Monthly Archives: August 2012

Stolen identity and Citibank International – Part one

In January 2008 some Herbert somehow managed to use my identity to take out a credit card with Citibank. I was alerted to this fact by receiving a credit card cheque book in January. I called the bank and was assured this was a fraudulent credit card and I was told to obtain a credit report, check with the local sorting office and […]

Stolen identity and Lloyds TSB – Part two

Once you have had your identity stolen you then have a job on your hands straightening out your credit ratings and the credit rating at the bank. I wrote to Lloyds TSB with a simple question which was I have a fraudulent card taken out in my name which in the process has wrecked my credit rating with the credit rating agencies. I […]

Lloyds TSB – Part three

The correspondence rumbled on and on with an added twist in that I queried their charges for using agree overdraft facilities at £5 a month. They are already charging interest. Needless to say their replies were less than illuminating and I was referred back to their good old stand by the Ombudsman. “It would useful, helpful, constructive and transparent if Lloyds Bank Ltd provided plausible […]

Lloyds TSB – Like the man from Del Monte the bank that says yes but does not know why.

Sometime in May 2009 I was called by Lloyds TSB and offered a credit card. It duly arrived and I did not use it but destroyed it. I then received a letter saying they had reduced my credit limit as it was in line with a policy they had introduced on reducing credit limits on cards that had not […]

Waitrose – a cooperative cooperative

Occasionally I use Waitrose and normally the level of service is reasonably good except on this one occasion when Waitrose must of thought, for an aberrational moment, it was a bank. However like Virgin and Sainsbury they were on the case albeit without the alacrity of the other two organisations. “There was no prefix of “I am sorry”. In fact the episode reminded […]

London buses are great – if you can catch one

London buses have an annoying habit of arriving all at the same time on one bus stop. Needless to say the one you want is the Tail End Charlie and goes flying past the other buses leaving you at the bus stop and no further forward unless a rise in blood pressure is further forward. “What does it take to […]

Sainsbury PLC responds with alacrity

I visited Sainsburys in West Ealing at 8.15am and there were two  tills in operation and staff directing people to the robot tills whose demented instructions to  customers send you scurrying for the exits. This is an antisocial way way to increase profits by bringing in self service  robots and laying off staff. Of course the price that will be paid […]

Welcome to Complaints in Wonderland

Welcome to Complaints in Wonderland. Over the years I have been writing letters of complaint to companies and non-commercial organisations.  Some people take themselves so seriously that the only antidote is humour.  In the interests of fairness, I have published letters of complaint that have been dealt with in a positive and exemplary manner. The […]

NatWest 2000

In 2000 I was on one of my frequent visits to my mother in Cardiff and I arrived home to find that she was upset that the only bank that was near enough for her to walk to was being shut. NatWest was about to close a small viable branch on the Lakeside estate in  Roath, Cardiff. I started a correspondence that exposed […]

The BBC and Andrew Marr on jazz

Andrew Marr on his Sunday morning television show on the 13th March 2011 gave a wholly convincing performance that demonstrated that his knowledge of jazz is restricted to cheap laughs. The link below is to the Guardian where it was reported. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2012/jan/31/andrew-marr-clarkson I wrote to the Mark Thompson Director General and took it through every stage of the […]