Some Things Change

Some things are constant, wherever you are and bad customer service needs to be added to the traditional death and taxes. I got stuck on the platform at Wynyard station on Monday evening for about forty five minutes. Now I know why.

For those who can’t, or won’t, read the Sydney Morning Herald there were an unprecedented number of sick train drivers and a power fault. Combined they managed to bring chaos to the Sydney rail system and not a single train was on time. Which was nice.

I’ve had a few other customer service howlers over the last few days as well.

• The nice people at Optus have the worst customer service telephone system I have ever had the misfortune to use. On average I had to speak to three people before I got to talk to the person I needed, and this was over the course of four phone calls which should really only have been two. Of course, each new person I spoke to had no idea who I was or knew any of my details so I had to repeat myself ad nauseum.
• The nice people at direct line took next year’s car insurance directly from my credit card without authorisation. This despite the fact that I had sold the car and left the country. They have promised me a refund. I’m not holding my breath.
• At least I wasn’t as long on hold with them as I was with Demon Internet, who had charged me for ADSL use in November, despite having discontinued the service in September just before we left the country. When I finally got through the representative said that there was a note on my file saying that I was due a refund for over payment already. It hadn’t stopped them continuing my direct debit though. They too have promised my money back.

Sheesh. I’m not linking to any of the web sites for these organisations because frankly they don’t deserve it, and if I don’t get my money back I am going to be even more grumpy.

Whilst I’m sharing with the team, the other day I noticed that the Christmas decorations are up at Greenwood Plaza. That has to be at least a month early. Bah humbug.

On the plus side we do get to move into our new house next Monday. Which means that I may have a fat pipe at home by the end of the month. Then I can really go to town with the uploading of the photographs.