Samsung Washing Machine - Give me my powder!

Dear Samsung,



It has come to my attention just how poo you really are. With all your bravado about technology and innovation, you’ve forgotten about the everyday somebody. You know….people…humans…ohhh forget about it. Too busy playing with machines to realise that humans still run this world. Anywho if we roll the clock back to June where I still thought your organisation was reputable, I was on the hunt for a new washing machine, and low and behold I found one, a Samsung one, with what seemed like a tacky yet decent deal. Buy now and receive 16kgs of washing powder. 16kgs I thought to myself, that could help me wash my elephant sized underpants or all the dirty cloths in Nepal.



So I bought it! And thought great. Now all I have to do is wait for washing powder to roll in. Wrong. After having to put together as much information as was gathered in the Spanish inquisition and sent off for my white gold, you can imagine how greatly disappointed I was to receive a letter back from “The Team at Samsung” – which sounds like the start of a joke…how many Samsung employees does it take to write a rejection letter?! – The letter ridiculously stated that my claim was an invalid! How would you know?! My claim is not an invalid! It’s a piece of paper. A clean white sheet made from the nicest of trees, a picture of virility and health. It doesn’t get around in a wheelchair…and it doesn’t get the front car spot at the supermarket. Beside the point, you knocked back my application for the powder as you received my application 3 days late. 3 days. Yes 3 days…explain yourself.



Instead of a nice letter stating – “unfortunately we are quite sorry that your were not able to gather as much evidence as is required in a murder trial yet still get your claim in on time” the letter from your “team” read “your claim is invalid” – huh. You would think that with a “team” of writers at Samsung you could produce a nicer letter…If I were you I’d look into that team, they might be a bit like Real Madrid where they are too busy worrying about what their hair looks like to remember who they’re playing for.



So as a curious customer I called the 1800 number to find out more. I left a message and was promised that I would be called back. Do you think I was called back?! Nuh. The Samsung Call Back Team must have been too busy stroking their machines to notice mere humans calling. Oh well. I suppose I will have to tweet and blog on just how crap you are…and if you lose just one customer out of all my effort it will be worth it.



Shame on you Samsung!

Woolworths Wish Card response

Bagerk got this response back:

Hi Bagerk,

I am writing in response to correspondence you submitted
via the Everyday Gift Cards website on Monday 31st May 2010 in regards to your
damaged WISH Gift Card.

Our Supermarkets and BIG W stores have procedures in
place to redeem funds from your card manually, or to transfer the balance of
your damaged card to a new card.

A replacement card will be posted to you in the mail
today.

I apologise for the inconvenience caused.

Regards

Rebecca Wicks

Group Financial Services

Woolworths Wish Card complaint

Here's a complaint that my good buddy Bagerk sent to Woolworths' Wish Card bunch:

To the customer service experts at Wish Card.

I received a gift card with the number inserted in the field above on it.
This made me think I had to go get a slab from Dan Murphy's. I attended the Dan
Murphy's in the Thrift Park Shopping centre in Parkdale. I acquired a most
excellent slab of Crownies which coincidentally were only a few more dollars
than a slab of Carlton Drafts and such great value I couldn't resist. I carried
the dam heavy box up to the counter to make my golden bottle purchase, this
however when I started to hate your organisations. I could only WISH that the
voucher Card would work.

The lady at the register informed me that she would scratch of the sticky
blob over the pin number for me which I thought was great especially when she
informed me she hated the new sticky blob over the number because it was
difficult to remove compared to what you used to cover the number with.. After
oh about 1 minute she managed to get to the stage where she swiped the card and
it didn't work invalid pin, I suggested she may not have scraped of all the
gloop and she hadn't which was great because now I can get my beer .. Or so you
would think right.. She scratched of the gloop revealed the extra hidden number
and lo and behold no more pin number issue.. But this is when it starts to get
really annoying..

The comment on the hand held banking facility at the register then began
stating Contact Bank which I thought was most frustrating as it wasn't even a
bank card I had presented, I mean it didn't even look like the anz cards that
sit next to it in my wallet, all this naturally was very embarrassing standing
at the register with all the other soon to be drunk people milling around beside
me.

The attendant tried 3x and said I would have to call the provider of the card
(good thing she didn't say bank ay) I insisted on giving it a try with my magic
swipe skills, amazingly it didn't work..

I had to pay cash for my slab of wonderfully priced crownies which was most
disappointing! It did however let everyone proceed further in the queue and get
that small distance closer to drunken bliss.

End result I'm out of pocket and was advised by the attendant she could do
nothing, that I was to contact wish card to "have the expiry investigated as you
could extend the expiry date, she felt that the date written on it was not
correct, that they had had the card for ages and then just written the wrong
date on it before sending it to me". Now let me add..This was a gift from a well
respected member of the community a manager of a large and reputable firm.. I
would even hazard a guess that he in turn obtained the voucher card from his dad
who is in turn a very established manager at the director type level and
needless to say I'm sure neither of them would appreciate the slur or even the
hint of the slur on a card they provided.. So anyway needless is to say I went
off and cracked me one of those crownies post haste!

The saga continues unfortunately today I called the 1300 665 249 number that
is written on the card falsely assuming I could talk to someone about this
problem. I did confirm the amount was still valid and correct ($30) and the
expiry date is as was written on the card 24/05/11 and thus all is well and my
associates are not in fact fraudulent cheep shysters.

The automatic service alas had no option to talk to a person nor did it offer
me any way of obtaining a phone number of someone to talk to. I would love to
resolve this sordid mess and dismally all results thus far are leading me to the
conclusion you would like to wish me well but wish me away all in the one swoop
of your terminating automated non message system. You really couldn't annoy me
more so far..

I'm left believing you couldn't give a stuff if I have a good "wish card
experience", basically I'm getting screwed royally by your Corporations
inability to service your clients to this point.

Perhaps you would like to issue me, send me, a new gift card and include some
extra value on it for the waisted time and embarrassment I have experience so
far?

In addition to that can you please advise why I should have to go through
this ridicules process and inevitably end up with a drinking problem due to the
fact ill now have to go buy another slab when all of this is resolved. and well
we all know if there's a beer in the fridge when you get home it's going to get
drunk and one leads to the next and then your asleep on the couch .. This will
only be made worse by you making me go and buy another one.

I WISH my experience was better.

Regards

Bagerk

Hungry Jack's, 29 April 2010

Here's one that I just fired off to Hungry Jack's:

To whom it may concern.

This is not your usual complaint. For starters, I really must point out that I don't eat at Hungry Jack's very often, but you know, sometimes, I do get a craving for one of your delicious Bacon Deluxes, topped off with beetroot, tomato sauce and onion to boot.

Why you don't pack in these ingredients as standard, I'll never know.

But it's here where my complaint starts.

Incidentally, I love the way that I can order amendments to your standard burgers. I love the way that I can order “minus gherkins” if I want, or “heavy lettuce” or “light mayo”. I have asked for “heavy all condiments” on at least one occasion, although I should point out that I have to be pretty hungry to do this. (I also should point out that I don't abuse this privilege)

(I've also heard, although you might be able to confirm for me if it's an urban myth or not, that some can order “heavy heavy this” or “light light that”. The mind wonders, really, what kind of idiot wouldn't just ask for that ingredient to be removed if they want “light light” something. Weird.)

And I can have my burger cut in half too. I like that. Stick a corkscrew in my side and call me twisted, but the standard burgers are not for me.

So on to my complaint.

If I normally go out to buy my specially prepared Bacon Deluxe, with beetroot, tomato sauce and onion, I will normally get it from one of your Melbourne city stores. Most likely the one on the corner of Russell and Bourke Streets, but sometimes the one on the corner of La Trobe and Swanston. And before long, I'll be sitting in a booth, munching on one of these little bundles of joy in rapture as the fat from two meat slabs and two slices of lovely melted cheese mixes with the tomato sauce and the mayo and, if I don't hold it correctly, dribbles down my arm like a pink rivulet that makes my arms slimy. I love this, although during the working week I have to be extra specially careful, because I wear a suit.

I really must re-iterate that I don't go to Hungry Jack's very often. Maybe only once or twice a month and, I'm sure that you understand that this is because I regard it as a bit of a fatty treat. As I'm sure you would also understand, 37g of fat is not something I could possibly go for regularly. It's outrageous, and you really should put enormous warning signs up so the bogans who eat there everyday don't end up having a cardiac arrest as a result of attempting to sweat pure fat through their pores.

That's not my complaint, though, as an educated person such as myself would ordinarily like to tell these suburban yobbos to effing well wake up to themselves and get better educated about a good diet and lose those stupid undie-revealing jeans in the process. They probably think that having 'Calvin Klein' visible makes them look classy. I think not.

So obviously, my burger is not something I have on a frequent basis. No offence intended if you personally like to wear jeans halfway down your arse with your Calvin Klein waistband visible for the world to see.

But here's the complaint: I can't get my burger out in the suburbs. Or at least, not how I want it.

This is a typical conversation that I had the other day with one of your cashiers in one of your suburban stores. I was in either your Eltham one or your Burwood one – I can't remember which. The cashier was a nice young blonde girl who simply must have been over eighteen or I couldn't possibly have noticed what a fetching example of feminine pulchritude she was:

Cashier: “Good evening, may I take your order?”

Me: “Yes, could I have a Bacon Deluxe and a medium Coke, but can I also have beetroot, tomato sauce and onion on my burger?”

Cashier: “Would you like that in a value meal with fries?”

Me: “No thank you. Fries give me indigestion, but thank you for proactively assuming that I had forgotten to order something just because I didn't ask for it. You should consider a job in banking when you get older.”

The cashier keyed it in. I noticed – as I always seem to do in the suburban stores, that she'd rung up “Heavy Beetroot”, “Heavy Ketchup” and “Heavy Onion”. I brought this up.

Me: “Excuse me, but I noticed that you rang up “heavy” beetroot, ketchup and onion. If it's OK with you, I just want “normal” beetroot, ketchup and onion.”

Cashier: “I'm sorry, but our cash registers only allow us to record these this way.”

I'd like to digress for a moment to say this is pretty weak. How come you don't have this problem with your city cash registers? But I'll get back to the conversation.

Me: “But I just want normal beetroot, ketchup and onion. Won't they now make it with twice as much?

Cashier: “I'll go round and make sure that they just put normal amounts on.”

She was a sweet young thing. But really, she shouldn't have to have done this, if her cash register was up to the task in the first place. She came back and engaged me in conversation.

Cashier: “You know, you're getting extra value with the extra ingredients. We don't charge extra for those ones, you know.”

Me: “I know, but I don't want these to overpower the rest of the burger. I really like the ingredients in normal quantities.”

Cashier: “I suppose that you probably get enough ingredients anyway with a Bacon Deluxe. I like to have a little extra lettuce myself when I order a burger.”

Me: “It's probably because there's already extra meat and cheese already in a Bacon Deluxe. How much meat do you usually stuff into your burger?”

She turned away at this point to get my burger which was ready and put it on a tray with my Coke and I didn't get to find out her answer to this. I'm sure that her sudden attack of the giggles is a reflection of a fun workplace, and I commend you on keeping your staff morale so high. I do think however that some older Australians might regard the fit of hysterical shrieking that followed from her colleagues after I sat down at a table to be a little bit too jovial and perhaps a bit undignified. You know how they like to unfairly generalise about youngsters and drugs.

Anyway, I suppose I should finish up with the obvious question: When are you going to get the cash registers fixed in your suburban stores so that I can have the burger I want without all that mucking around?

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Dikkii.

PS: Is it possible for me to order my burger with bacon and onion fried in your deep fat fryers? Not that there's anything wrong with raw onion, but microwaved bacon is slightly wrong.

I wonder if I'll get a response?

Sam Kekovich - Grand Final Day Rant - For Australia Day

This was a speech Sam Kekovich gave before the 2008 Grand Final, but it can apply to anything where the corporate arseholes who have no interest in the sport get priority ticket allocations and the poor mug who buys a membership to the club and goes to every game gets shafted

Centre Square was a $1900 a ticket event just across the road from the MCG.

My fellow Australians.

I've been invited here to talk to Centre Square, in these big marquees on Punt Road Oval. And speaking of Punt Road Oval, let me tell you something for nothing - Jack Dyer would be spinning in his grave if he could see the place right now. Full of a bunch of Collins Street corporate criminals, Chapel Street designer cats and Toorak poodle rooters who have about as much interest in football as Paris Hilton has
an interest in astrophysics.

Captain Blood didn't break every bone in his body and commit multiple acts of on-field heroism and homicide so he could see his beloved home ground turned into an over-priced pre-match party for chardonnay-swilling spivs and their assorted hangers-on attending their one footy match of the year, whilst tens of thousands of hard-working honest battlers who love the game and love their team are denied the chance to attend the greatest game in the world.

I've had a gutful. Whilst this bunch of Armani-wearing, Audi-driving, Prada-carrying try-hards monopolise priceless vantage points in the MCG, millions of genuine footy fans who have followed their team through thick and thin have to make do by watching the game at home or down at the local pub, whilst the Melbourne spivocracy get to sit on their fat posteriors in a marquee and wouldn't even know the way to the MCG without a tour guide.

Since most of you haven't attended a single match this year and know nothing about football, let me give you a few tips - Geelong wears blue, Hawthorn wears brown, and in case you were wondering, there'll be no fashions on the field at half-time, and no, the Lexus Centre across the road is not a prestige car dealership.

Centre Square is not only unfair. Centre Square is not only inequitable. Centre Square is downright un-Australian! And so are all of you! In fact, I bet you're all so un-Australian that you all hate the Anzacs, you booed Cathy Freeman, and you want to cull cute cuddly koalas because one of them once jumped out in front of your Range Rover on the way to Mount Hotham.

But it's not just you who are at fault. I also blame the AFL - those out-of-touch, opera-loving elitists at AFL headquarters who are responsible for this unconscionable abomination need to take a good hard look in the mirror. That is if they can handle the sight of moral and spiritual bankruptcy staring back at them.

I also blame the government. Our new Prime Minister has clearly failed his first test of leadership if he thinks it's acceptable to allow an event like this to go ahead without a pre-emptive strike by the SAS. The PM is doing nothing to ease the squeeze on working families on the bottom rung of the ladder of opportunity who just want to see their team in the Granny. But he'd better get his act together and do something
about it, or millions of angry footy fans will do it for him. Revolutions have been started and governments have been overthrown for lesser outrages than this. And people ask why we need capital punishment.

So cut off your silver tails, tear up your fur coats and get fair dinkum. Our great Australian game is the greatest game in the world - the game of the people. Not some once-a-year marquee piss-up for an overpaid, over-dressed pack of passionless corporate cretins who only turn up for the free chardonnay and then spend the actual game looking about as interested and excited as a line of Easter Island statues.

So don't bother coming across to the MCG this afternoon, because you're not welcome. The next train out of Melbourne leaves Richmond station in 10 minutes - so make sure you're on it. Or, better still, under it.

So don't be un-Australian - everyone here in Centre Square can get
stuffed! You know it makes sense. I'm Sam Kekovich.

Nestle - Less is Less! - Mixed lollies...yeah right!

Dear Whoever,

I recently purchased a packet of you Allen’s “Party Mix” and I just wanted to give you some consumer feedback.

My first comment is around your definition of the word “Mix”. I suppose mix means an assortment to most people, but at Allen’s it means Bananas, Strawberry Creams and Jelly Babies. Perhaps in future you should call them “Allen’s Party Trio”, with the tag line “99% Fun Free”. I suppose you aim the product at children, who perhaps don’t care about what their lollies look like and are just as happy to eat turd shaped lollies, but for me it’s a swift kick in the face to think Allen’s is trying to pass off 3 kinds of lollies as multiple kinds in a “mix” bag.

I know what your response will be…”the machine packs each bag randomly…” but the simple fact is…I don’t care. If you are having trouble with the randomness of your selections, perhaps you should borrow an Infinite Improbability Drive like the one on the space ship “Heart of Gold”. I’m sure Zaphod Beeblebrox won’t mind lending it to you!

My second problem is with your “Instant Prize” competition. The idea of a competition is the undeniable chance to “compete”. Unfortunately due to the severe lack of instruction, one cannot partake in such competition. You competition is like putting Usain Bolt on a oval with no lines and asking him to “win”….bloody win what?! I dunno….read the instructions….what instructions…ohhh the really vague ones that don’t actually help….mmmm…they’re the ones.

Entering my “unique code”….There is no such thing on this packet. Click on “where to find unique code = it’s on the inside of the packet….I give you the mail…it’s not! Stupid competition, from a stupid company.

That is all.

Myki

To whom it may concern or that idiot Lynne Kosky,What a pathetic system this is. One and a half bilion dollars or whatever it is that you have spent and the website doesn't even work properly. From the time I logged on (Which took several attempts over 2 days) it took me over 1 hour to get to this point after finally getting my details in for a card. 1 HOUR!!!!! And even then I put in my details and does not give you an option to choose Street/Road etc. Honestly, I cannot see why there is such a delay on this site and if it is going to take this long each time I need to log on and "top up" i cant see how this will work. What an absolute debacle/fiasco/shambles/calamity and any other word you can think of which describes the extent of my misfortune in accessing this site and my tax dollars wasting away. However, credit where credit is due. Well done on your contract where you managed to get a bonus for being 3 years overdue and a billion dollars over budget. Outsatnding.