08/01/2010 by Esio Trot.

My current Laptop, bought circa 2004 has been playing up.

Last Summer thanks to a You Tube demonstration stripped it down to re-solder the power input socket back onto the mini circuit board - this is apparently the most vulnerable part of a laptop, having the most stress, and it is surprising (me having looked at other laptops since) how feeble the design of some connectors are.

Anyway, I’ve now lost the wireless aerial so rather then be totally caught out, replacement is the name of  the day.

Having looked around for a few weeks, I realised that although there are loads of laptops around, most are huge. I don’t want to lug around some massive suitcase, so something around a 13″ to 14″ widescreen is fine.  Trouble is, whereas there are loads of these at £500 or below, these tend to have grotty graphics cards. And if I am away at a Premier Inn someplace and not being much of a TV watcher, I do like to while away the evening hours playing Civilisation or something.  Surprisingly many laptops sized at 15″ have significantly better graphics cards.

My first port of call in considering computers is e-buyer. I’ve been using them for years now, and only once have I had a problem bit of kit and they sorted it out quickly and, most importantly, easily. Sadly though, they didn’t have anything suitable when I looked, whereas Dell did.

So on on 18 December 2009 I settled on a Dell Studio XPS 13, with 4mb RAM and a 512MB nVidia GeForce 210M graphics card, priced at £720 delivered. I did have warning bells in my head while ordering, but in my desire to replace my laptop, ignored these - and what a mistake this turns out to be. I really regret placing an order with Dell. Their ordering system stinks - they make so much noise about “Security” and needing to conform to their system, it seems that the customer has become a necessary evil. This is the saga so far:

• Ordered on Friday 18 December. The website gives heinous warnings about not delivering to anything but the address to which the card is registered to, but I thought this would not be a problem as our trading address is registered with our card provider, albeit that we are invoiced to our company registered address. Payment was taken from our account on Monday 21 December.
• Interestingly Dell make it plain that the item is “build to order”. This does not really affect business customers, but it does mean that domestic customers cannot make use of the cancellation rights of the Distance Selling Regulations as the item is “made” and not immediately available from stock.
• e-mail received on 23 December from an address that does not accept replies saying delivery on 30 December, with a big warning that deliveries cannot be altered and that someone should be available from 8am to 8pm to accept delivery. WHAT? a 12 hour slot? Plus, we are closed between Christmas and New Year? There is a big sign on the door saying we re-open on 4 January, so I assumed it would be delivered then.
• 4 January comes and I get a call from the delivery guy from his mobile asking where we are. It’s then that I realise that when making the order I made an error: Although I put the office address on the original order, I put the registered office postcode! The chap says that the address is not his area, but he’ll see what he can do.
• The delivery chap did not do anything. Using the contractors tracking facility, I see that it went from the local depot back to the national depot on Tuesday 5 January, where it has stayed since. There is no contact number on the contractors tracking service.

Despite Dell having my personal office e-mail address as well as our main office telephone number, plus my mobile, nobody from Dell has been in touch.

This whole order is in limbo. I am so annoyed at the lack of personal contact since placing the order. I can’t change the address, so the item won’t be delivered; as the item can’t be delivered, I can’t reject it and get my money back. I e-mailed customer services on 6 January saying that I am not having a good customer experience and asking that the order be cancelled. The e-mail has to be done on their website, and to show their poor customer focus, once sent a copy is not forwarded to the e-mail address that has to be input, nor even an acknowledgement sent. The page says that their aim is to answer queries “normally” within one business day. This is the second business day, and still nothing has been heard.

I will update as the saga continues ………..

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05/05/2009 by Esio Trot.

In one of my reference dictionaries, it states that a debacle is “Something that ends in a disastrous failure, esp. because it has not been properly planned.”

The liberalisation of the Royal Mail monopoly in 2006 is certainly that: motivated by political dogma, rather than planned with the long-term future of Royal Mail in mind.

It allowed private operators to do the all of the processes involved in the collection, sorting and delivery of mail - with the option of still using Royal Mail to do the final walk-up-the-path delivery (for a fee).

Sounds great, but in practice has meant that all the mass mailings from businesses (and more and more government departments) where Royal Mail used to derive a significant element of their profits, have been taken over by the likes of TNT, Business Post etc. YET, Royal Mail is still required to maintain the universal postal service.

In addition, I understand that the bean counters who worked out the commission earned by Royal Mail for providing the last walk-up-the-path bit was flawed - Royal Mail just about breaks even for providing this bit.

So, we have private companies processing profitable bulk mail and using Royal Mail when it suites them for the last bit.  And what has been the result for us, the general public:

• Royal Mail having to increase the cost of first and second class postage that you and I have to pay at a rate well beyond the rate of inflation (In only two years there has been a 30% increase: second class has risen from 23p to 30p; second, from 30p to 39p).
• Government Ministers harangue us nearly every week that Royal Mail is insolvent, that its operations hardly covers its running costs.
• A huge pension deficit exists that needs private money to make it solvent.

Seems to me that the simplest solution to Royal Mail’s predicament will be to re-impose the monopoly it had - thus it’s turnover will increase significantly, thus contributing greatly to its profits (as most of its fixed costs are already met) and it will then be able to make decent inroads into the pension deficit by making contributions out of the extra revenue generated.

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