two types of thing in the world. Things you can change and things you can’t.
The things you can change make an extremely long list. So long in fact that we often miss many of them, because we have become so accustomed to our power to effect.
This list includes; our location, our job, the amount of money in our pockets, our underwear…
The other list is shorter, but ever expanding. Things we cannot change: Our own mortality, taxes, the mind of a two year old who has decided he wants a biscuit.
My personal list has just expanded to include a new and frustrating entry. I cannot change, and have no control over, any dealings with large companies who have abdicated their responsibility for customer service to call centers.
Now, I apologise for the torturous route the previous sentence took, but given how specific I tried to be, it’s amazing how many companies this sentence applies to.
My recent dealings with BT, British Gas, O2, Southeastern Trains and now, surprisingly, Suttons Seeds have given me cause to admit defeat and the ennui they have engendered has cast a shadow over my very soul.
I will not go into any specifics as to why I (in common with much of the UK) have have spent (literally) hours on hold to these companies, but I will tell you what I have discovered.
I have learned that, when a company gets to a certain size, the corporate brain starts thinking that, rather than a service to their customers, ‘customer service’ is just a statistic that can be measured by the number of complaints (and many companies don’t accept complaints, they accept comments) and the number of calls the bored, pressured and underpaid call center operators take every hour.
The distinction is important. The former ensures loyal, repeat customers. The latter ensures that I will tell everyone I can that BT, British Gas, O2 etc will treat you like a piece of dust (or worse, a number), and fill you with a deep, deep sense of despondency every time you have to ‘Press 2′ to speak to a customer service agent, especially when all you want is to find out where the seed potatoes you ordered a month ago are.
If anyone from these companies is reading this, don’t. You will miss the point. True customer service is incompatible with big business, this will never change.
Written by exmonkey on May 20th, 2007 with 2 comments.
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Apparently this yearly (or even every three years) ritual dates back to the Roman times, and Kent, being one of the oldest counties has been doing it a while.
More recently (1400 years ago) it has been hijacked by the church, and incorporated into Rogation week.
Historically, the purpose of Beatin the Bounds was to remind the people in the community of the extent of the parish. The parish boundary was marked by landmarks such and oak trees, ponds and carved stones. The Marden parish stones have an M on one side and an S on the other. This way you knpw which parish you’re sting in - Marden or Staplehurst.
Traditionally the procession would beat the stones with willow sticks for some reason. Also young boys in the group would have various unpleasantness visited upon them at notable markers, in order that they remember the locations. These torments may include; being thrown into a pond, being told to touch the marker stone and then having their finger twisted and being whipped with the willow sticks.
As the Marden boundary is 26miles long, the organized route was only a couple of miles.
Milo and I cunningly left our bike locked up at the end of the route, so were able to make a fast getaway before the rector started drumming up victims for the Rogation service at the church.
No children where whipped during the day, but Milo dropped his stick at one point, which was a bit upsetting for him.
Written by exmonkey on May 20th, 2007 with no comments.
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