Your starter for 10: When transferring the capital from a matured TESSA to a TOISA does the entire capital have to be transferred or can some be kept back?
Your bonus: Why is it so bloody difficult to get through to Intelligent Finance on the phone? Don't they want any business?
In message , Emas Refugee writes
no
Yes. Youve got six months.
No idea.
Doing business over the phone is not very intelligent.
In message , Ronald Raygun writes
Heartily agreed. I always confirm all important telephone decisions by letter. Repost:
Do it Write
England 2004 is a country whose new Blair Business Ethic is shaft thy neighbour, preferably with a telephone. The telephone rules; virtually every company has a `customer hotline'. Got a query? Call our `customer services support line!' But whatever you do, don't for God's sake write to us because our integrated- day, state-educated Sharons, Tracys and Jasons can hardly read or write, and we have no facilities for processing letters. Even my local bank has got a customer query line. Phone them using what looks like a local number and you get through to a support centre in the Orkneys or some such God forsaken dump where labour is cheap. Now that Mastercard and Visa have taken to selling their databases to all and sundry, mail order companies usually know more about you than you know yourself once they've got their corporate teeth into your name and postcode. The telephone is their friend and your enemy.
Scene: A frantic customer calling a mail order customer query hotline. Unlike sales lines, such lines get low priority -- the poor customer is usually left sucking on a hind tit for about thirty minutes. But when they get through:
CUSTOMER: (desperately) It's about these Norwegian Blues I ordered last week. You've sent me 223 of them and charged over
20,000 quid against my credit card! I only wanted two or three!The mail order smoothie takes details and promises to call the customer back. He listens to the logging tape made when the customer phoned in the order (the order reference includes the tape access number; "your call may be recorded to improve our service or for staff training".) and calls back with:
SMOOTHIE: Sorry, madam, but according to our records (they never say `recordings') you ordered 223 Norwegian Blues from us on such and such date, at such and such a time, and Nigel took the order.
CUSTOMER: But I told Nigel that I only wanted two to three Norwegian Blues when he said he had to check your stock levels. He checked and said that there was no problem.
SMOOTHIE: Sorry, madam, but according to our records you definitely ordered 223 Norwegian Blues. They're now yours. Beautiful plumage, don't you think?
CUSTOMER: But they're all dead!
SMOOTHIE: Sorry madam, but there's nothing in our records to show that you specifically ordered live ones. That's why we included a free Norwegian Blue recipe book with your order. Try the beak soup on page 10 -- beautiful flavour.
An exaggerated example but it does illustrate the advantages of the telephone to mail order companies and financial institutions. They have the hapless customer's full name and address, and, very likely, bra size and inside leg measurement. All she had was Nigel's first name, and, like as not, no proper address for the company other than a PO Box number. Also the mail order outfit has a tape recording of the transaction lest Mastercard or Visa or the law get stroppy. How many people phoning a mail order company make a tape recording?
By contrast, the letter writer, or someone who follows up phone orders or instructions with a faxed confirmation, has the odds stacked in his or her favour. This is particularly so in disputes or queries that end up in court. My own experience of Britain's small claims courts is that copies of letters, or copies of letters confirming the substance of phone calls, always go down well with court registrars. They amount to solid evidence whereas many companies now seem unable to cope with letters and don't reply to them in writing.
The latter point has always intrigued me, particularly in regard to mail order companies selling computer mcguffins and Norwegian Big Blue upgrades. The more printers, word-processors and paper stocks they boast, the greater their inability to actually use them. Write to PC World (the UKs leading pooter retail chain with Essex barn stores scattered across the country) for a written quote and you'll get a scribbled note on a compliments slip.
Nearly twenty years ago I had a dust-up with a large company that supplied me with an HP LaserJet toner cartridge, which I wanted, plus a new HP LaserJet II printer that I didn't want and hadn't ordered. Back in mid-1980s HP LaserJet IIs cost a leg and an arm, and a torso.
Although my order had been by letter, the company argued that it had been by phone claiming that I had ordered a printer *and* cartridge. In each case, all my letters were answered by phone but I always confirmed our telecons in writing. A court date was set. My solicitor pointed out to their solicitor that that we were going into court with a wodge of documentation. The company settled a week before the hearing and went bust before they could collect the unwanted printer.
Since then I have always dealt with queries with banks, water companies, mobile phones etc by letter and have *always* won disputes. Indeed, letter missiles are faster than the phone: my office is geared to dispatching mail; wrapping explosive facts in a paper warhead is often quicker than hanging on to the end of a telephone and having to explain the same issue repeatedly as one is passed from munchkin to munchkin along the buck chain. The Royal Mail's guaranteed next day delivery and free certificates of posting does give snail mail warriors such myself a decided advantage in these days of hotline hassle and heckle.
NB: I've even developed a technique for getting rid of cold- call personettes who don't understand that I've registered with the mail, fax and telephone preference service. They're usually girls. `Before we go any further,' I say, interrupting their opening spiel about how they want my home as a show house for their new double-glazing system, `What colour knickers are you wearing?' I learned that they're trained to hang up as soon as they encounter a pest the equal of themselves. It always works except on one occasion when the girl replied with: `Black, actually, and I just luurve the feel of my boyfriend's hot, passionate breath on my squirming, naked thighs as he pulls them off with his teeth.'
(cross-pasted to alt.petard.hoisted.by)
Indeed. I *hate* call centres and much prefer to conduct business in writing or online, where there is no risk of your instructions being misunderstood (unless the computer system has been incorrectly programmed). Unfortunately the same can't always be said for a bored, probably unmotivated and possibly undereducated person in a call centre. (Although I hasten to add that I've never had any problems with people in call centres myself, although perhaps that might be because I only use them as option of last resort, doing everything myself online whenever I can)
For some reason it appears that communications companies (mobile phone companies and the more clueless ISPs) are the *worst* at providing
100%-online customer service systems, bizarrely.. :-([snip]
Chortle! Very good tale! :-)
Email correspondence is even more deadly than the letter, and quicker too!
It would help if Royal Mail could:
You might get yourself into trouble one of the days with that approach! ;-)
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