Sam vs All – The results
People sometimes ask me “hey Sam, did you ever get a result from any of the consumer queries you sent?” because, clearly, they know I am the consumer champion for the modern generation. So without further ado, I give you the results. Prepare your mindbossoms to be underwhelmed!
First off I took on Orange because I was stupid enough to buy a shit iPhone wannabe instead of the official overpriced handset that actually does what it says on the box without freezing every 20 seconds while it ponders whether you’d actually meant to press the letter D when you pressed the letter D. Tied into a 2 year sentence with no chance of parole I opted to play the customer loyalty approach to see where it got me. The short answer is, nowhere. I even approached some Daily Mail reading Watchdog viewers for their feedback on my dilemma (okay, so I was traffic whoring, sue me) and it turns out that they have no sense of humour.
Humiliated and dejected the score is Consumer Champion 0, Big Business 1.
Say hello to Nicky Campbell. Burn in hell Nicky Campbell.
After failing to gain any headway with Orange I also took supermarketry goliath Tesco to task for their failure to stock Marlboro in 20s at one of their branches. I wrote them a very polite letter highlighting that the modern committed smoker enjoys more than 10 cigarettes in a packet, particularly if that packet is the shining edifice off smoking nirvana that is man Marlboro.
Initially I was disappointed as, having written an actual letter to the sales and marketing team at Tesco I received no response, and chalked this one up to a loss while being ignored. However this was not the case. Whether by coincidence or not I noticed around a month later that the Tesco store in question had started stocking man Marlboro in 20s. Certainly it was a pity that I had quit smoking by that point, but I fell off the wagon in order to thank them for their far-sightedness.
Taking it as a win, even though it could be a coincidence, Consumer Champion 1, Big Business 1.
Next I moved onto the world of male grooming, specifically the bunny shaving Best A Man Can Get Gillette Corporation to berate them for their near constant relabelling of their deoderant. This is another company who did not spare the time to respond to my query, however it may be that they were simply unsure of what I wanted as I spent most of the mail picking holes in their relentless charge toward fitting razors with infinite vibrating blades. Or it could be that they’re French, and were on strike.
Consumer Champion 1, Big Business 2.
Despite describing Gillette The Best A Man Can Get as French they yare in fact part of the all conquering illuminati of the cosmetics industry, Protor and Gamble, and as a follow-up I gambled on getting a response from their suppliers of hair regimentation pastes, Shockwaves. The issue here was that they’d changed the colour of the packaging a dozen times in 2 years and as such I was finding it increasingly difficult to track down my preferred vertical hair product. Evidently they were in a product marketing meeting of some kind to decide the new colour of the packaging, as nobody got back to me.
Consumer Champion 1, Big Business 3.
Having challenged the cosmetic industries of the male grooming movement I next moved on to the fashion side of the equation writing to high street department store for the masses, Debenhams to enquire as to the quality control safeguards in place vis a vis the attachment of buttons to shirts. Thrillingly, they got back to me. Not only with a response to my query, but also using a tone that was very similar to my own. This, I felt, was worth saluting, so I wrote them a very nice letter of thanks. They took my query seriously and replied to me. At the time I thought nothing of this and believed that steps would be taken to rectify the shoddy fashion in which their Mantaray brand affix buttons to shirts, however in retrospect I realise they had simply given me an “I’ll look into this for you” response – a response that I myself have employed on many hundreds of occasions and translates loosely as “yes yes, I’ll tell someone loosely related to your query about your issues but when it comes down to it nothing will happen, now, please leave me alone.”
This realisation came about shortly after I recently purchased a pair of splendid new Mantaray man trousers which this season come with a two button fly, both of which have since fallen off.
Consumer Champion 1, Big Business 4
For my next trick I took the makers of Oven Pride to the verbal cleaners with a rapidly written sarcasm laced little something that I hoped would get their attention. I got a reply, but it wasn’t worth printing since it was a copy and paste “we’re sorry you didn’t like our campaign, it was supposed to be humorous”. Assholes.
Consumer Champion 1, Big Business 5
Perhaps unrelated to this quest for consumer justice I had also written to another mobile phone company in a bid to secure, nay blag, a selection of telephonic splendour for my brood of children. I categorise this slightly differently as these chaps had do nothing wrong and I was simply trying to exploit my children for personal gain. This is after all what we have children for. The premise was a simple one, I have triplets who require a phone each, your company is called Three… join the dots bitches! As it happens, the bitches in question did join the dots and two weeks later I was phoned by a very nice man from Three who was calling me to help with my mobile. After an hour of explaining to 4 different people why it was they were calling me the penny finally dropped and they looked at the note on the call they’d sent out which explained everything. They were offering me 3 phones for free with the contract rate knocked down by £5 per month for each phone.
I’d asked for pay as you go, they offered me contracts the sly old dogs. Still, I felt that I was winning in this particular deal so signed up. To cut a long story short, there then followed rather a lot of mucking around and them not sending me what they said they would, so I phoned them back and cancelled the whole thing.
The silver lining to this particular cloud, however was that they refunded me the signup charges I hadn’t paid, so I ended up £4.50 better off. Although I did have to DHL the phones back which cost me £15. I’m calling it a win anyway.
Consumer Champion 2, Big Business 5
My foray into consumer activism took a different tilt as I wrote to the Go Compare people to explain that while their brand’s ass was being comprehensively kicked by a sock puppet that says “simples” every 10 seconds it didn’t forgive the hateful bastard they used to advertise their wares. They didn’t reply. Mind you I wouldn’t have either, as this was not one of the more charming missives I had sent. That said, it was just as effective as the polite and jovial approach I had used on the likes of Gillette and Shockwaves.
Consumer Champion 2, Big Business 6
The last outing of the Consumer Champion was to the offices of Philip Morris, tobacco overlord and purveyor of Marlboro cigarettes. This time I was on a mission of mercy and had simply written to them to thank them for their product. I felt that with all the bad news surrounding what is a highly enjoyable leisure experience (at least until you hack up a lung) someone should show them some love, and since I had recently quit (blame Tesco for me starting again) I felt it was a good way to say goodbye, or as it turned out “see you later”. Whether the Philip Morris customer service people (who are far from easy to find an address for) are apprehensive about people being nice to them, or whether they’re simply ignorant is unclear. Either way, they didn’t get back to me.
Consumer Champion 2, Big Business 7
That concludes this first batch of championing. I have more to come however, and you’ll be seeing those soon enough.
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