The increasing incompetence of companies

[Haggisman]

Great one today.

Used the Dartford Crossing on Sunday, with everything going on at home I completely forgot to pay the charge until this morning - fair enough, my bad, entirely my fault.

Log in to the system to see if there's the off chance I can still get away with making the payment.
Enter my reg. no., system finds the car and shows 2 outstanding crossings - excellent, maybe it's OK.
I follow through the process, explicitly say "No" to an option which asks if I want to add any credit for additional crossings, and pay the outstanding £5. Job done.

Except it's not. I don't get any email receipt, so I sign back in using the payment reference to check if it's gone through OK, and "Available credit: £5, no crossings have been allocated to this payment"

wtf

I've since called them multiple times and I'm getting a completely different answer every single time, everything from "it has been allocated to the crossings and here's a different payment reference" to "there are 2x £70 PCNs on the way and there is no way to get a refund at all"

How difficult is it to get a straight answer?! Needless to say I'm a bit a) ****** off (partially at myself) and b) stressed about the ~£250 bill potentially on the way for making the payment less than 36 hrs late (lease car, so probably a £50 admin charge for each PCN as well).

Yes, completely my fault for not paying on time, but what a joke of a response

Well, no refund or promised call back yet (quelle surprise ). It's past midnight the following day, so they'll be getting an invoice for my £70 consultancy fee in the post as previously advised

 

[Haggisman]

You're invoicing them for your time lost due to their carp system?

Of course

I advised them when I first contacted them that if I didn't get a refund by midnight the following day then I'd be invoicing them. Apparently they feel that's a reasonable timescale, so I don't see the problem

Even if I don't get a response, I'll at least waste their time. If it's costing me a couple of hundred £ then I'm going to get my money's worth. Assuming their call centre staff are on minimum wage then by my calculations they owe me 20+ hours.

 

[Haggisman]

Great one today.

Used the Dartford Crossing on Sunday, with everything going on at home I completely forgot to pay the charge until this morning - fair enough, my bad, entirely my fault.

Log in to the system to see if there's the off chance I can still get away with making the payment.
Enter my reg. no., system finds the car and shows 2 outstanding crossings - excellent, maybe it's OK.
I follow through the process, explicitly say "No" to an option which asks if I want to add any credit for additional crossings, and pay the outstanding £5. Job done.

Except it's not. I don't get any email receipt, so I sign back in using the payment reference to check if it's gone through OK, and "Available credit: £5, no crossings have been allocated to this payment"

wtf

I've since called them multiple times and I'm getting a completely different answer every single time, everything from "it has been allocated to the crossings and here's a different payment reference" to "there are 2x £70 PCNs on the way and there is no way to get a refund at all"

How difficult is it to get a straight answer?! Needless to say I'm a bit a) ****** off (partially at myself) and b) stressed about the ~£250 bill potentially on the way for making the payment less than 36 hrs late (lease car, so probably a £50 admin charge for each PCN as well).

Yes, completely my fault for not paying on time, but what a joke of a response

Heh, just had a call from my local MP's office, if I do get a PCN then they've asked me to forward them the details, along with my proof of payment, and they'll write to the Dart people on my behalf

However, so far no PCN details showing against my reg, and not heard anything from the lease company. The payment I made is still showing as credit against the vehicle with no allocated crossings.

No idea how long it should take though, is it the same as a traffic offence where they have only 14 days?

 

[Haggisman]

Got an email the other day - my enquiry has been closed apparently. Phoned them again, finally spoke to someone who sounded like they knew what they were doing and has (apparently) issued a refund for the orphaned payment. Still waiting for any PCN - apparently they are issued by 2 different companies, Dart tell this other company who then issue the invoice, so Dart tell me "it's going to be issued", the PCN company tell me they've had nothing from Dart, but it could be up to 6 months before it's issued

If they're so desperate for their payment that it has to be done within less than 48 hours, why do they drag their heels so much issuing the PCN

The woman I spoke to did say that for some reason they have a bit of a backlog of PCNs at the moment, she didn't really have an answer when I pointed out that just maybe that was an indication that their system wasn't fit for purpose.

However....

Today's fun is brought to you by Morrison's. Got my groceries delivered, and one of the items is wrong. It's not a substitution as I had an email saying there weren't any, so obviously the picker has grabbed the wrong thing (not the end of the world, cooked small prawns instead of raw king prawns, but not suitable for the intended use). Dropped their customer service an email and they clearly haven't read it, and just responded with a copy/paste from their FAQ, insisting that I must have received an email advising of the substitution and should have rejected it at the doorstep.

Yes, it's definitely a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but it's so very exhausting having to constantly waste time doing other people's jobs for them.

Edit: Oh yes, another one. I have a maintenance contract with my car with Autoserve, supposed to cover all MOTs and servicing for the duration of my lease, including a courtesy car or collection/delivery to/from the garage.

Called up last week to arrange my MOT and aforementioned courtesy car/collection: "we don't do that".

So why the **** am I paying you then?!

 

[Haggisman]

Why can nobody actually read and deal with things properly?!

This is the crux off it really isn't it? I get that sometimes people make mistakes or things go wrong, but it seems even the people who are supposed to sort those problems out are more interested in creating MORE problems

 

[Haggisman]

Great one today.

Used the Dartford Crossing on Sunday, with everything going on at home I completely forgot to pay the charge until this morning - fair enough, my bad, entirely my fault.

Log in to the system to see if there's the off chance I can still get away with making the payment.
Enter my reg. no., system finds the car and shows 2 outstanding crossings - excellent, maybe it's OK.
I follow through the process, explicitly say "No" to an option which asks if I want to add any credit for additional crossings, and pay the outstanding £5. Job done.

Except it's not. I don't get any email receipt, so I sign back in using the payment reference to check if it's gone through OK, and "Available credit: £5, no crossings have been allocated to this payment"

wtf

I've since called them multiple times and I'm getting a completely different answer every single time, everything from "it has been allocated to the crossings and here's a different payment reference" to "there are 2x £70 PCNs on the way and there is no way to get a refund at all"

How difficult is it to get a straight answer?! Needless to say I'm a bit a) ****** off (partially at myself) and b) stressed about the ~£250 bill potentially on the way for making the payment less than 36 hrs late (lease car, so probably a £50 admin charge for each PCN as well).

Yes, completely my fault for not paying on time, but what a joke of a response

I've still not had this PCN... it was apparently generated at the end of December, posted out 9th January, my lease company haven't had anything through, DART can't tell me any details because it's not in my name, so now need to wait until it is re-issued after 28 days, and hope it turns up this time. Utter jokers

Had yet another fun experience today; bought my partner a cardigan for Christmas, she wore it once and it's separated right at one of the seams, so we sent it back for an exchange.

The replacement arrived over the weekend, she's just opened it, and they've sent literally the same one back (it even still smells of her perfume!)... how do you mess that up?!

 

[Haggisman]

Is it still separated at the seams or did they they try and tape it up before returning

Haha, no, not even that

 

[Haggisman]

I've still not had this PCN... it was apparently generated at the end of December, posted out 9th January, my lease company haven't had anything through, DART can't tell me any details because it's not in my name, so now need to wait until it is re-issued after 28 days, and hope it turns up this time. Utter jokers

Still no progress on this.

Lease company still know nothing about it, but last time I spoke to Dart I managed to find out they've (apparently) sent out 3 reminders, it's now at over £100 per crossing, and getting sent to debt recovery.

Not sure who's at fault here, someone has obviously ****ed up somewhere, as I can understand one PCN getting lost in the post, but 3 seems unlikely!

Dart have seemed utterly incompetent every time I've spoken to them, whilst the lease company seem pretty on the ball. I've asked them to confirm the car is definitely registered to their correct address, but got a feeling I'm going to have a fight on my hands when it finally does come through to me

Will give them the monthly call next week to see if there are any further updates.

Logging all my calls etc. to them (almost 30 now), so they're going to be getting a massive bill if they decide to be **** about it (I'm thinking £20 a call seems reasonable ).

Got plenty of evidence I've tried to pay them and they've been deliberately obstructive, so fairly confident in the outcome if it comes to the point I need to go down the legal route if they start chasing me for stupid money (I've already told them I'm more than happy to pay the crossing amount plus a reasonable admin fee)

 

[Haggisman]

I would advise forget about calling. Just email them, this way you have documented evidence. And if they don't reply it makes your case stronger.

We have a communal water and it wasn't working. I have been firing emails to them with no response. I just resent the emails now. Going to take them to small claims soon, but I need to show they haven't responded. I only had one response and nothing more

There's no email address unfortunately, just an online form, which based on my experience I can only assume gets sent to an unmonitored mailbox and automatically closed after a couple of weeks

 

[Haggisman]

Yeah, I'm thinking this might the only way to give them a kick up the ****

 

[Haggisman]

I live in the building/area where I live not because of some sort of roots in this area, but because it's close to work, is "nice" and is something that I can afford.

One day I might change jobs, and might decide that I want to live somewhere else that's closer to that work.

I'm also renting, and one day the landlord might decide that they want to put the price and I'll have to move.
Or maybe I decide to buy a place - and therefore need to move.

Even when I buy a place... there's no guarantee that I'll live long term there in case I need to move for work for example.



Take the above story - and it probably applies to many people.

We live in a very different world now - people don't stay in a single job their whole life; people don't spend their whole life with their first girlfriend/boyfriend who they met at the age of 14; people don't go into their family's line of work.

The old/nostalgic idea of "community" simply doesn't apply in the same way to the modern world.

You've pretty much just proved his point. Just because you have no "roots" in the area, and may move away at some point, doesn't stop you from being part of the community, getting to know your neighbours and other people around.

It seems very strange to decide you don't want to get to know people just because you might not be there forever.

It seems to be a very British thing (or at least a Southern English thing), maybe something to do with being an island? Whenever I've been to various countries on the continent I've had a far warmer interactions from "strangers".

Edit: just seen your location. Says it all really. London is a vile place for any kind of human interaction, everyone seems dead inside, and look as if they want to kill you if you so much as dare to make eye contact

 

[Haggisman]

That right there is proof of why "community" is failing in the UK - multi-culturalism, that's your culprit.

You sure it's not down to people (regardless of their culture) refusing to integrate into their community because they might not live in the same place forever?

 

[Haggisman]

There are multiple factors at play here.

However, you shouldn't hail the lack of integration of one ethnic group as a positive thing.

I'm not sure "Londoners" count as an ethnic group...

Who in the thread has hailed it as a positive thing? Your obvious prejudice is making you seeing things which aren't even there

Do you not see the irony of complaining about people refusing to integrate, whilst yourself refusing to integrate?

Anyway, this is going way off topic!

There is always an email address for a company.
Phone them up or look on their website. I once got an email address emailing the site admin using who is.
There is always an email you just need to look for it.
The online form does it send you an email after you filled it in.

Discover thousands of collaborative articles on 2500+ skills

Discover 100 collaborative articles on domains such as Marketing, Public Administration, and Healthcare. Our expertly curated collection combines AI-generated content with insights and advice from industry experts, providing you with unique perspectives and up-to-date information on many skills...

www.linkedin.com

There's nothing on the website except for the online form, I do have a couple of (automated) emails from them, I'll see if any of those actually go somewhere when I get a chance to go on the pc

 

[Haggisman]

Dart finally sent the PCNs through to me, only close to a full 7 months later.

Sum total of £5 since it was my first crossing (and following this debacle, certainly the last! ).

No idea why they couldn't just use the £5 I originally paid them 2 days after crossing, god knows how many hours of people's time wasted because nobody has the capacity to actually use their brain, and instead just blindly follow "the process" because "computer says no"