@Fiat_uk @Ancaster_Group Very Bad Customer Service & Theft

Buying a new or a used car is a big purchase for most people and I've heard horror stories from many manufacturers. Fiat will come under the spotlight here,this occurred a few years ago but the matter was never resolved by Fiat and the passing of time has made the experience no less harrowing.

The purchase was an 'approved' 3 door Fiat Punto which cost in the region of £5000-£6000 including a part exchange. As you can imagine Fiat were very helpful as were the Ancaster Fiat network  until the cash was in their pockets and the car was off their forecourt. At point of sale Fiat made it clear that there was existing warranty on the vehicle and that was valid,well that wasn't strictly true because after the gearbox went after around  12,000 miles they didn't want to know!

Another side note to this was prior to the purchase a Ancaster Fiat dealer had offered £100 for the part exchange and looked surprised when this was rebuffed! Eventually a part exchange of £1000 was received from another Fiat dealer in the same Ancaster Group for the same vehicle,why that didn't ring alarm bells at the time I don't know but that should give you an idea of how unscrupulously this firm was and potentially is still operating a £900 swing on the same vehicle? I think the first dealer was having a laugh or was genuinely out to swindle a customer.

Obviously a decently made car should have a gearbox that gets through the warranty period at least,Fiat looked at the car and handed over a bill in the region of £1200. I left the car with them and said fix it under warranty or at least under the Sale of Goods Act,a gearbox going before warranty on a normally driven car is a sign of poor build quality and a car that wasn't fit for purpose at point of sale. There was an attempt to point to servicing from Fiat as a way to absolve themselves from responsibility as if servicing includes any checks whatsoever on the gearbox (servicing doesn't involve any checks on the gearbox at all).

Eventually Fiat sold the car,applying to DVLA for new registration ,effectively stealing it and as far as they were concerned that was the end of the matter. So Ancaster Group and Fiat felt it is ok to steal someone else's goods and absolve themselves from responsibility for a faulty product they have sold.

Also notable was the way Fiat Italy and Fiat UK pointed the finger at the Ancaster dealer while the Ancaster dealer pointed the finger back at the manufacturer,just an appalling customer service experience.

This is a cautionary tale for potential Fiat owners,the 'Fix it again Tomorrow' slogan hasn't arisen from nowhere,you may be better off buying Japanese if you want reliability and decent customer service!

Ancaster Group's way of dealing with an unsatisfied customer :

You have been warned!

Bookies' Banter is Better than their Customer Service? Priorities all Wrong

All the leading bookmakers  persist in bombarding the twittersphere with a host of bad sporting jokes,sporting trivia and general drivel while their customer service Twitter handle goes unmanned 70percent of the time with the last tweet dated as in and around October 2016 in most cases.

Most people will hear this and say ,'So what?' Well it's a little more serious than that,bookmakers are basically trying to come across as the amiable,friendly mate that you have a wager with over a pint in The Swan and Mitre but the reality is very different.The truth is you are placing wagers with an exploitative, ruthless,sociopathic corporate entity that intends to siphon profit off of ignorant or lazy punters who bet without adequate research,prudence or care while limiting the action or even banning shrewd punters who consistently turn a profit.

The bookies tweet out general jokey rubbish all day with seemingly no let up ,'United fans wish Pogba played half as well as a retired 36 year old  Gerrard has in this legends game!' accompanied by a picture of a United fan with his head in hands. Tripe like this is as uninteresting as it is innacurate.If a vital cog in United's midfield has been playing so poorly why is it that the bookies shorten them up to 1/5 (1.2) at every opportunity and if the game is at Old Trafford you'll be lucky to get that!Pogba hasnt been a world beater but 6th in the league and a League Cup medal suggests he isn't doing that badly!

Bookies need to put as much effort into their '@support' accounts as they do on their main accounts,don't fall for their laughs or engage in the bets they jokingly suggest or bring up,do your research,be selective and see these sharks for what they really are.

@Unibet abysmal Verification Process.Avoid!

My experience with Unibet went from the sublime to the ridiculous.

I got a £100 'bonus' from them having won a prize draw I was entered into for doing a customer experience survey for them. The bonus required wagering of £100 so I placed a bet on a hockey game for £100. About half an hour later after placing the bet I was informed the bet was being voided (while the team I bet on were leading 2 nil and went onto win the game). The market was up,I placed the bet and this inexplicable void came in,fishy I thought.I looked into it and the game was scheduled to start at 9.30am ,Unibet claimed my bet was struck at 9.30.19 Basically they were saying the game had started, alledgedly for 19 seconds, the puck may not have even been dropped by 9.30.19 but that was their argument despite the fact they had the market open,so who's fault is that I wonder?

So after that I wagered another bet for £100 which lost. Did I gt a second chance to void a bet like Unibet got with my initial bet? Of  course not but who cares? That's £100 in the pockets of Unibet so why would they care?

Luckily I went on to have a decent winning bet later on so I went to make a withdrawal. All of a sudden Unibet now wanted verification of my ID ! I had been depositing and withdrawing on this account for weeks before with no issue. Now all of a sudden I was a suspected money launderer or criminal underworld black market dirty cash kingpin. On Trustpilot I see others have had the same nonsense from Unibet with regards to verification they need to get their house in order.

The verification process is very frustrating,the arrogant customer service staff are clueless on live chat and are constantly changing the story with what documents are needed and how the pictures of documents should be taken. By the end of the picture taking process I could have given David Bailey a run for his money. If it wasn't for a half savvy guy called Jake on there I don't know what I would have done to get money which is rightfully mine!

I contacted the boss Henrik Tjarnstrom who ignores tweets and seemingly ignores emails as well which is disappointing and poor from Unibet.

Unlike 888sport the Unibet new customer offer is pretty lousy so don't even bother with that,just stay away unless you want grey hair before your time.

@WilliamHill : Fraudulent Bet Advertising

The bookmaker's hall of shame is filling up by the hour. How poor Estate Agents and Tax inspectors get a worse shake than Bookies is beyond me. I had a cheeky punt on the Ice hockey NHL.The terms of the bet are clear as day for a punter looking online. Cam Atkinson scores and Columbus Blue Jackets win and you get paid right?

Errr not exactly. Hills tried to point to some hidden Ts and Cs that state the bet is only valid upto 60mins,the winning goal was scored in Overtime. Well it would have been nice if this was written directly by the bet! 

Looking at the advertising online this can only be viewed as underhand by Hills and I'm disappointed because I actually viewed them as one of the good guys.

I also note how reluctant Hills and all bookies are to give out their CEO's details,they never know the name of the boss or his/her contact details which is as convenient for them as it is unprofessional.They get credit for a 0800 phoneline but lose this for the evasive way they gave details for complaint contacts and CEOs details.

Generally Hllls are ok,their website is ok,their service is ok,but on this occasion they have come up short.

Bad Customer Service Hall of Fame. Why do we put up with it?

Why have companies seemingly got so much contempt for their paying customers these days?

Dealing with energy suppliers,financial services firms,sports betting firms etc is like pulling teeth. The customer services staff often give incorrect information,take ages to respond to queries and greet mistakes with vacuous apologies and on occasion blind indifference.

I am tempted to name and shame but for the time being I will focus on purely ranting without specifics to serve as a brainstorming session before undertaking further in depth analysis in further blog posts. Actually forget that,let us name and shame,that's exactly what ranting is about.

What I do not understand about poor customer service is that we pay our money to these firms and they often behave as if they are doing us a favour,in return for our pound notes and loyalty we often get treated like mugs or worse still an afterthought for some firms.

The obvious response to this incompetence is to vote with your feet and take your business elsewhere but after a while you run out of options or find that all these firms are under the same umbrella like the awful Betfred/Totesport organisation or Paddy Power and Betfair. Sports betting is a great example of this where all the big firms are roughly just as bad as each other. Betfair have a very good exchange but the customer service on its Sportsbook is useless,slow bet settling,long response times to emails and a cold corporate attitude to accountability and dispute resolution.

British Gas are an absolute disgrace.They spend millions on advertising to succour in new custom and then bombard you day and night with junkmail ,phone calls and emails selling you various forms of household 'cover' that you do not need in the hope of draining your bank balance and giving you sweet FA in return.

Edf Energy are a joke with their foreign based callcentre and clueless staff who leave you wishing you lived off grid with no need for electricity such is the level of hassle you have to go through to get a correctly itemised bill or have a query answered coherently.

Tesco Bank are the worst financial firm in business,no email address contact and a policy of dealing with finance related queries over Twitter and Facebook,are they completely  stupid? Then they wonder why they get hacked exposing customers to fraud which happened to them just months ago. The answer given for no email contact was that they do not have a secure messaging centre.If they cared so much about secure messaging would they be asking customers to DM and tweet problems with their chip and pin issues? Unbelievable.

Having said all this the one firm that seems to be rated highly by all is Amazon who seem to have the customer service side of things fully covered,why more companies do not bother to match such high levels of service is beyond me.

The answer as usual probably leads to money.Big firms do the bare minimum that they have to,if the money is rolling in why should they care? Foxtons Estate Agents is a great example of this,despite a reputation for sharp practice and contempt for buyers and tenants they continue to prosper. Perhaps bad customer service is a feature of a sociopathic society devoid of compassion and consumed by the profit principle.

Totesport and Betfred.Beware of New Customer Offers

Totesport offer a £25 risk free first bet. It sounds good initially but please note that you are ineligible for this offer if you have an existing Betfred account. The offer could be worth a go if you have no existing Betfred account but you do so at your own risk.Good Luck!

Totesport do not tell you this up front,they wait for you to stake the £25 then they go through a phoney verification process asking you for identification,following this they close your account for seemingly no reason (if an existing Betfred account is detected by their system).

 If they close your account like this when you lose the first bet imagine how quickly they will close the account should you win!

When you ring them up they fob you off and terminate the call. When you ring back, eventually they admit Betfred and Totesport operate under the same umbrella like it is a dirty secret,they also admit they get punters ringing up complaining all the time but still they do nothing about it So effectively you are out of pocket  whether or not you win the initial bet and have been cheated out of the new customer offer you were promised.

I am astounded they have managed to pull this scam for years,IBAS (the Bookmaker's Ombudsman) have done nothing about it.

The best I can do is advise people to steer clear of Totesport and that reflects badly on Betfred too as they are the same organisation.

888Sport.Glitzy Enhanced Offers but no Substance

888sport have loads of enhanced offers , they are all over Twitter and the internet offering various new customer enhanced odds offers.Sounds good right? Well the opening gambit may be good but the ongoing customer service is lousy.The response time listed for emails is 24hours which is pretty useless if you have a query for an offer or event that takes place in the next 24hours.The mobile site is ok but is cumbersome and trying to find the live chat feature us like searching for the Holy Grail,it's exasperating and laboured.

I have found the @888support and @888sport Twitter handles to be totally unresponsive although they seem to have time to post unfunny comments and tweets inaccurately described as 'banter'.When you do get an email back from customer services it is disappointing and lacking empathy although this is not a feature confined to just this bookie in fairness.

The website is usable for placing bets and I'm sure regular users get by just fine ,the problem comes when you have a problem or a query,the response times and lack of Twitter service is simply unacceptable.

In summary you may wish to take advantage of the new customer offers but you will most likely have to look elsewhere for a regular bookie for day to day use,that's if you value your sanity.