RE:NEW PREMIUM AND EXCESS EFFECTIVE 1 JANUARY 2008

I am quite sure that this little letter won’t make the slightest difference. I am well aware of the fact that my one little policy probably doesn’t affect your gigantic company at all and should I move it won’t make any difference to you at all. But you do realise that Word of mouth is the best way to get either negative or positive publicity…….in this case you can be certain that it will in fact be very very negative. I don’t even know if anybody will actually read this here letter, and if you do, you’ll probably be wondering what this stupid silly girl could possibly wish to accomplish. The fact of the matter is that if I don’t do something about the fact that I’m unhappy, I have no right to complain about it later. But I’m getting way ahead of myself….let’s start at the beginning.

Yesterday I received a letter from you, my insurance company. I have been your client since the beginning of 2006 when I bought my new car. Thus far your service has been excellent, I haven’t had one single complaint. Damn, I’m getting ahead of myself again. Anyway, so I received the letter that you sent me stating that my premium will be increasing from the first of January 2008. This I found quite acceptable, as it is the date of commencement of my policy and my annual increases usually take place on this date. The increase was slightly steep, but I wasn’t quite worried yet.

My heart attack of the day only came when I turned the page over to take a look at my new “Policy excesses schedule” DAMN!!!!!!! My normal excess had increased with over R5000????what??? this is a mistake right? or so I thought at the time anyway. I mean seriously…how can my excess be almost R7000? I might as well not have any insurance at all.

I contacted the customer service department immediately, this had to be sorted out. She ever so sweetly informed me that it was not a mistake and that the amount in my letter was in fact right. I remained calm…at first anyway. Her reply on my series of questions and statements ranging from “why?”, “its ridiculous” and “how the hell do you rationalize an increase of over R5 000 in my excess” was simply that because of the high interest rate, inflation and the fact that the petrol price has increased so much have caused panel beater fees to increase and that is why I have a large increase….but seriously over R5000? You have got to be kidding me!!! It’s not as if I am a high risk customer or anything!

I’ve only claimed from you guys once! and that’s when I had a little bumper bashing in July. The costs weren’t that high and you were able to recover all the costs from the other dude’s insurance. So please tell me…..WTF??????

This letter is merely my means of letting you know how upset I am. How betrayed I feel and to let you know that I am already making plans to move insurance companies. My broker is already obtaining quotes on my behalf. And be sure that under no circumstances will I ever advise anyone to buy their insurance policy from you.

Regards

Ruby

RE: CHEESE SALAD

Today I ordered a Cheese Salad from your Melrose Crossing outlet. It’s not that there was anything wrong with the taste, the packaging, the price or the ingredients. In fact, I sort of enjoyed the little salad. Or I would have if I was preparing myself to eat a french salad.

Thing is…when I order a cheese salad I expect delectable cubes of different types of cheeses…at least Feta and Mozzarella….. along with some salady things like lettuce, onions, tomato etc. But a lot of focus on the cheese cubes since it is after all a CHEESE salad. Am I wrong in expecting this???

I do not expect a normal French salad with grated cheese on top! It’s an outrage! If I wanted a French Salad I would have ordered one and asked for a little bit of grated cheese on top. But I wanted a cheese salad…I was in the mood for cheese!

I would appreciate it if you could look into the matter for me.

Regards

Ruby

I will keep this short and sweet as I’m pretty sure you receive thousands of complaints a day. My complaint will probably not make on iota of difference, but I’d still like to at least go on record with this complaint.

I applied for the renewal of my license in December 2006, just before I left for the US. I came back 6 weeks later and immediately made a trip to your offices just in case it might be there….yes yes, I know we are supposed to wait for a little collection note to reach us in the post, but your system doesn’t work all that well and people don’t always get these little notes….so I just went. No license.

Ever since the end of January I have made a monthly trip to you offices in order to find out if my license has showed up…no luck. I’ve phoned, I’ve complained, I’ve thrown nice little Ruby tantrums, I’ve been nice, I’ve even tried bribing…still, no luck.

Then last week my father phones me all the way from the Zulu Kingdom. My collection notice had been sent to them..how odd! I didn’t even give you their address?? I gave you my address, in Joburg. Not being one to be easily phased I got my Dad to fax me a copy of the thing for “just in case”. And set out to your offices early this morning…bearing my now expired temporary license that I had to get when I applied for the renewal, since the old one had expired the week before.

I would like to mention that I think you need to send all your staff members on a social interaction course or something. It is extremely impolite to start yelling at a client when she requests her new license. Needless to say, this morning didn’t start out well. I was yelled at, told that the license had been sent back, asked why I had waited a whole year, told that I had to re-apply for a renewal as well as a new temporary license which would mean that I would have to pay for everything again. Ever so sweetly I tried to explain to your employee that I was quite sure that if he would just take a look he would find my license along with all the others, as the collection notice had only been sent at the end of November and that I’ve been there once a month for the past 11 months and they’ve told me every single time that they didn’t have my license yet. He only knew one sentence:”eish, you have to pay again” Sorry dude!!! ain’t gonna happen, this was so not my fault.

Anyway, after a shouting match of about 20minutes some other senior official finally showed up and after listening to me carefully…like the other guy should have done….he promised to go and see if he could find my license with all the others. And guess what??? He found it!

So here is a neatly composed list of my complaints and issues:
1. Please make sure that in future it doesn’t take 12 months to renew someones license
2. Please inform your employee that the customer should be treated with respect and kindness……we pay your salary after all
3. Shouting at Ruby first thing in the morning is not good…as your employee will inform you
4. Please send all you employees on 2 courses, the first being one in basic English, the second being one in social skills.

Regards

Ruby