2008 - a summary

It feels as if there's been a fair amount of 'moving' this year. Since Arti returned to Cambridge from Birmingham, we've moved back in together after a brief spell occupying Jon's spare room. We now rent a modern two-bed flat on Cromwell Road, which makes it easier to accommodate guests. As property prices are expected to drop in 2009 we're toying with the idea of buying a place of our own.

I'm really pleased to have given skiing another go, twenty-four years since I went to Bardonnechia on a school trip. I enjoyed the New Year's Austria trip (with Fred, K, Sveta, David Larkin, Jon and Anthony) so much that I persuaded Michael and Fred to hit the Three-Valleys slopes in April. I hope to squeeze in two skiing trips in 2009, one of them maybe in Canada or the US. Other holidays this year have been Tenerife for one week, where I was thrice thrashed on the Golf Del Sur course, and to India for a fortnight, where I was taught a lesson on the Jaypee course by Arti's uncle, Sunil. I have commandeered a couple of Jon's clubs and will make a New Year's resolution to visit the range once a week. I relish a new challenge and as I've stopped playing competitive table tennis, and because I've never played enough five-a-side football to get any good at it, acquiring basic golfing skills beyond pitch-and-putt at Cambridge Lakes may provide me with a suitable sporting goal for the upcoming year.

At work I've consolidated my role as product manager, leaving my original remit as test manager well and truly behind, although in practice I still have my finger lodged in a multitude of pies, which suits me. Despite approaching the size of a 'meduim-sized' company (reinforced by our new shiny office space) , we're still working hard to preserve the small-company culture, and it still feels like an exciting and dynamic workplace where anyone can make a difference.

I'm pleased to report that my B&Q bathroom saga is now put to bed for good, with a small yet psychologically important victory for me in the small claims court, although I don't believe that the trivial compensation judgement was sufficient enough to deter them from carrying on with their practice of appalling customer service in future. I would hereby appeal to everyone I know to avoid using B&Q as much as possible! As I now live next door to Ridgeon's, I've found it fairly easy to boycott them. It's a shame, as prior to this unfortunate saga I'd been an extremely loyal customer. As you will have gathered by now, they have really wound me up the wrong way and caused me stress that has taken years off my life expectancy. I've noticed a handful of grey hairs that I'm sure weren't there this time last year. Over the last eighteen months, I've been to the Magistrates Youth Court once (regarding the Midsummer Common assault) and the County Court twice (B&Q small claims hearings). I hope that I've now filled my quota and I can get on with my life in peace!

But all in all, 2008 has been a year with many new experiences and positives to put under my belt. Bring on 2009!

Dinner at Cotto's

Thierry came up from London to visit last weekend so Arti and I thought we'd go somewhere nice for dinner, ideally somewhere we hadn't been before. it was a Friday so it was speculative trying to get a table at short notice. The chap who took the phone at Alimentum practically laughed at the suggestion that they might have a table-for-three that evening. I was delighted that Cotto's had a table.

It turned out that they had a table near the eerie glow of the wine fridge, but no space to put the chairs, so the three of us ended up in a weird configuration, more or less facing the same way. The waitress was slightly apologetic but blamed me for booking late. I would have expected to have been warned on the phone that the table was 'problematic'. At least that would have set my expectations.

Anyway... the food was excellent so all is forgiven. £115 for three, which included a 3-course dinner at a fixed £30 a pop, plus a bottle of Merlot, two individual glasses of house red, and a coffee. Hotel Du Vin was a similar price just for two of us, so I'd say it's value for money, especially since Thierry and Arti coerced me to pay.

Would I go back? Yes - definitely, but I'll book well in advance.

Crossword clues I don't get

Please help!

Clues that I don't have the answer for:

• Times 24023: Child left men with lover reportedly (6). The letters I have so far are: _R_H_N so it looks like urchin or orphan, but I've no idea why.
• Times 24023: Gambling very little cuts the odds (5). _ _E_P ?
• Times 24023: Blow hard, enveloped in motorway exhaust (6). M_ _ _ A_

Answers I have that I just don't get:

• Times 24023 Clue: Stolen pet too upset when handed round (11)

Using a crossword solver I got the answer as "pussyfooted", but I can't work out why.

Samll Cryptic Crossword Milestone

Arti and I managed to complete our first complete cryptic crossword (Independent), which for me is a major milestone. I'm slightly better at working them out based on the clue whereas Arti has a knack for guessing based on the existing letters so we sort of complement each other. My goal now is to complete one by myself, but it's a long way off.

I'm slowly working through a Times Crossword compendium she got me last Christmas and it's still concerningly sparse with answers. The trouble is that even when I correctly guess some of the answers, I'm still not entirely sure how the clue relates to them.

Submitting my tax return take 2

For some reason it's asking me to fill in some fields:

Some fields have been prepopulated with information they already have, such as my date of birth. However, they've prepopulated it with a format which is not compatible with their own system so I'm forced to amend this myself:

The date entered for 'Date of birth' is in an incorrect format. Dates must be entered in the format dd/mm/yyyy. Please amend.
The date entered for 'Date of birth' must be on or after 01-01-1851. Please amend.

The message above demonstrates that this hasn't been properly tested. It's not great practice to use multiple date formats in the error messages.

Annoyingly the IR have changed the form again, so it has taken me a lot longer than I had hoped. I know they're trying to make it easier, but changing it every year doesn't help those who rely on using a template based on the the previous year's.

Anyway, I've filled it in and I owe the IR lots of money, mainly due to rental income for the house I own. I'd been doing repairs on it over the last few years which were offsettable expenses, but now that I'm doing much less, the tax bill is so much greater. Also, they seem to have introduced a payment "on account" scheme (see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sa/understand-statement.htm) whereby they take next year's tax in advance. They predict this based on what this year's tax was.

Anyway... I've put calender reminders in outlook to ensure I don't forget to pay like I did last year, as I'd rather not pay the £90 fine again. They craftily *don't* remind you as you get closer to the date. A cynic might think that they are hoping that you forget in order to administer the charge.

Just clicked "submit" and yes, you guess it...

Sorry the system is unavailable, please try again later or contact the Online Services Helpdesk.
Quoting Ref No: B6U4S7FPVR. Please select 'Next' to proceed.

A cynic might think that they want me to forget to submit it at all, which nets them a further £100 plus interest fine.

I'll try again next week.

11 November: same error. I call the help line, which is impressively open until 8pm and Siobhan says that they're aware of the problem and instructs me to delete my internet files and my cookies. I try again but it still doesn't work. Just to be sure, I try using FireFox instead of IE but it still doesn't work. She tells me that they haven't been given a timescale for a fix, but I should try again 'later'.

Stumbled across an Inland Revenue test webserver

Just tried to access their site again and I accidentally used a URL that has presumably since been decommissioned:

https://online.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/

The page that this takes you to simply has the text:

Hello testers you are in test portal This is the https port

Looks like they used externally facing servers for internal testing and forgot to take the site down.

HM Revenue & Customs Offine Services

It's a task I dread and like most of the population I procrastinate until the last minute.Filling in a tax return has to be one of the most tedious tasks. It seems an unnecessarily manual process in this modern day. PAYE works well. Why can't this be extended and avoid anyone filling in a separate tax return?

Having put it off for ages, I finally dedicate some weekend time to fill it in. It shouldn't be too difficult this year as I've learned from past experience that it really helps to keep my paperwork in order throughout the year. I'm so hoping that they haven't changed the format of the form this year. When they do it really throws me as I always base my new form on the previous year's. Anyway, I dig out my credentials and fire up the Inland Revenue tax return service login page (linked from http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/online/index.htm) only to get:

Online Service temporarily unavailable
This online service is currently unavailable.
Please check our Service Availability page for the latest information.
We endeavour to keep disruption to a minimum and apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Their online service is offline? I contemplate this contradition and despairingly follow the suggested "Service Availability" link, which takes me to a generic list enumerating all the possible problems to the entire gamet of inland revenue services. It's a long list. Annoyingly it hasn't taken me straight to the appropriate portion of the page so I have to scroll down to find the relevant entry:

Self Assessment (SA)
Services are unavailable for technical reasons. We expect services to be available as soon as possible.
Follow the Service issues link which details the current problems identified with this service and advice on how to self help where possible.

"Technical reasons" - that's useful to know. I now clearly understand fully why the service isn't up. "As soon as possible" isn't much better. Can't they even make an educated guess based on the mysterious technical reason? Hold on, there's yet another link, "Service issues". I'll try that.

Again, I just get a massive list of issues. This doesn't give me much confidence that my taxes are paying for the appropriate standard of software development and testing.

After a brief scan, it's clear that the small issue of their entire system being down isn't regarded as an 'issue' on this page. At least I've run out of links to visit so there's nothing more for me to do than to close the page and get on with my life.

Don't get me wrong. I really, really like the ability to submit my tax return online. It's much easier filling in an online form with the ability to go in and make amendments before submitting. I used to fill in the paper version with a pencil and only after I was happy with it, I'd trace over it with a biro, and then subsequently rub out the pencil. This was a right time-consuming pain, which I'm sure many others were also suffering. The online system is a lot more convenient. It's just that it would be nicer if it all worked just a little bit more smoothly. The root cause may be that the Inland Revenue isn't a business and therefore there is little incentive for them to provide great service. 'Adequate' or 'satisfactory' is good enough. How about privatising the collection of taxes, allowing competing companies to entice a share of tax payers to use their service. They could get a small fee for each submission, incentivising them to make their system as efficient as possible?

The birth and death of my golf swing

Cambridge Lakes (http://www.cambridgelakes.co.uk/) was my first introduction to golf. I'd played mini-golf before, but this hardly counts as the real experience, whereas 9-hole Pitch and Putt is pretty much like real golf without the initial long drive. Anyway, I didn't do too badly. A fellow student, Proty Wu, who I first met at Sussex, but who coincidentally also came to Cambridge as a postgraduate, taught me the basics. At least he showed me how to grip the club and why it was fashionable to wear a glove. I wasn't that bad. And because I knew nothing and he clearly knew something (his Dad owns a golf course in Taiwan) I just put my trust in him. I managed a score of 38 on my first ever round. I hit the green a handful of times off the tee, and frankly I felt let down by poor putting. I was understandably a tad disappointed when on the subsequent visits to Cambridge Lakes I notched up scores in the early 40s. It wasn't until half a dozen visits that I equalled my first score and gradually bettered it. Ten years later I was still improving with scores in the early 30s occurring with reassuring regularity. My best score is 30, just three over par. Surely it was now time to test my ability on a full sized course? I was good, wasn't I? My scores were very respectable. I simply assumed practice would make perfect.

So when the opportunity arose to head to Golf Del Sur (Tenerife - http://www.golfdelsur.net/) for a week in October, courtesy of Jon's parents' unused annual time-share slot, I jumped at it. Having never graced the professionally trimmed greens and lush fairways of a 'proper' course, I was naturally a little apprehensive and booked a half-hour lesson before our first 9-hole round. Under the scrutiny of the instructor I hit a few half-decent 9 irons, which more or less went where I expected them to. Sadly, it turns out that almost everything I had been doing was wrong.

1. It was recommended that I try the overlappong grip rather than the interlocking grip. I found this a little strange at first, but it turned out to be just as good, if not better, after a dozen strokes.
2. My left hand was holding the club in the ball of the palm rather than a light grip with the fingers. The 'tip' was to ensure that two of my left-hand knuckles should be visible during the preparation whilst leaning over the ball. I found that my bad technique was very engrained and extremely hard to 'undo'.
3. I was striking the ball with bent arms. I was advised to straighten them during contact.
4. I would snatch at the stroke, raising the club head rapidly, then bringly it down equally fast. The correct technique was to lift the club slowly whilst watching the ball. I found this hard, as I'd often 'top' the ball or scuff the ground and doing the faster up-and-down stroke overall was my way of minimising the total time of the swing and therefore the hope was that I'd hit the ball more consistently on the ball's sweet spot.
5. My natural swing merely stretched both my arms behind, rather than bending the arms and twisting the shoulders in order to bring the club head above my head. The logo on my glove should have been visible when the club head was at shoulder height. This was the most significant change for me as my previous swing was reliable due to the minimal number of simultaneous 'moving parts'. Now my elbow joints, shoulders and wrists had to somehow work in perfect synchronicity. They didn't. I must admit though, that although my old technique worked reasonably well for pitch and putt, it didn't generate distance, whereas the new one does, which is essential on a full-sized golf course. I'm slightly irked that no one pointed out this clanger to me years ago.
6. My stance was too straight. I should have been leaning over the ball more.
7. I was encouraged to follow through and let my right hip swing forward, and to keep the club above my head until the ball had landed and I had registered how successful the shot was. Interestingly I didn't get much feedback about raising my head, which I know I do. When obeying these listed points, it seemed that this didn't present a problem.

Interestingly the non-English-speaking caddy at the Jaypee course in New Delhi told me that my old swing was better than the new one, but I'm not sure he was a qualified coach so I think I'll disregard his advice. However, I have seen a number of amateurs who just raise the club to the right, without using all their available pivotable joints, and they seem to do fine. However, the pros all seem to adhere to the proper technique so I'll try to do the same.

So how did I do? I don't remember the exact scores but it was in the early 50s for the first nine, then a few strokes more on the second, and slightly worse on the third, which is pretty much how it happened when I first took up pitch and putt, but I guess I have to get worse to get better. And I meticulously stuck with the new technique that I'd learned, which I'm sure was at the expense of a handful of shots.

PlusNet Plusses and Minuses

Since I've had a experiences interacting with PlusNet, the broadband providers, I've decided to maintain a tally of positive and negative experiences with them to provide an overall customer satisfaction score.

PlusNets :)

1. It was easy to get through to customer service. Having tried to speak to a BT representative who had a clue how to help me, this was a positive.


2. They all sound very pleasant and helpful on the phone.


3. They don't tie you into a lengthy contract.
4. Very transparent. It is possible to track all actions relating to the account via their messages.
5. The broadband connection itself is fast and reliable, which is the opposite experience I had with NTL a few years ago.


6. They have 24/7 support.

MinusNets :(

1. I called their switchboard and asked to speak to 'Carl' only to be told that there wasn't anyone of that name in the company (there was).


2. I made the mistake of emailing them and assuming that my email would be read by the right people, but apparently not as is indicated (but not explained) in this response: "If you sent the telephone number by email unfortunately this will not have been received due to the fact that we do not take emails as a form of communication on accounts and there is no detail of this on this account".


3. Although I gave them a correct address (via postcode and house number), they somehow managed to end up with an incorrect address that missed off the apartment complex where I live ("Could you please contact us asap to let us know your full address due to the fact that we cannot match it in BT records. Thanks for your help."). I suspect that this may have been because their postcode-to-address database was out of date, but they never did apologise or try to explain what happened here.


4. They couldn't contact me to resolve the above issue, because they hadn't taken my phone number.


5. Although they didn't have my phone number, they *did* have my email address, because I had communicated to them with this before. However, they didn't think to use it. Instead they leave a message on their own 'member centre' which requires the user to log in. There is also a service that emails you whenever a message is posted however this apparently did not work.


6. Due to the problems above, the broadband line was delayed by about a week and they were powerless to do anything about it.


7. The date I was give for the broadband going 'live' was not adhered to. They blamed BT, although ironically BT owns PlusNet. However, as a customer I expect PlusNet to take responsibility for the problem.


8. I use an online feature to increase my download limit from 15GB to 30GB. They process this and mistakenly set me to the package that I was already on.


9. After pointing out the above error, they put me on the 30GB package, but at a higher rate than it should have been.


10. Although I point out the above and it is acknowledged as a mistake in the log, a week later PlusNet still manage to take the incorrect amount via Direct Debit. They assure me they have credited me this money ("Apologies for any inconvenience caused on looking into your account (...) this will not happen again.").
    

So using my unscientific method of comparing plusses and minuses, it's an overall minus score of -4. One thing that surprises me is that they are only casually apologetic about their errors and although they clearly try to put them right, I have never been offered any form of explanation or offer of compensation in acknowledgement of the stress and hassle suffered at my end.

Because of this, I can't yet recommend them, although they were recommended to me in the first place. I've heard good things about http://www.zen.co.uk/ and if PlusNet make a few too many mistakes, I might think about moving on.

I've since found this: http://www.petersblog.org/tag/plusnet. I'm pleased that a PlusNet employee found the blog and has taken measures to rectify the situation. The cynical view is that they were trying to recover a lost customer. In my case I'm still with PlusNet, but it won't take much for me to consider my options.

Dinner at the Hotel Du Vin

Hotel du Vin on Trumpington Street has been on our list of Cambridge restaurants to visit for some time now. It's been around for some time now and can probably be regarded as 'established' rather than 'new'. We had been planning to go ever since it opened but for various reasons hadn't quite got round to it. The more time that passed, the greater my expectations became. By now there was little doubt in my mind that we were about to experience delights comparable to Midsummer House.

It was reassuringly fully booked up between 7 and 9 pm, pretty impressive for a Tuesday evening, so we opted for an early 6:30 sitting. Although we didn't turn up early, we were the first customers to arrive and our entrance disrupted the pre-service pep talk. Settled at our table we were presented with a daunting wine list, a vertitable encyclopaedia of beverages fitting of the venue's name. As usual I let Arti decide. I'm really indicisive so I picked the colour and Arti did the rest and we quickly settled for what turned out to be decent Valpolicella. I started with a delicious seared pigeon with polenta, rocket and plum tomato whereas Arti ended up with a bizarre (disappointingly so) tuna carpaccio encrusted with various Indian herbs. I couldn't help but choose the rib-eye steak with garlic butter and pomme frites as my main, as it's rare (pun intended) to find a decent steak in Cambridge. Although it wasn't overdone, which is in the UK a feat in itself, it didn't blow me away and I quickly regretted not having opted for my first choice, the black bream with a plum tomato tart, olive and basil. Maybe next time. Arti enjoyed the venison and beetroot mash but didn't seem wholly enamoured with the sauce. Arti's extremely sweet sticky toffee pudding and my licorice-flavoured Mascarpone Mouse were ordinary, and very unusually for us we didn't clean our plates. I guess that the portions were a little too generous, but had they been truly breathtaking we would surely have made more of an effort. Overall it was a good meal, but given the upmarket feel and the prices to match (£100 for two, with one bottle of wine, plus 10% service charge), I was left ever so slightly disappointed, not because it wasn't good, but I just hoped it would be better. My fault really - had I not bigged it up in my mind, I'm sure I would have been quite content.

Tipping
A 10% service charge was added to the bill. Does this mean that the tip is already spoken for, or are they expecting a tip top up if the service deserves more? Confusingly, there was a space for a gratuity alongside the total on the credit card slip, which I imagine would be used if they enabled a tip to be optionally added before I confirm the amount on the hand-held credit card readers. I don't normally consider this 'problem' for long. Unless the quality of the service, food and general enjoyment of the evening is a disaster I generally don't give it a second thought and just go for 15%, give or take. So I'm wondering whether I need to leave an additional £5 on the table, which to a distant onlooker would look a big stingy? Or are they secretly hoping that I hadn't notice the build-in service charge and donate an additional £15? I opt to put five pound coins on the table, but eventually backtrack and return it to my wallet. Because they had confused me to the extent that I had put more far more thought into this than is sensible, I decide that although the service had been good, the food didn't match my expectations, so I figure that the £10 they had awarded themselves was more fitting. Maybe they knew it too.

Standard template answers to be used with care

Feedback is a tool

The software company I work for is very customer-driven. We acknowledge that without feedback from our users we wouldn't be able to develop products that are useful and usable in our market. Any customer comments, good and especially bad, is like gold dust to us. It helps us improve without having had to pay for consultants or schedule user-focus groups. For this reason, we have an internal system in place that encourages such feedback to be channeled through to the right people. Feedback can originate from sales, customer support, our online support forum or even ad-hoc feedback that we notice on public blogs and newsgroups. Product managers periodically collate this information and ensure that future versions of our product set address the pertinent problems, thereby improving the user experience in an evolutionary fashion.

Therefore, it always surprises me when I spend time giving feedback to various organisations I've interacted with only to get fobbed off with a standard (possibly automated) response. They're not interested in listening and improving - they just want to process my 'query' as quickly as possible and move on.

If you're going to run a support department with this policy, it may as well be done with a little tact. I recently raise a query with my ISP, PlusNet, querying the slow connection. It was almost certainly because I had reached my download limit and although I had opted to upgrade, this hadn't appeared to have kicked in. I wrote a polite query to this effect, and also added a concern with regards to the seemily incorrect monthly rate that it appeared I had been subscribed to (£20.99 instead of £19.99).

I don't know how PlusNet's support service works, but I got an extremely lengthly standard response detailing nine troubleshooting options I should try to troubleshoot speed issues. All I wanted was a simple confirmation that the speed issues were because the change hadn't kicked in, and how long this typically takes, along with an explanation of the monthly charge amount.

It wouldn't surprise me if there was an automated system that spotted "speed" in my query and fired it off automatically. More likely it was a tired support engineer who chose to skim the query without properly trying to understand the question. It's simply laziness and shoddy customer service.

As I had received a standard reply, clearly my specific question about the monthly rate hadn't been answered (or even read). Naturally I responded, repeating my question and drawing attention to this. By this time the connection speed issue had rectified itself so I didn't push this further. The simple reply (from a different support engineer this time) was:

"Thank you for your query. I can confirm that your usage was affected by the allowance being used up. I can also confirm that your Option 3 package will be £19.99 per month."

There was no apology for having fobbed me off the first time and there was no apology or explanation why my monthly rate had been incorrectly set to £20.99. They just rectified it and hoped I would go away. Which I did. I couldn't be bothered anymore.

Cambridge City Council

I wanted to pay my council tax by way of internet transfer. I sent a query to Cambridge City Council asking them why they weren't listed in the built-in council list in my bank's internet banking. Every other council under the sun seemed to be there. Why not them? Actually I had first mentioned this to be bank who explained that they merely post the account details for those councils who supply them. Cambridge City Council hadn't.

I also suggested to the council that they might consider publishing such important payment details on the back of their bill, alongside all the other methods of payment. The utility companies all do this now, and it's clearly the way forward now that internet banking is becoming the norm.

After twenty-one days without a response, I fire out another message politely asking whether I sent the original question to the right address. As it was getting close to the payment deadline I decided to do some detective work using Google and eventually found a page that described the appropriate bank account details: http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/ccm/content/benefits-and-council-tax/council-tax/how-to-pay-your-council-tax.en

I quickly sent an email to the council explaining that I'd solved my problem via the above URL, but I still stress that it would have been helpful if this information had also figured on the bill itself.

The response was short and missed the point. It simply listed the exact same account details that I had found myself. It didn't acknowledge my suggestion at all. I can't help myself and I reply (politely) to this effect. I haven't heard back.

Why don't they care? In the case of the council, why should they? They aren't competing with other councils to take my money - only they are entitled to it. If I don't pay, I get in trouble. It doesn't matter how hard I found the process, the responsibility is on my shoulders and there's little incentive for them to help me. It's the same reason why the tax return form is so confusing. It's not as if you can choose to submit your taxes elsewhere.

Conclusion

In both cases, what I would have expected is to not only receive an apology for the 'misunderstanding', but also to reassured me that they appreciate my feedback and would pass it on to the relevant person. Responding with standard templates without properly reading the query is a clear failure in customer service and having this brought to their attention at no cost should be encouraged by their internal systems, not dismissed. It is probable that such customer service departments have their performance measured on the number of calls that are processed, rather than the quality of the responses.

Also, they're going to fob me off, why not have the good sense to pretend that my feedback was helpful. That way I'm happy and so are they.

Validation Irritation

I try to pay all my bills via internet banking. It's fast and simple and involves the least effort, so why shouldn't I? I log onto my internet banking site, select the Make a Payment option, specify the amount and choose when the payment is to go through. So far so good. Now I have to choose if I want to Pay a Person or Make a Bill Payment. Again, an easy choice since I have an EDF Energy gas bill to pay, and I know from past experience that the latter option saves the user the tedious effort of typing in the account and sort code information. Computers are good at such mudane tasks. I fill in a search textfield and it quickly finds "EDF Energy", which I duly select. It just couldn't be easier. I fill in the Reference field with the account number found on the paper bill and click on the confirmation button. I hover my mouse over the spot where I know the logout button will appear in premature anticipation of getting back to my work after an efficient process. I silently thank the Internet and how easy it's made everything.

Hang on... what's this?

We are unable to validate the reference number you have entered for EDF Energy. Please enter your 13 numeric digit starting with 63 from your bill. Please check and re-enter your reference number.

Huh?

I check my bill. My account number starts with 53, not 63. What do I do? I click Back a few times and see if there's another "EDF Energy" option I should have picked, but there isn't. I try the same process in the hope that this was just a one-off warning. After a short while I give up. Luckily EDF's account number and sort code are printed on the reverse of the bill, unlike Cambridgeshire City Council council tax bills, which will be the topic of a later blog, so I have to run through the Pay a Person option, which of course doesn't try to be smarter than me.

I'm not dissing validation. A smart person or smart application will anticipate mistakes and graciously help out, but should it really be an enforcement, rather than a polite warning? Why not let me select the option "Yes, I know it's not the account number you expect but I am knowingly overriding your advice"? Putting in such restrictions simply means that it will break when they decide to allow a new set of numbers, but forget to update the validation settings with the banks.

Of course, it could be that I'm just special and I'm the only EDF Energy customer who has this unique '53' account number prefix? Whatever the reason behind this failed functionality is that it took longer for me to go via the route that was supposed to make my life easier than it was had the computer not tried to help me at all.

EDF's Green Customer Service

EDF Energy have sent me a new bill that has the wrong start date listed so hoping to set the record straight I called their customer service number. I've been on hold so long that I have managed to write this blog in the meantime. It's particularly annoying because the music, a rendition of "It's not that easy being green", is fairly quiet, but the female voice overlayed on top is really loud, so I get drawn in and rest the earpiece closer to the side of my head and am get a nasty shock each time I am reminded that all their advisers are busy. My theory is that they're making sure I don't nod off after waiting on hold for twenty minutes.

Anyway, in case you're curious, here's roughly how it goes, with my comments in square brackets. It's particularly annoying because it's a short loop so although listening to the music is painless the first time round, I can tell you that it doesn't stand the test of time.

It's Not That Easy Being Green...
[Come on! EDF is a company that makes money because people use energy. Let's not pretend that it's in your interests for your customers to use less energy, and that 'being green' is anything more than marketing spin]
Having to spend each day the colour of the leaves.

I AM SORRY ALL OUR ADVISORS ARE ALL VERY BUSY

When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold...
or something much more colourful like that.

YOUR CALL HAS MOVED UP THE QUEUE.

[note that they don't tell you how far up the queue you are, so this information is effectively useless. My theory is that it's just part of the recorded message, just to project a false sense of progress]

It's not easy being green.
It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things.

YOU HAVE NOT BEEN CHARGED FOR THIS CALL
[That's a relief. But will I get compensated for the time I spend with a phone in my hand?]

And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're
not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water
or stars in the sky.


WE ARE OPEN FROM 8AM TILL 8PM MONDAY TO FRIDAY...
[Not very helpful if no one picks up the phone]

But green's the colour of Spring.
And green can be cool and friendly-like.

...AND 8AM TILL 8PM ON SATURDAYS

And green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain,
or tall like a tree.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HOLD, YOU WILL BE CONNECTED AS SOON AS AN ADVISOR IS AVAILABLE.
[No, I wouldn't *like* to hold. It's not as if I've been given a choice.]

When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why?
Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful!
And I think it's what I want to be.

EDF must know that their support is always too busy, as all customer service operations measure their performance. I've called them a few times over the last few weeks and I've never got through without a lengthy wait. Why don't they provide a facility that allows me to leave my name and number so they can call me back when they are less busy? Or how about an email address I can write to? The only email address on their bill is one where you can comment on their customer service, not one to which you can actually write and get your query answered. And yes, I wrote to this email address last week and haven't even had an acknowledgement let alone a reply. Maybe their emails are responded to only when an advisor is available?

This experience clearly leaves me with negative opinion of EDF. At least they now recognise that I have an account with them. The first time I called they denied it, then they admitted it, then upon calling a few days later, they denied it again. It turns out that because the flat is part of a relatively new build, it isn't listed in their main system. That's helpful.

I got through in the end and it turns out that the date on the bill that didn't correspond to my moving in date was a deliberate mistake and didn't impact the amount charged. You might have thought that if bills were easier to interpret, they wouldn't get quite so many calls?

Update...
I got a phone call from Tristan at EDF in response to my email complaint. It wasn't the speediest of responses, but I'm very reassured that it came.. He was apologetic, courteous and made me feel as if he would actually made a difference, which is spot on customer service. I have been given his 'direct' extension, and he has pledged to chase up Accent Property, my letting agents, as well as to escalate my feedback on their dire on-hold phone system. Of course actions speak louder than words, so I'll wait and see before granting EDF a full redemption.

7 November
Emma copies me on a long email she has written to George Wimpey East Anglia's customer care assitant, who gives a blunt response passing the buck to someone else. I am starting to feel sympathy for Emma, who is clearly having a frustrating time trying to resolve a number of issues from all the Hampden Garden properties that Accent take care of. It's sort of comforting to know that there are other people with mislabelled gas meters who are chasing this up as well.

Update 13 November
Tristan leaves a voicemail to let me know he has contacted Emma from Accent Property and asking me to call him back.

Update 14th November
I call EDF but Tristan isn't at his desk and will call me back.

Saved from Icesave

A year or two ago all my friends and colleagues were moving their savings to Icesave and earning extremely competitive interest rates.

I didn't. Was this a smart and insightful move? I wish. I'm just lazy.

I procrastinate and I hate that about me. However, in this particular case I seem to have been rewarded. Setting up an Icesave account was on my list of things to do. Sadly, I'm not sure that reinforcing laziness as a virtue will benefit me in the long run. This time it was just a fortuitous accident. Although the government has now pledged to fully compensate all private depositors, which I believe is clearly the ethical thing to do, it must be hard on those to will no doubt have to wait months and go through red tape to recover their savings.

I really don't get the logic behind the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Why is there a £50,000 limit? I really don't see how it makes sense as a fixed amount rather than, say, a percentage. It will simply encourage depositors to open multiple accounts with different banks, which of course I've done. How does that help anyone? Why should one person with two bank accounts deserve more compensation than if they had just one bank account? In practice the government has pledged that depositors will not lose their savings, which makes me wonder why the £50,000 FCSC compensation guarantee exists at all.

B&Q made me blog

Why have I started a blog? And what has this got to do with B&Q? To fully understand, you'll have to read on and get the background.

I'm not an early adopter. I never have been. I was one of the last people I knew to get a mobile phone. Of course I have one now, but no doubt it will be a while before I bother getting a Blackberry or an iPhone. Likewise, everyone seemed to have a blog but me, but I knew I'd get there eventually. I knew it as soon as B&Q tormented me with the worst customer service imaginable. Well, I knew that some people had bad experiences in this area, as I'm a regular "Which?" magazine reader, but these things surely happen to other people, don't they? To be totally honest, I blame myself. Had I done a simple Google search with the search terms "B&Q" and "customer service" I would have found a plethora of rantings that would have convinced me to take my business elsewhere.

But I was lazy. I admit it. I suspect that this will be a recurring theme if I carry on this blogging thing. The DIY store was only down the road from me and I fell for the sales patter big time. I'm not going to get into details (not in my first blog, anyway) but needless to say that the bathroom wasn't finished anywhere close to when they said they would, the "Installation Service" was non-existent, and I felt that I had no option but to pursue legal action. I feel I must credit Cathy, whose blog inspired me to take my case to court (http://www.jog-blog.co.uk/?cat=3).

Of course I won. I knew I would. I also knew that I had to go through with it, even though the reality is that the awarded monetary compensation does not come close to making up for the stress of the whole experience. But at least I now have a sense of closure. Any other outcome would have left me feeling cheated by a large faceless company who at no time attempted to acknowledge their shortcomings and put effort into fulfilling their obligations. Sadly, I don't feel as if the outcome will change B&Q for the better. I believe that it's all about the money for such companies. They get business because they have a well-known name as a large DIY store, not as a result of an equivalent reputation as bathroom installers. I used to shop at their store regularly and have spent thousands of pounds over the years. Needless to say that I haven't been back since and I'll happily invest time recounting my experience with anyone who will put up with it. It's all part of the necessary healing process. The more people who know, the more I feel justice has been done. The one thing I can thank B&Q for is providing me the motivation for starting this blog.

If anyone else has had a similar experience with B&Q and would like to know how to go about taking it further, I'd be pleased to share my experiences further.