Jim Roberts

prompt delivery of hi-dose garlic pills which is what I ordered,

This company weatly.com sold me online a scam 30 TB file storage unit for £32.64. Its capacity was well below this @ a few megabytes. They registered their site via Godaddy and have since disppeared.

Online Tickets.

When you buy your ticket online they send you an email. That email is your ticket. It's 4 pages long as a printed item. They advise you to bring your ticket on your phone or as a printed item.

I never bring my ticket on my mobile phone as it often runs out of electricity. I always print my tickets out.

But being 4 pages long, think about it, all that paper and printing ink, hardly an example of good design. So why not a simple one page PDF file?

The Royal Free's outpatient's appointment system is bust.

They never contact you for your consent or availability for a given appointment. The 12-digit system code required to change an appointment is not declared in the letters you get from the hospital. The longer you hang onto a telephone call to the outpatients' centre the more likely you will get cut off.

They often don't work in concert with the NHPs app.

The system is bust.

18 months after the Electronic Catalogue went down it is still bust. No info when it will be up again no progress report.

More and more galleries year after year are abandoning the National Arts Pass as a system of obtaining discounts to their exhibitions. It used to be more or less universal that if you had an Arts Pass you got your discount. Now you have to check the website of the gallery concerned. Sometimes the discount is not half-price. Sometimes the fact whether the gallery concerned accepts the Arts Pass or not is not up front in their list of entrance prices ─ you have to ask.

The Arts Pass is not a trivial purchase. Currently it is £62.25 annually and £83 if you buy it with a debit card online. That makes the real price for the card £83 annually as no bank uses personal cheques anymore and no one can be bothered to go to the Post Office to get a Postal Order. That's a lot of money.

In a place like London, Cambridge and Oxford one is competing with rich tourists who have vastly more resources than the citizens of this country. Indeed the citizens of this country should be getting discounts anyway to visit these establishments. Other countries operate better arrangements for their citizens ─ Free entrance days and national passes granting free entrances to all of that nation's heritage for Free with one simple annual payment.

UK has far too many organisations managing its heritage: English Heritage, Welsh Heritage, National Trust, high prices to visit its Cathedrals, Royal Palaces etc. etc.. One has to be a Friend of the organisation concerned for a fee, or buy/pay for an annual ticket to a member of these organisations. It becomes too expensive for the citizens, and the nation's children become culturally starved.

Notable organisations who have dropped the Arts Pass.

Hayward Gallery
Dulwich Art Gallery for special exhibitions
Courtauld Art Gallery for special exhibitions

Love Holidays does not provide the full service one might have expected of a Travel Agency service. The prices that Love Holidays advertise are not the full set of prices you have to pay. For example, Love Holidays uses Wizzair. They don't have or use a dedicated airline. Wizzair is renowned for charging passengers a great deal extra for all the add-on services they provide: seats, baggage, priority boarding etc., etc.. Wizzair is very expensive for all these add-ons. Plus they, Love Holidays, expect you do all the admin. work checking in for these flights.

The extras that Wizzair charge for means that you can't compare holiday prices between holiday companies up front because of this. On an airline one might expect the seat price to be included in the airfare. In our case we had to pay £68 extra for seats in both directions, and not especially special seats at that.

Greed! I used a Wise currency card yesterday to withdraw €60 from an ATM machine run by them on the platforms of St Pancras Railway Station, London. I had balances in £pounds-sterling and €euros on this card. I chose €euros as the currency I needed and wanted

I wanted €60. I was charged £60.52 for this transaction £1 GBP = €0.9915 . That day the true rate of exchange was nearer £1=€1.21. Shouldn't my transaction have been nearer £50?

I describe this machine as being Greedy. They didn't declare their exchange rate up front on the screen before using this device permitting me to cancel the transaction before I even started.

This cinema uses an online ticket service whose PDF format cannot be printed properly. Perhaps its QR code format does not work with home printers.

Anyway having booked and paid for 2 tickets for 2 persons I was not able to print their ticket. BAH!!!

If you have a stiff and complex technical problem the staff in the Herceg Novi shop (a) do not speak sufficient English to understand your queries and (b) are not technically competent enough to deal with your problem.

After buying a Tourist SIM card from them for 2 weeks use, and inserting it into a MIFI device [wireless router] it didn't work for data transactions. Why? because they hadn't given me the correct APN and telephone number to sign on to use. Their Website had no information regarding this and their staff were technically incompetent.

Many years ago Montenegro's mobile telephone companies were far more technically competent and gave you the full information you needed to operate your equipment. This is no longer true of Telekom.me who are totally incompetent.

for 4 G devices the log on APN username is tmcg-4g password 38267

On top of my APN issue was the SMS number and text code to use for how much data I had left and when did my connection die? The staff in the shop showed no understanding what my enquiry was about. No comprehension of English, the international language used across Europe. Telekom.me's website was useless for my type of enquiries. Other websites like FANDOM's didn't have up to date information.

I'll not be using telekom.me tourist SIM card services again.

In addition they have an automated ticket queuing system. It also was bust, not a good advert for their services.

British Airways website is absolute crud!!!! We have been trying all day to change a flight. The Website denies our ability to do this and suggests we should contact Customer Services. Calling Customer Services suggests we should use the Website. We are locked into a logical circle. BAH!!!

Sometimes we get through to the system online which then times out. BAH!!!!!!

The Website system is bust!!!!

Do not order online with this company.

I tried ordering a pair of shoes [Karrimor Summit Black size 8.5]. I went through all the procedure to order and personally to pick up my order from their Kilburn store. I paid for the item using a debit card. A few minutes later I receive a notification by email from them that they do not have my purchase ready to pick up at the location I nominated, and that I will have to wait up to 10 days for them to fulfil this order.

At no time during my ordering process using their website did they indicate that the store I had nominated did not have the item immediately available. Their ordering process does does not connect up with their stores' "in stock" database ─ How Primitive!!!

Argos has a system which ties up with their stock levels!
Sainsbury's has such a system.

In fact almost all the stores which have an online presence have such a system!!!!

Next the email letter of confirmation was one of these "donotreply" ones. I want to cancel my order and for my money to be returned to me, but there was no apparent way to do this online or to write to the store; instead their online system declared the following:-

"No, you can't cancel your order or make changes to your order. This includes adding or removing items, changing colours or sizes, changing delivery addresses, delivery options or the email address on the order.

Once you’ve placed your order, the order starts going through the system straight away, so that we can get it to you as fast as possible.

If you've changed your mind and no longer need the item, please arrange for the item to be returned once received. Or if you're wanting to order something else, you will need to place a separate order in the usual way."

Bah!!!! They are not interested at all in their customers. They want their money and if their customers face any problems [even of their own making] after placing an order they're not interested, or at least any interest has been made impossible for the customer to deal with the company!!!

I declare their online ordering system to be utterly inadequate. I am not able to do anything online

I am going away in a few days for 8 week. I wanted to collect this item today. I have spent my money, they have take a £5 fee from me for the item to be delivered to their store; that's an 18.5% add-on to the price of the item concerned. I want all of my money I have paid back.

I might later today go to their, this particular store and make my complaint direct to their manager on-site there!!! But this visit to their store will be a waste of my time if (a) I can't fulfil my order or (b) can't get my money back straight away.

Don't bother using B&Q's fancy new automated key cutting service. It's (a) expensive and (b) the copied keys don't work.

Setting up one's Mobile Phone Application is an impossible task for someone who is a pensioner. The whole system is nuts! Personal IDs, One Time Passcodes, Passport Scanning etc. etc. . The whole system has been designed by a Nerd who is tech-savvy, and the whole process is not suitable for someone who isn't. In plain English, it is in need of a complete overhaul!!!

20 minute telephone queue to book a blood test.

A next to useless operation. Boots used to be the country's primary pharmacy, but it has become an expensive store for the yuppy market. Everything Boots sells is grossly overpriced. Boots seems only to want to sell "branded" goods with high profit margins.

For example it is impossible to find what you are looking for in a Boots store. They have no Customer Service desk whom to ask where to find anything. Their shelving system is organised anarchy and chaos.

Their loyalty card is yet another case where they want you to shop with them without giving you any service.

There is no one visibly in-charge in a Boots store. The staff who work and are employed there couldn't give a damn about customers' wants and needs, or comments about the service given in the store or its lack of goods that they want or are looking for.

I went to the large Boots store in Brent Cross one of the biggest in North London. It lacked all the following:-

Aquafresh Toothpaste
Oral B Indicator Toothbrushes
200 gram pot of Sodium Bicarbonate

Is this what Boots has become?

Uber Thames Clipper Boats to Greenwich.

Yesterday [27th May 2024] we booked online at home via the app a boat trip from Westminster Pier in London to Greenwich Pier. When we got there, there was chaos, at least a hundred others ahead of us in the queue. We had to stand and wait in the queue for one hour and a quarter before we could board a boat. Two boats passed the Pier full up.

Our complaint was and is that we could have taken an alternative route to Greenwich but had spent our money up front booking online. Uber did not warn us that the route would be heavily booked on that day. We would not not have used the Uber boat service had we known in advance this situation.

We are old and had to stand all that waiting time in the queue. BAH!

Don't use this service on a bank holiday!

Other problems include the poor connection to the mobile phone network on the floating platform on the Thames at Westminster Pier. Why? If you are using a mobile phone app to prove that you have a ticket to ride, the network must must work!!

My advice is that you should not use this company for a Tourist SIM card if you intend to come on several visits to Serbia during the same year. They lock your phone and account with them to its old number and your email address that you may have used several months previously. Lord forbid if you should have forgotten the password you may used several months previously.

I asked them to wipe the former account I had held with them previously. They refused to do this because I had forgotten the password I had used. I did not have the old SIM card in my phone. Meanwhile I had spent 700 RSD on a new SIM card and added [via their Yettel App] another 1700 RSD money which I thought I had directed to my new SIM card with them. All the extra money I spent was added to the old SIM card which I had left behind in UK. All I wanted was the credit added to the new SIM card telephone number.

The manager in the Yettel shop was completely unhelpful given my situation. She refused to give me my money back. I went to A1 instead.

One needs a Serbian SIM and Phone Number to use the buses and trams in Belgrade.

We flew in late in the evening (arriving at 10pm) to Gatwick North Terminal from Malta. As usual, Easyjet does not use a tunnel to disembark the plane but a step ladder to the airport's apron. We made our way with our hand luggage via a cattle market pen to the North Terminal's building. We entered at Ground Floor level. Was there an escalator or a lift to take us to an upper level to the corridor which led to passport control and baggage reclaim? No there was not! We had to carry our rather heavy hand baggage up several flights of stairs to that corridor. I was completely out of breath by the time I reached the top of that staircase.

Next, were there any usable toilets on the way to Passport Control? No, they were all locked up. We had to wait till we finished with Passport Control. There was a busy toilet in the Baggage Reclaim area, but completely down at the other end of that huge hall.

Did this terminal have any usable baggage trolleys? No, they were all locked up like supermarket ones, only usable if you have a £1 or €1 coin. I didn't have one.

Service at this Terminal? Nil! Zilch! Zero!!!

This is a privatised service. More than 50% is owned by VINCI Airports. The privatisation of airports was meant to bring better services for the public who used them. After my experience yesterday evening I would conclude that this has not been the case with Gatwick Airport.

When you sign on and have to change your existing account you need to have the telephone number of the new telephone number with you up front and with you. You don't provide that immediacy.