Every now and then I’m subjected to unreasonable demands, and it’s usually done by a machine. Sometimes one company hires another company to enforce rules so that the original company doesn’t have to look as nasty.
Examples: I used to use a Psion computer and a mobile phone to dial up to my ISP to collect email. This would even work from abroad. Then the mobile phone companies decided to handle data calls differently, and banned them from abroad. They didn’t charge more, they just banned them
I tried to use my Orange contract phone to phone customer service about my daughter’s Orange PAYG phone, which has stopped working. Banned again. I could call them on a landline or from a rival network, but not from Orange.
The Post Office charge £13.50 to handle collecting of import duty. According to them, it is only a “small proportion” of the duty. Well when the duty is £9.00, I don’t regard £13.50 as a “small proportion”. Add an additional 2 days delay (while they post a letter telling us we have had £13.50 stolen and then take the money and schedule a delivery) and it an insult, and they are in a monopoly position. My company has a deferment number so that all other importers can quote that so we pay the government directly, but the Post Office won’t use that unless it is a lot of money. I forget how much, but our company doesn’t spend that much.
UPS have just started charging £3 for same day collection, and £3 to phone in a collection request. (Only £5 for both together). Well we make stuff. I know that is unusual in the UK, but we do. We don’t just take stuff off the shelf and put it in boxes, so it isn’t always easy to know when stuff will be ready. Also, we always phone in requests rather than using the web because when we phone in, all we need to tell them is the 6-digit account number. On the web, they demand we type in our address as well, so it takes longer. So they have stupid rules, and a machine to enforce them.
It all takes time.
