Demand what you pay for!

 New Lockdown, Day 4, Tuesday

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My bike ride was conducted in that flat two-dimensional bleakness that a brightly-dull overcast early morning day can impose when the weather is cool if not fully cold.  The light was compromised enough for me to feel that it was necessary for me to switch on my lights.

     My rear light is built into the back-carrier frame and the front light is one that I have had to add as the front light/horn combo that MATE bikes provided gave up the ghost within the week of its being installed.  Given the appalling after sales service of MATE I didn’t even bother to claim another light as a fully justified replacement because any attempt to get the organization to act with anything approaching concern with their customers is just wasted time.  Which is a pity, as the bike itself is more than satisfactory.

     It took MATE two years to provide me with the throttle that I ordered and when they eventually sent the thing, it was to the wrong address, and . . . well, that has now been seen to and I am using the throttle and it makes my bike experience safer and more enjoyable.

 

To be fair to MATE, the light/horn combo has been a different experience; I have had evidence that my order has been ‘completed’ and I have been sent various emails.  But I haven’t been sent the light/horn.  Admittedly, the projected delivery date was in October and it is only the 3^rd today, but given past experience, any delay can stretch into the far, far future, so I have written a ‘gee-up’ letter asking for delivery information.

     If you are already a MATE customer, then the moans above will have a ready resonance, if you are not then you might be asking why you should be reading this guff about an accessory for an electric bike.

     I think that the point of complaints is not just to get satisfaction for the individual but to express a general point about the sort of service that we deserve when we pay out our money for something.  MATE started life as a Kickstarter project and got funding based on a prototype and concept and has grown into a substantial company with a range of products, what hasn’t kept pace is their customer service.  Even allowing for the vagaries of everyday life complicated by a pandemic, their lack of attention has been chaotic and depressing – but it has been paid for.  MATE has used customer money to make bikes and make profit while not being over concerned about what happens after the bikes have been delivered.  And that is something up with which we should not put.      

     MATE is well beyond the stage where it can plead that it is ‘a young company’, that it is surviving in the rough and tumble of Kickstarter: it is substantial and it has responsibilities.

     Customers are usually far too backward at coming forwards to demand they get what they have paid for – not only in terms of the object of their purchase, but also in terms of the care they can demand for that object’s quality and guarantee.

     For example, I fell into the ‘let it go’ category over the light which only lasted days before it ceased to function.  I factored in the lack of response that I would get from MATE and decided to purchase a light that would attach to the handlebars for a few euros and which could be lost, stolen or fail with impunity because it was so cheap.  In fact, of course, I also bought a much more expensive light which survived until it didn’t.  Anything merely attached to handlebars has a limited life when the bike is locked to a post rather than being contained.  Things walk, which is why the tiny lights with a sort of rubber band connection to the handlebars are so useful – those are so cheap it is almost easier to replace the light rather than replace the battery! 

And, as I usually cycle in urban situations there is rarely a time when I need the light for anything more than indicating that I am there, rather than lighting my way,  But the MATE light was connected to the electric system of the bike and was firmly screwed into the frame – and it looked better, so I feel its lack.

     And that is why I am making a fuss about a delay (so far) of three days in the appointed delivery time.  I will also write on the Facebook page of MATE customers to let others (and more particularly the company itself) know that things are still not going right!  Which is what all of us should do more often.  I want what I have paid for: quality and promptness. 

     If the delay in delivery continues past this week, I shall ‘open a file’ – and we all know what that means!

 

The indifferent and sullen weather conditions mentioned at the start of this piece have now mellowed into a hazy though sunny afternoon, methinks a short lounge on the terrace is called for!

Something needs to be done! Now!

 

In my consumer relations with various retail outlets there comes a time in our negotiations to try and right the wrongs that I feel have been done to me, when I feel the need to silently hand over a small printed card with the following message on it: “I am middle class, literate and tenacious.  Give up now while you still have some self respect, because you WILL NOT WIN.”

      I hasten to assure you that I haven’t actually handed over such a card, let alone printed one out, but it would have saved my shop-related opponents a great deal of time and effort.

     I remember watching one film about an evil insurance company (are there any other types?) where the default position to ANY claim made was, in the first instance, to refuse it.  As insurance companies have impressive financial resources and equally striking headed notepaper for their official missives to the grasping customers who have the unheard of audacity to expect the companies to do what they were paid to do, i.e. pay up when loss is experienced, there is an element of intimidation used against the clients.

     My father had dealings with one buildings’ insurance company when he claimed for storm damage to a chimney and part of the roof.  The work to repair the faulty structure had to be carried out on an emergency basis and my father was claiming after the fact.  He eventually received a letter informing him that his claim had been processed; a cheque was enclosed, and would be please sign and return the enclosed form.

     Needless to say the cheque came nowhere near the amount claimed and my father rejected the proffered cheque with contempt and started a length letter battle with the company that eventually resulted in a meeting in which my father suggested an independent assessment and arbitration.  He had no idea whether that sort of thing was covered under his policy but it seemed like a good idea and it was the sort of thing that he was teaching in his Liberal Studies lectures and classes (ah, there is a subject title from the brave new world of 60s education!) and it ought to exist.  The difference in the meeting was immediate and it was admitted that he did indeed have recourse to such an approach, but “we needn’t let it get to that sort of level” moderated the previously intransigent attitude of the blood sucking vampiric officials and a mutually satisfactory solution to the problem was soon arrived at.

     What lesson my father drew from his experience was not the quality of his letter writing, though he did regale Mum and me with some of the more lurid passages, but rather the underhand tactics of an unprincipled company.  As he reasoned it, how many people would turn down an actual signed cheque?  They would assume from the ‘official’ documentation accompanying it that the cheque was the end of the matter.  Dad used to talk about the situation of some OAP living alone with little or no support system in place feeling obliged to accept the cheque and being grateful for it!

     Having spurned the cheque it prompted my father into further and higher forms of letter writing, which, as I mentioned was, eventually successful in this particular circumstance and was generally successful whenever he put pen to paper in the interests of personal commercial justice!

     I channel my father when I have contretemps with suppliers who don’t live up to their PAID promises and I OPEN A FILE – dread words indeed!

     The foregoing is not a self-indulgent meandering, it has been prompted by my latest satisfactory outcome.

     I dropped my mobile phone and the glass back of the thing shattered – so much for toughened glass etc.  It shattered.  It still worked and I continued to use it, but this was not a situation that seemed to me to have long-term viability, so I tried to get it repaired.  This is a long story, a very long story, but I intend to cut to the chase.

     The point is not that the shop failed to get the phone repaired, but that they also managed to ‘brick’ it, and told me (eventually) that the phone was beyond economic repair and they would, very kindly, refund the money that I had paid them to replace the back of the phone!

     To be fair to the shop, the repairs were not carried out on the premises, but each shop in the chain sent them to a central technical station in a large Barcelona store.  I was given contradictory, confusing information about what actually had been or had not been done to my phone and the weeks dragged on.  From what they had said to me it seemed reasonable to assume that their attempts to repair had destroyed the phone.  I wanted another.

     The key questions remained (as the shop had my phone and it was not two minutes away from my house) did the thing charge and work.  Yes, I knew the back was smashed, but did it actually work as it did when I handed it in to be repaired?

   This (eventually) resulted in a brief email, which made me wonder if they were actually talking about my phone at all.  They told me it was working, that they had replaced the screen as I had asked (I hadn’t and they hadn’t) but they would give me a new phone.  Not, I might add, a replacement of my expensive phone, but a signally cheaper one, but by the same maker!  And they would pay back any money I had given for work that they had not done.

     I know that I could have held out for a duplicate, but I decided to cut my losses and retire with honour: full refund and spare phone.  Result.

     Because I have bought another phone.  The attempts to repair this phone started months ago, I knew it was going to be a long slog and so I listened to advice from One Who Knows and paid less than a quarter of what I paid for the phone with the smashed back and it does as much and more than the other one did.

     I also have the old phone.  I am not convinced that it is ‘beyond economic repair’ – I think that the shop simply gave up and bought me off.  As I have me new cheap phone and a newer cheaper one (courtesy of the store) I am sufficiently phoned-up to start a length campaign to get me old phone up and running.  At the moment it is charging (just checked 99% charged) and when it is ready I will see what it is still able to do.  If it appears to be serviceable then further steps will be taken to bring it back into full use.

     This particular file is not yet closed!  Not yet a while.