I have used Interparcel for ages with mixed results. Often OK but God help you if something goes wrong! I have just used them for the last time ever.

2 parcels were booked for delivery by TNT as they were both very heavy. 2 days late picking up (which is just by the by). The under trained or under brained courier somehow managed to stick her barcode label to the wrong parcel, even though it was clearly labelled correctly and both parcels ended up at each others addresses.

I let Interparcel know and they didn’t respond (I emailed as the phone waiting time was 14 mins!!). I called the TNT depot myself and let them know the issue. Even so, they managed to utterly destroy one parcel. Costing me £245. The other parcel eventually arrived over a week later. No chance of compensation for the items as they are slate and that is a restricted material (another way to wriggle out of every eventuality) – i.e., you send at your own risk. But, I feel that they should at least refund the fee due to the mix up. At the very least they should bloody respond to the help request!

2 more emails to Interparcel and they still won’t even respond.

AVOID INTERPARCEL AT ALL COSTS!

I honestly doubt that any of the others are any better. They are all so slippery when it comes to any sort of guarantee, claim, complaint, anything. There really is a gap in the market for a courier company that gives a toss. I feel like I am held to ransom by them all.

I have transferred all my business to parceltogo.com – I doubt they are any better but I won’t use Interparcel again out of principle. It’s just a lottery as to when it happens to you and the frustration begins.

I wonder if anyone else has noticed the similarities between Terry Simmonds and Peter Griffin?

Take a look at the attached and tell me if you can’t see similarities. Apart from Peter looking sober (in comparison) the match is a spitting image. Obviously Terry Simmonds has put on weight since both photographs were taken.

=

Parcelforce Complaints Form is a Waste of Time

I wanted to vent this here and to let people know what a heartless, rubbish company Parcelforce is.

Just before Christmas one of my customers commissioned me to make a memorial stone for a memorial service for a dead colleague. I made the memorial and sent it using Parcelforce whom I have account with.

My customer called me understandably upset that the memorial did not arrive in time for the service. Even though it was sent to arrive three days before the service. On checking Parcelforce’s online tracking I saw that the parcel was not delivered due to it being improperly addressed.

Improperly addressed! When you use Parcelforce now, if you are an account customer, all bookings are taken online and you cannot enter a wrong address. You enter the postcode and then you select the number of the road or the house name. It just so happens that my delivery was to a stately home and it was the only address in that postcode!

To add insult to injury, my customer had called the Parcelforce depot where the parcel was held up to arrange a redelivery and enquire why it had not arrived when it was supposed to be, was given a torrent of abuse!

I took time to compose a formal complaint to Parcelforce and submitted it using their online form and they didn’t even bother to reply.

Subsequently I have found a better company and I have never used Parcelforce since. Neither have I paid their last two bills – though I suppose that I will have to, as it’s not worth sabotaging my credit rating over.

Get Chris Moyles out of Here!

Chris Moyles hinted this morning on his show that he is going into the jungle on “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!”

I hope that he does. I would like the whole nation to see how petulant and annoying he is. I really, really do not get why the so called (self acclaimed) “Savior of Radio 1″ is still employed by the BBC as a DJ but I guess it’s just a matter of taste.

It would be great seeing him in the jungle, watching the others eying him suspiciously every time he goes near the food supplies.

Wait, maybe he’s not going as a contestant but one of the disgusting dishes? He could keep the camp going for quite a while – two or three series is my guess.

David Beckham squeezes his balls

I had to laugh when I saw The Sun this morning. They show a pic of David Beckham pulling his shorts up with the headline “Becks shows off his ball skills”. As well as showing his (what I thought was modest – but what do I know?) pant load (the front load, not the back load) he scored two goals as well, three if you count the extra thousands he will make by showing the bulge of his knob!

The Sun also goes on to say that Victoria must be very proud of that tackle. Um, were they looking at the same picture? So, is this Victoria’s Secret?

Emily has quit X Factor

Emily has dramatically quit X Factor today after videos were shown of her beating a girl up and threatening a boy. Sharon says she’s deeply saddened by the outcome.

Emily’s “Happy Slapping” antics where she punched and kicked a girl after throwing her to the ground came to light in the newspapers earlier in the week. It’s also said that some sort of knife threat was involved in a similar incident.

Goodbye Emily, unless they rename it as Xtremely Violent Factor you have pissed on your chips. No doubt you will be a star on youtube.com

Jade Goody Warns of Slimming Pill Dangers

I just heard Jade Goody on the news saying about her slimming addiction and abuse hell. I find it difficult to be sympathetic to Jade Goody as she is such an annoying cow. However, I do find it sad that she has risked long term damage to her body with a higher probability of have a hear attack or a stroke. I don’t even wish that on Jade Goody, let alone her family.

Well it seems that the:

Shipley Bridge Garage
Antlands Lane
Horley
Surrey
RH6 9TE

Has made my list.

I took a car to be MOT’s at this garage and as suspected it failed. I was called by the owner and asked what I wanted to do. As there were very minor fail points; wiper blades, a light bulb and a weak spray from the washer on to the windscreen he suggested that it would be cheaper for me to leave the car with them to do the work as I would not be charged a re test fee if they completed the works. “OK”. I agreed. “Don’t let the cost run away if there is a problem with the washer motor”. I said.

I went to pick up the car and the total bill, including the MOT was £120.00 the test fee was £45.00. Two wiper blades cost say, a maximum of £12.00 and a bulb, what? A quid? 2 quid max? No washer motor had been replaced. So I got charged £61.00 approx labour charge for 5 minutes work? What a rip off! I said the person who I was dealing with “That can’t be right, they haven’t replaced the washer motor” So she queried it with the garage owner who told her that he had had to take apart the motor to fix it and that was why the labour cost was so high. I checked, the motors cannot be taken apart. I asked a mechanic friend of mine (ironically, the person who would have done the work for me for a fraction of the cost and still saved me money even though I would have had to have paid £25.00 for the retest) and he said that they would have just cleared the washer feed line with an air line. Typically, the washers still do not work great even after spending so much on labour.

Anyway, due to the greed of this local businessman I have decided that a fair warning to others would not go amiss.

Please note that the car sales part of this garage, which I believe is a separately owned business, is not implicated in my gripe.

I hope that it helps you to make an informed decision about the Shipley Bridge Garage if you are planning to have any work done there. They seem to be unable to check their greed even though it means that I for one will never MOT there again and this blog may further damage their pocket.

WTF is going on in Surrey roads? The roads are getting really dangerous. There are so many really deep holes on my way to work I am surprised that there hasn’t been a serious accident. In some places the road is just disintegrating from the verge outwards.

Has anyone else noticed the appalling state of the roads in Surrey? Is it just Surrey roads or is the lapse wider spread.

I will try and post some pictures of the larger holes that I see every day.

This is the directory is the height of arrogance! They ask for a banner link, which MUST be displayed on your index or home page prominently, which for starters is plain wrong! I hope that this questionable tactic of gaining more Google Page Rank than they give gets them banned from the search engines. No one should have to add a banner to get a link from a directory! I urge anyone who sees this first to remove his or her links! They will not do your site any good at all. Very few directories govern enough traffic to actually make it worthwhile and there are millions of better directories that do not demand a link back – especially from the index page!

What happens if you do add their link? Well. firstly, scroll down to the bottom of the page and read what it says there:

“Site submissions are currently closed while we work through our backlog of submitted sites.”

What the hell doesn’t it say that at the top? FFS!

And then, further down:

“Altering our link codes above may lead to your site being declined for listing in the UKSHOPSBoom directory.
We cannot give reasons as to why your site was not chosen to be listed.”

This means that you cannot even add the rel=”nofollow” link attribute that works like a kind of “link condom” to stop your site contracting any social diseases.

UK Boom Directory is wrong and bad. I don’t recommend that anyone add his or her site to it.

Instead, I urge you to add to The UK Small Business Directory where you will not be forced to link to anything. Has both free and paid for listings. Is a better directory. We are not affiliated with the UK Small Business Directory and receive nothing for writing this. We just don’t like to see people taking advantage!