SD : Call centre staff refusing to compensate disabled customer.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by kop32

Ben, regardless of what is standard procedure used by the Agent they had agreed to replace the remote with free postage and package I suspect,the main issue is the outrageous claim for compensation.....its a PVR and the lack of being able to use it properly is hardly life threatening and even worse is playing the disability card,shame on the OP in my opinion.

As previously explained to Sirius, nobody is claiming that a lonely disabled man losing his only main contact with the outside world is life threatening, but it did need to be sorted out.

Many people try to silence minority groups by accusing them of playing the eg disability card.

The Lawrence family were initially accused of playing the 'race card' when their son was murdered.

Originally Posted by dilligaf1701

Just s quick comment to say that sky did indeed send me a replacement remote in the post when I needed it.

As it happens they also do a special one for people with some disabilities which is also free.

Excellent news. Whilst I am no fan of Sky, credit must be given where it's due.

Originally Posted by Perfect Choice

Agreed, the OP stated mid way through the post that the failure of the remote was down to wear and tear after 10 years of use. The fact the TV was on radio 4 is a customer choice prior to remote failure and TV service was still available so crazy to consider compensation is justified, that was the mistake of the OP to even think it was something which could be asked for.

There is a very simple answer to this problem for the future and I recommend the disabled person concerned should do this. They should simply buy an extra remote on top of the one provided so have 2 remotes and if one fails you can put the batteries in the other and you can continue to control your box!

Considering the level of disability and not intending to be disrespectful, I assume the person is claiming disability living allowance and that is meant to fund the extra costs a disabled person incurs to have a reasonable quality of living. So you can pay for the extra remote out of the £21 or £134.40 per week DLA provides.

The fact that he could not change the box from Radio 4 is not relevant, this just happened to be the last channel tuned to before the remote failed.

In order to try and prevent any further confusion experienced by many contributors, I shall now begin to use the term 'refund' (for the service paid for that my friend was unable to avail himself of) rather than continue to use the word 'compensation'.

I do not agree that it was inappropriate to ask for a refund and neither did VM in the end as a credit was made to his account.

You do make a good point about having a spare remote on hand should something similar happen again. Would VM provide him with a spare remote in his circumstances, anybody??

[Russ]

Don't forget we only have your word on what actually happened during the call and due to your abrasive nature when your perceive things to not go your way you'll understand if any of us are sceptical regarding your version of events.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by spreadsheet

I think I read it in terms & conditions once that they can't guarantee an uninterrupted service

If they start caving in to compensation requests the proverbial floodgates would open


(I was with them when they were ntl and were giving out that dial up disk that allowed unlimited access - that pink one. There was a certain spec that you had to have - OS etc and I told this one guy the computer he had was not of sufficient spec - and blow me down if he didn't go out and buy a new computer and send the invoice for it in)

I'm sure it will be in their terms and conditions somewhere, this is standard practice to cover themselves.

This does not absolve VM from their legal and moral duties towards their disabled customers.

I have heard a similar tale to the call you mentioned, one customer wanted VM to replace his TV when it stopped working!

Those critising me for helping a disabled friend should save it for situations like this.

Originally Posted by Andy C

Well I am since having a spinal injury and if my remote stops working I wouldn't be able to change channels. Would I expect compo? Er, no, especially if it's ten years old like you say. What do you think they should have done, scrambled a helicopter to get your friend a remote the same day?

Any reason why you couldn't lend him your remote? Or any other friend of his?

As for his manager, of course he's going to pull strings if he's a friend and tell you what you want to hear.

If a delayed lack of service if VMs fault then there may be an excuse for a claim, but not for wear and tear of a remote... you can't blame VM for that!


A.

In the circumstances I would have expected more than the usual "we'll put it inthe post and he'll get it when he gets it".

I'm not sure how it was achieved, but delivery of the new remote was expediated as I would have expected as a matter of course in a situation like this.

As I mentioned earlier, I couldn't have lent him mine as I live too far away and am disabled myself too.

I take your point about the manager that I contacted. The saying "it's not what you know, it's who you know" is very true, but it should not have to be this way to get things done. Without this contact, my friend would have been left for a week with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders from the customer services rep.

Wear and tear of supplied equipment is the responsibility of service providors.

How this is managed by VM is up to them. They could embark on a rolling program of replacement, but this would be wasteful and expensive.

Their policy of repair or replacement when problems arise seems to be the best policy in my view, but circumstances that require more of an intervention, such as this case, must be dealt with properly.

Originally Posted by Perfect Choice

As stated before, the simple answer is to just buy a second remote as backup. Hardly a big ask!

AFAIK one cannot legally buy a VM remote controll.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I fully expected to be taken through the stages of checking the batteries etc at the beginning of the call, but wasn't. The call handler more or less agreed to send out a replacement straight away. It was only when I asked for recompense for his inability to use the service for what was initially going to be nearly a week, that he suddenly started taking an interest in what had happened to the old remote.

Seems reasonable to me. If an agent is going to credit an account, they have to be able to justify that credit, meaning they have to follow full process. So even though they agreed to skip that process initially, once you asked for credit, they then had to comply with it.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I'm not sure how it was achieved, but delivery of the new remote was expediated as I would have expected as a matter of course in a situation like this.

Generally the remotes get to customers quicker than the timescale quoted. I would expect that was true in this case.

AFAIK one cannot legally buy a VM remote controll.

Yes, you can quite easily from Virgin Media. I believe a V box remote is £12.50

[newapollo]

Virgin Media Remote controls for sale on Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001RRN1T...e%3Dasn?oo=379

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by newapollo

Virgin Media Remote controls for sale on Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001RRN1T...e%3Dasn?oo=379

Those are older ones, so will be second hand

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

This does not absolve VM from their legal and moral duties towards their disabled customers.

.

I can't believe you resurrected this thread just have a dig at everyone who disagrees with .
I also can't believe that someone like you has power of attorney for someone else

and just so you know VM's " legal and moral duties towards their disabled customers" are no different to the legal and moral duties for anyone else,everyone MUST be treated equally ,any "special treatment"by VM is purely goodwill by them

[johnasimmons]

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by calum lawson

Totally unacceptable response!!!

He reported the fault, they dealt with it immediately and didn't make him prove it wasn't misused, but replaced it anyway.

Compensation is then demanded for a set of circumstances that didn't then transpire (it arrived well in advance of 5 days).

Contacts are then used to extract £10 and a reprimand for the member of staff.

That £10 doesn't come out of nowhere it's added to all of our bills. One unjustified incident isn't significant, but if this is repeated on a large scale I find it abhorrent that I'm expected to fund this level of what (IMHO) amounts to nuisance compensation claims. ie Claim for trivia on the basis that it's cheaper for them to pay to make it go away rather than receive the bad press/grief of a determined complainer.

Nowhere does it state that your or my TV service is expected to function faultlessly 24/7 365. If access was such an issue, perhaps it would have been prudent for your friend to request that the box be installed at a height suitable for him; and no, I would not expect Virgin Media to stand the cost of this either!!!

You have failed to grasp the true circumstances, allow me to recap:

I was initially told that the remote would take up to 5 days to arrive, making almost a week without television. As this is my friends only company/contact with the outside world, this was not acceptable. I asked for it to be delivered by some sort of special delivery to speed things up, or for a refund of charges to be made for an unuseable service. Both were refused and an innapropriate attitude developed.

Legally, it is for VM to prove that their equipment has been misused, not the other way round. However, for commercial reasons I expect that this is rarely pursued.

I believed that this was totally unacceptable and make no secret of the fact that I used a contact to correct matters. Whilst I acknowledge that this is unfair on those without contacts, it is a fact that this, in many cases, is what makes the world turn in areas of business as well as many others.

If the agent had used his time positively in making an attempt to resolve this quickly eg next day delivery, rather than developing a bad attitude, a request for reimbursement of charges would not have come into the equation.

A goodwill gesture of £10 was made after arrangements had been made by the management for next day delivery by way of an apology for the way I was treated. I insisted it went onto my friends account as opposed to mine.

Had this been dealt with properly from the onset, the goodwill payment would not have become neccessary.

I find the word 'reprimand' to be negative, but I am pleased to be able to say that I have been informed that steps have been taken to improve the performance and attitude of the member of staff in question. This will be for the benefit of everyone

Finally, it's not usually correct to view goodwill payments as a waste of money. It costs a lot more to attract a new customer than it does to reduce churn and keep an existing customer.

By dealing with this correcty, VM will enjoy the benefit of my friends subscription payments for the foreseeable future as opposed to me cancelling the service because of this incident- well worth a tenner I'd say

Originally Posted by Sirius

The request of reprimanding staff is a common feature of the Op's posts in regard to VM staff

You said that you were withdrawing from this thread?

I knew you'd be back to make unfounded comments to try and stir things up.

Originally Posted by Dash: CF noob

I ordered a new remote on Tuesday evening, offered foc, arrived Thursday satisfied customer.

Sounds like it was ordered Tue night, went out first class on the Wednesday and you received it on the Thur- just as I'd expect

Originally Posted by andy_m

Can you update this with details of the compensation you received for the Wednesday, please.

If Dash were to be unable to use the box controls due to disabiity, I would expect at least a refund of 1/7 of the weekly charges for the appropriate TV pack, but s/he may not feel it to be worth their while.

[weegiegeek]

My god, is he still banging on about this?

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

You said that you were withdrawing from this thread?

I knew you'd be back to make unfounded comments to try and stir things up.

Unfounded? Are you quite sure about that?

and exactly how did £10 enable your friend to watch the tv ?? If your friends welfare and viewing pleasure was that important to you ,you would have been better employed buying an all in one remote from curries for a tenna so he could watch it straight away but you are so up yourself you saw an opportunity to be the customer from hell instead of helping a friend .You really are a piece of work .

[weegiegeek]

Originally Posted by martyh

and exactly how did £10 enable your friend to watch the tv ?? If your friends welfare and viewing pleasure was that important to you ,you would have been better employed buying an all in one remote from curries for a tenna so he could watch it straight away but you are so up yourself you saw an opportunity to be the customer from hell instead of helping a friend .You really are a piece of work .

Ah, but he wasn't able to get to his friend's house. Or was he? Even Richard's not sure. I wasn't aware that having no grasp on reality was a disability, but never mind.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I believe that it was the responsibility of VM, both morally and legally under their legal requirement to make 'reasonable adjustments in the provision of goods and services to disabled people'.





So you say that I sent you an abusive PM, but you then conveniently delete it

I'll leave it for others to draw their own conclsions. I'll take what you say about staying out of this thread at face value, but going on your past statements of intent, you'll be reading this.



As previously stated, I don't employ any staff (apart from a couple in my own home).

From the nonsene you come out with, it is youthat is a fool.

From your posts of 23rd Jan 2013 in the 'employee outsources own job to China' thread.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

snipprty snip snip.....

That said, whatever the job market, I have always required my employees to speak to their customers, employers, colleagues, suppliers etc with courtesy and respect.

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Most people, on the face of it, would say that verbal abuse to staff is unacceptable- end of.

But, it depends very much on the situation and context.

- Many of my staff work in adult environments, often with people under the influence of alcohol. There's an old Yorkshire saying "when drinks in, wits out".

Many won't mean or remember what they are saying afterwards. Those who are going to get offended by adult conversation late at night are unlikely to pass their work trial period.

...snippety snip snip.

And from the 4th Aug last year, from the 'can you explain' thread..

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

You are quite correct, I personally don't have any staff (apart from my domestic cleaner etc), it is my limited company that employs them

Snippety snip snip....

Methinks you are employing sophistry, not just employees.....

[Russ]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I believed that this was totally unacceptable and make no secret of the fact that I used a contact to correct matters. Whilst I acknowledge that this is unfair on those without contacts, it is a fact that this, in many cases, is what makes the world turn in areas of business as well as many others.

You feel your friend was treated unfairly so you also acted unfairly to 'correct matters'.

Can you honestly say with a straight face that you cannot see your hypocrisy?