The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

[Paul]

Yeah, when the bastard things work they're brilliant. I'm using my trusty old SB1 as a daily driver at the moment. It's (painfully) slow, but these days I'm only browsing the web or writing essays. The SB2 is leagues ahead in terms of performance, and my old, old eyes certainly appreciate the larger screen. They're also a joy to type on.

[Paul]

The plot thickens!

I used the UPS tracking code to see where my Surface is up to. Turns out the repair centre shipped it back to the drop off point rather than my address.... and it has been sat there since the 27th October. Gee, I bet it ain't there now!

You have to be shitting me. No notifications of this whatsoever. I was supposed to collect it by the 6th November. What an absolute clusterfuck.

[Alan]

You probably couldn’t collect it without a pickup code anyway! Bloody numpties!

[Paul]

Shitrep: it was there!

After that fiasco, I think I'll just take the refund money and spend it on a decent 1440p monitor / use the Surface whilst docked, because fuck dealing with that again.

I don't even know why it was delivered to the collection point - the fucking thing is addressed to my home. Jesus H Christ.

[Alan]

Dont let them win! Bitch and moan till they give you a Surface Book 3!

[Snowy]

Dont let them win! Bitch and moan till they give you a Surface Book 3!

I agree. Put the whole sorry experience together, in chronologcal order, outlining every step on the way, then call them specifically saying you want to complain - make sure you are not speaking to a grunt, insist on someone in authority (and then ideally speak to their boss). List it out, expressing utter incredulity at the layered levels of fuck-up from a company that, until now, you had held in high regard. Note the time, date and name of everyone you speak to, and if you don't get a satisfactory outcome then email your complaint to the MD of Microsoft UK (she is called Clare Barclay, so I would guess clare.barclay@microsoft.com/.co.uk) marked for her personal attention. What have you got to lose, other than a little time?

[Paul]

I shall meditate on this and channel my inner Karen.

The cherry on top was receiving an email from Microsoft welcoming me to my new Surface device / Windows 11 (I set the SB2 up again). But it went into the spam folder.

I use Outlook

[Wrathbone]

I shall meditate on this and channel my inner Karen.

The Karen meme is misused these days to mean anyone complaining about anything to customer service, rather than someone making frivolent nuisance over trivial things. Holding companies to account for genuine and massive fuck-ups such as this is the only thing that maintains any level of service whatsoever. If customers do nothing when they're screwed over, why would a company put any effort into their support?

[eny]

Also, you will be doing them a favour, pointing out the obvious deficiency in their process for them. It happened to you, it will have happened to others and they should know about it!

[Paul]

True.

The screen didn't play up once during setup, and the max brightness is now similar to my SB1... but it's still the same screen.

Perhaps it got dropkicked during transit and the issue resolved itself, ha. I'll see how it goes.

[EDIT] aaaaaannnnd it's fucked

[Wrathbone]

Swapping broadband on Thursday and it needs Openreach to drill holes and do their thing. Got a text from them at the weekend asking me to text to confirm the date, which I did. Then they asked me to read through a list of things they would be doing and to get in contact if I had any questions or problems with it, which I don’t. This morning I got yet another text asking me to double-confirm Thursday again via text, which is some top shelf insecurity.

They’ve just turned up.

[Maturin]

Well.. better than it being delayed I guess?

Which is the usual thing with Openreach.

[Wrathbone]

Well.. better than it being delayed I guess?

True enough. They only did the work on the outside yesterday and they're coming back tomorrow to do work on the inside. I've had another text confirming tomorrow, just in case I've suddenly decided to move to Mexico within the last 24 hours. I expect they'll turn up at 3am or something equally daft.

[Lenny Solidus]

We are also due to be swapping over broadband providers, moving from Virgin's £54 a month for 100mb to Vodafone at a much more reasonable £25 for the exact same speed. Today was our official installation day, but we have not yet even received the bloody welcome package that would include our new hub and setup. We have tried ringing them but have been given the runaround as to what was going on at their end and told that everything is 'all set to go ahead'. Nobody has shown up today as yet.

Our contract with Virgin is due to end any day now after giving our due thirty day notice, which means we could end up with no provider at all at some point this week if Vodafone don't get their act together. Bunch of pillocks.

[Alan]

Dafuq? I pay £35 for 200meg from virgin! You need to bitch more when you call them up