Large corporate monopolies

Customer service has evaporated from companies that hold any sort of monopoly.

I came to realise this in Liverpool Street station in London.

I had advanced booked 2 tickets from Liverpool Street station out to where I (thought I) needed to be. When I actually got to London I realised I needed to travel further. I went into the ticket office, handed them my confirmation print out and asked to upgrade the ticket.

I was told by the customer service guy that this ticket was for Malborough (No where near London) and I would have to buy the full ticket and dispute this with the booking agent. This took me back a bit and while I asked him to check the booking again his supervisor came out and told me this was my problem, buy the ticket. I asked if they had a contact number I could call since I booked through them, he swung the screen from the customer service rep round so hard it bounced off the partition between me and him and yelled “Your ticket is wrong, buy the f*ing ticket or get out of the ticket office”.

I took one look at the screen and saw they had mistyped my confirmation number. At this point the supervisor lost it, causing me to lose it, and the customer service rep joined in too. I just took my ticket and stormed out, and a very helpful conductor on the train helped me out.

All over the London transport system there are notices about how verbal abuse is still abuse. I don’t think the customer service supervisor got that memo though.

Normally with this level of service I would look into using and alternate providor, but if I want to get to where I am going I have to go through Liverpool Street station and have no choice but to use them. It just seems like now they are in, they just don’t care.

I wrote them a letter complaining.

On returning to the US I experienced the same thing, this time with the local Turnpike. I have an EZPass so I don’t have to stop for the tolls. As I came off the turnpike though someone cut me off and put me into EZPass lane that is for cash AND EZPass. I pull up and hand the guy the pass, he looked at it and said “This is out of state it doesn’t work”. EZPass works up and down the East coast. I explained that it worked twice earlier, once on a bridge and once to Enter the turnpike. He said “It doesn’t work” I am going to charge you the full cost of a lost ticket.

Now I start to lose it with him, I say “Sure, but can you give my your Name and ID number so when I write to complain about this I can be clear on what happened”, He said “Hell no, I’m not going to give you that, $15″ (the fee). I was totally taken a back by this, but as with big business, they arn’t going anywhere so why bother with customer service, and if I want to get from City to City without having to go through every small town, I have no choice but to use their service.

There needs to be some way to make these monopolied companies accountable. When they get 5 year deals to run single services they can not ignore customer service for the first 4 years and only try to be nice when up for renewal.

I think every public service run by companies like this should be forced to have at least 2 or 3 providors so we can have a choice and vote with our dollars.

Long Break

It’s been a long time since the last post, lots to put in here

Been on vacation to England, spent some time being touristy round London. I can highly recommend the London buses.

Every time I have been round London in the past I have used the Tube, while it is quick and simple it didn’t seem to go where I needed it to this trip. For £3 you can buy a ticket that runs you all day and you can see all the sights. The routes are easy, the map of the system is easy and the buses run every 5-6 minutes right though till about midnight.

On this trip I noticed the split in fashion from the US to UK. The fashion where I am in the US is all baggy non-fitting clothes. In London, especially with the women it is tighter clothes. I like the look, all the tight buts and low cut cleavege is very nice to see just wandering around town. In the evening though, some of the clothing got far more outrageous, some of it didn’t leave much to the imagination, but no one seemed to bat an eye at it. I was very happy to see it

Another observation from this trip is, for the first time since I left the country I really felt disconnected from the way of life. I really was a tourist. I didn’t quite have the right pub ettiquette, had to really think about the money and small things like that.

I was even disconnected from my family, I just didn’t fit in. They (My Mum, Dad and Brother) function as a single family unit which I just couldn’t seem to work out. Looking around it seems like a lot of families were the same way. I just seem to have made my family with my wife.

Now I am back I brought back the plague or something similar. Been sick and losing weight. According to the doc I am 15lbs lighter than I was a month ago. As a result I am trying the steel chastity belt again. It seems to fit a little looser but I don’t know if that is good or bad. I am going to try and get the wife to play some but I think she has caught what I have so that may not happen.

I have been looking at the Reinholds belt again. It is expensive with the current exchange rates, but still tempting. Where is a lottery win when you want one?