The Big City

Oooh I hate it when companies phone me up to sell me things, especially crap companies, especially when I’m trying to cook the tea. So I registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) and now I always complain when someone phones me. Here are some tips on how to complain successfully once you’ve registered and someone calls you.

• Get a pen and some paper, you need to write everything down. Start off with the date and time.
• Whatever the person asks you, say yes. You want to keep them on the phone as long as possible to get all the information you need for the complaint form. Be friendly, chatty and positive about what they’re selling. Get them hooked.
• Don’t confirm your name, address or phone number and don’t give them any real financial information. If you have to give them a credit card number to keep them hooked, make one up.
• At the point in the conversation where they ask for any of this vital data you need to gently start asking questions. Be careful, you don’t want to frighten them.
• Confirm the name of the company they are calling from, ask where they are based.
• If you have a computer nearby, Google the company name while you’re talking, or look them up on this list of registered companies. If you can’t find the name they gave you then you might need to be a bit more probing about who they’re working for.
• Try to get a contact telephone number, say that you’d like to call them back. If they give you a real one that’s brilliant because you can phone it to confirm any missing details.
• Ask them for the full address of the company they’re working for.
• Ask them for their name, including their surname. This is probably when they’ll hang up.
• If they’re still there try for some background information like the full name of their supervisor, what sort of database they got your number from, how many people are working in the call centre with them.
• Don’t be nasty to them, this may be the only job they could find, but you could ask them whether they’ve heard of the TPS and whether they know that their company is breaking the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations of 2003 by calling you.
• Finally, fill in the handy online complaint form at the TPS and give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done.

Since I’ve been complaining via the TPS I’ve had one very grovelling letter of apology from Satellite Direct UK who called me all the way from India to sell me insurance for a dish I would never dream of owning. I’ve got another complaint in the pipeline and I’m just about to make a third one about a company called UK Relations Ltd. of Hemel Hempstead who called me just now about something dodgy involving endowment mortgages. I hope I’m not going to start enjoying this, that would be just too sad.

My partner said she wanted Hair Straighteners for her birthday, which is on the 24 December, which is why she’s called Carol, by the way, spookily. Anyway, I was very uninterested in buying her such a prosaic present, until a friend versed in the black arts of beauty told me that I should get her some GHD hair straighteners. “They are,” she said, “definitely the best (others are clearly nowhere near!)”.

And so I had a look on the web and she was right. Google was excited by GHD and when Google’s excited, I’m excited. I got to work finding the best version and the best deal. It turns out there’s a new model coming out next year, the Mark 4, but some people are already selling it in a gift set with a fancy bag which also has other things in it including Obedience Cream. Obviously a good Christmas present. Yesterday I knew less than nothing about the subject, today I have a strong opinion.

So then I thought, “never mind the extra expense, I’ll support my local shops and save myself the stress of waiting for a delivery.” I phoned Sally Hair & Beauty Supplies which is very nearby. Maybe I’m absurdly optimistic, maybe I should know better by now. The woman there denied that there was a new model coming out, she had never heard of a gift set, in fact she sounded irritated by my questions. “What subject could be more boring,” she seemed to be thinking, “than hair straighteners. Get a life.”

OK. I admit I’m a nerd. Maybe I do over-research every purchase, but I find it so disappointing that nearly every time I talk to anyone in a real-world shop they know less about what I’m buying than I do. Where’s the passion, the enthusiasm? Come on, local shopkeepers! We want to help you but you need to give at least one hoot about what you’re overcharging us for.