JC's Traveblog

Oh crumbs, two posts in one day. Sorry, but this just had to be highlighted.

I have just returned from our local Tesco supermarket where I thought I would investigate the price of their gin. Ours seems to keep evaporating from the cupboard though I’ve no idea why that might be. I don’t like paying full price so I keep my eyes peeled for special offers and stock up when it is less unreasonably priced. Bombay Sapphire is very good but rarely on special. Gordon’s is pretty good and a reliable standby. I began to think I was in luck when, beneath the line of Gordon’s 1 litre bottles, was bright yellow ticket emblazoned:

Special Purchase – £16.00

For the benefit of those mentally challenged, the special purchase ticket also went on to explain that this price was equivalent to £16.00 per litre. Well done!

I glanced to the left at the line of regular (70cl) bottles of Gordon’s. The price label beneath them proclaimed £11.00. Wait a minute, whilst I can instantly calculate that 1 litre bottles at £16.00 is equivalent to £16.00 per litre, my mental ability to divide £11.00 by 7 was suffering, probably as a result of drinking too much gin, but it looks pretty darn close.

Sure enough, The 70cl bottles’ price label went on to explain that this price was equivalent to £15.72 per litre.

Thanks a bunch, Tesco – some “special purchase”.

Day 1 back at home after a wonderful trip walking the coast and hills of Dorset. Naturally, one of the first jobs is to go through the mail, both snail- and e-, that has accumulated during one’s absence. One missive in the snail-mail collection was my invitation, from none other than the AA, to renew my Mazda MX5 insurance. Their best offer, a different supplier from the current policy, was £198.43 with a bunch called Acromas of whom I’ve never heard. The price didn’t look bad but I thought I’d have a quick look on-line.

In order to support Aleksandr, I went into www.comparethemarket.com. Crunch, crunch, crunch went the wheels and out popped a few numbers. Let’s look at the scores in the doors. Pop! Oh, look, there’s a quote from the AA for £178.xx. Pop! Oh look, there’s a quote from Saga (yes, I know the jokes) for £155.xx.

I was perusing these numbers thinking that perhaps the AA was now not looking quite so good after all when the phone rang.

“Hello”, I said in my best macho bass, telephone-manner voice.

“Am I speaking to Mrs. Curd”, said the complete wombat stranger.

“Do I sound like a Mrs?”, I enquired.

He fed me some bullshit about their line being bad (sounded fine at my end) and proceeded to tell me he was from the AA and was I happy with my recent quote through www.comparethemarket.com? Strewth, that was quick off the mark!

“I’m very glad you called”, I said unusually and looking forward to some fun. “I’m holding your renewal quote in my hand telling me that the best price you can do is £198 but I am looking at an on-line quote from your good selves for £178. Please explain.”

“I can only deal with new customers, not existing customers. I’ll have to put you through to some other poor schmuck customer services.”

I went through the same lines again with customer services. Pause. “I can do it for £188 – that’s pretty close, isn’t it?”

“If £10 more is close, yes. It isn’t, however, close to my on-line Saga quote of £155. Oh, and incidentally, my current policy through you is actually a Saga policy which you claim you’ve had to abandon to get me a renewal quote a hair below £200. I’m confused. I’m getting used to having to jump ship in order to get a decent deal. What ever happened to rewarding customer loyalty, especially those that have not made a claim?”

“They do it to attract new customers”, he said I distilled.

“What about trying to keep existing customers?”, I enquired, “you seem to work hard to capture them so how about trying to hold onto them? I had exactly the same trouble recently with your Breakdown/Relay policy – renewal price: £108, new member price: £69. I cancelled. You lost a customer.”

Tap, tap, tap … “I could do that for £58 today”, he informed me, sheepishly.

Ye Gods! I give up!!

Since our beloved Mazda MX5 (a.k.a. “Mazzie”) is now 11 years old, for the last two years I’ve taken out breakdown and recovery cover with the AA. Although most of our longer journeys are in our tow car, it seemed sensible not to worry unduly when we were at home and we were blessed with an all-too-rare pleasant day. I went for the Roadside and Relay options.

Just prior to our recent trip to Devon, my renewal notice arrived. With Devon planning uppermost in our minds, I left it until our return. On Monday I started dealing with it. The renewal notice wanted £108.00 – £50.00 for the Roadside option and £58.00 for the Relay option (recovery of disabled vehicle either to preferred repairer or home). I began looking for alternatives.

Imagine my annoyance when I looked at the AA website and was quoted £69.00 for exactly the same cover as a new member. Worse, as a new member I could apparently include the additional Home Start option (which I don’t currently have) for £31.00, a total of £100.00, still £8.00 less than my renewal notice without Home Start. (Incidentally, my renewal notice wanted £50.50 for Home Start.)

As an existing member, even one who had not made a call out, the AA was penalizing me to the tune of £39.00, a thumping 56.5% of what a new member was being asked to pay.

I investigated Green Flag and got a quote for similar cover down to £71.40. I investigated the Caravan Club’s Mayday cover (operated by Green Flag) and found their equivalent (perhaps slightly superior) cover to be £62.00.

I phoned the AA and asked to cancel my membership. I was put through to a customer service agent who had been told that I was unhappy about the price (which I had not yet said) and that he “could do something about it”. You’re damn right I wasn’t happy about the price but by now I was determined to go elsewhere on a matter of principle. I wasn’t happy about being taken for a mug on my renewal notice. I went with the Caravan Club’s Mayday cover.

Penalizing existing customers seems to be a common theme in our modern world. We have to go through the pain of changing car insurers every year to get the best deals because new customers get a discount. I’ll have to do that for Mazzie in May for his insurance. Constant change is both time consuming and stressful (when it comes to No Claims Bonus proof, anyway).

What happened to valuing customer loyalty? Now it’s always existing customers that get penalized almost forcing them to jump ship. The whole ethos is intensely irritating. I happen to think it’s also completely stupid. Not that I was actually a salesman but, in a sales situation I was taught to value repeat business and to hang on to existing customers. Once you’ve lost an existing customer it’s harder to win them back than to win brand new ones ‘cos those who left you did so for a reason. In this case the reason is being penalized and taken for mugs.

We’ve completely lost it.

1. Send out geologists to explore the world and find oil fields.
2. Erect expensive drilling rigs and send down a few test holes.
3. If the field is viable, erect lots more rigs and start drilling in earnest.
4. Ship the oil half-way around the world in vast, unbelievably expensive super-tankers.
5. Process the crude oil in high(ish) tech, purpose built industrial plants.
6. Distribute the resultant petrol in fleets of lorries to petrol stations throughout the country.
7. Sell the petrol for about £5.00 a gallon, ~62.5 pence a pint.

People bitch about the price, most of which is government tax.

1. Gather apples from relatively local orchards.
2. Send these to a local pressing plant.
3. Extract the juice in a low tech press.
4. Add a smidge of yeast and leave it for about a week to ferment.
5. Bottle or keg it.
6. Distribute the bottled/draught cider to moderately inexpensive off-licenses and pubs throughout the country.
7. Sell it for £3.45 a pint, or a whopping £27.60 a gallon.

It’s a very similar, simple story with beer. There’s still a serious amount of kill-joy government tax. People relatively happily, it appears, hand over the cash.

Which seems more exorbitant?

Well, here we are again at the end of another financial year. The difference this time compared to previous financial years is that this particular financial year has been an unmitigated disaster with the brunt of said disaster being born by poor ol’ Joe PUblic. Joe has seen his so-called professional institutions fail him abysmally and, just to rub salt into the wounds, he’s had to endure those most responsible  being handsomely rewarded for their abject failure. If Joe had failed in his job, of course, he would have been summarily dismissed. Such is the justice of the corporate world.

As is traditional at this time of year, our beloved professional financial idiots are all vying to pay us a miserably low interest rate on both this year’s and next year’s ISA allowance. I’ve just been looking at the Nationwide’s web site where their so-called Member’s ISA Bond offers to pay a paltry maximum (for balances in excess of £25000) of 0.75%. This generosity apparently rewards those who have been members for 3 years or more. Wow! I can hardly contain my excitement. The Nationwide instant access ISA offers a derisory 0.25% – 0.50%, the upper figure again being for balances exceeding £25000. Ye Gods, for £25000 they actually deign to pay us the bank base rate. How very bloody generous! Anything less and you don’t even get the pathetic base rate.

Derisory returns aside, though, here’s what really ticks me off. This phenomenon is something that I’ve suspected for a while but not actually investigated. An ISA is supposed to be a tax saving for the consumer. The long-suffering Joe Public is said to get the interest tax-free. It’s a pretty simple concept. Once again drawing on the Nationwide’s site, if I am prepared to tie my cash up for various periods, I can take out a fixed-rate cash ISA bond with a maximum return of 3.25%. Well, great it may not be compared to recent years but it’s a whole lot better than 0.5%.

Hang on though, Nationwide also offers fixed-rate bonds (note the lack of the term “ISA” in the title), once again of varying terms. Upon investigation, the fixed-rate bonds appear to be able to pay out up to 4.15%. Curious! Even a finance non-professional such as myself can quickly deduce that 3.25% (the maximum ISA payout) is disturbingly close to 4.15% once basic rate tax has been deducted. I’m not supposed to have to pay tax on the ISA, though.

If an organization can offer a tax-paying bond at 4.15% why on earth can it not offer the same level of return on a tax-free ISA? I should be able to have a cash ISA at 4.15% as well. It shouldn’t affect the financial organization whether tax is paid or not. The only loser should be the blasted tax man. Sadly not, it seems. Old Joe would be just as well taking out a regular bond and paying basic rate tax as he would taking out an ISA supposedly tax-free. OK, admittedly those in the higher rate tax bracket win. Now there’s a surprise: to those who have shall more be given – once again.

The only loser is, in fact, Joe Public who, yet again, is being royally shafted. The wool is pulled firmly over his eyes and the much advertized tax-freeness is quite clearly mythical.

It’s grand to see that, in times of serious recession, our more advanced-thinking companies can spend their money wisely – unlike our degenerate bankers, it appears. I try to spend our remaining money wisely, too. That means that I refuse to pay Rupert Murdoch vast amounts of dosh for endlessly regurgitated 60s and 70s sitcoms. Instead, I’m limited to the free to air channels.

One of those is FiveUS. More correctly, one of those used to be  FiveUS. FiveUS shows an endlessly repeated series of the apparently endlessly produced American crime series such as CSI, Crime Scene Investigation, and all of its money-spinning spin-offs. [Aside: The illustrious Mr. Bruckheimer must be an extraordinarily wealthy, recession-proof man.] Just for some variety, endless repeats of Numbers, solving crimes by integral calculus, are also screened. This channel may be nothing but endless repeats but at least they are free endless repeats. CSI investigators shining small Maglite torches (sorry, it’s American – flashlights) in broad daylight and finding "trace" the size of a Greyhound bus to pick up with their tweezers may be banal but it beats "Big Brother" (either celebrity or otherwise) and "I’m a Dickhead, Get Me Out of Here".

Imagine my surprise when FiveUS disappeared and re-emerged as FiveUSA. I can only assume that large chunks of its target audience were confused by the "US" part of the channel’s name; maybe they thought that "us" was the first-person plural pronoun for we: our Five channel, or some such. The poor simpletons must have been incapable of realizing that the "US" was connected with a constant diet of American (that’s the United States, guys) programming. FiveUSA (that’s the United States of America, guys; its full title) is much clearer.

[The marketing bullshit for this "rebranding" is quite impressive.]

Duh!

My, my, the marketing bullshitters are on a roll these days. I’ve seen a couple of examples recently and the latest makes me feel irresistibly compelled to begin a new Bullshit category in their honour. Why should such total mumbo-jumbo pass by unnoticed?

According to the current Head and Shoulders dandruff shampoo TV advert, it will:

… keep your scalp up to 100% flake free.

 

What the hell’s that supposed to mean? If I remember my set theory correctly and were to draw a Venn diagram representing “up to 100%”, it would constitute the universal set; every possibility would be included. Zero% falls within the bounds of “up to 100%”. On that basis, blasted dog shampoo could be guaranteed to keep my scalp “up to 100% flake free”.

It’s complete bullshit.