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26 February 2008

The Good, The Bad....

“Alan, people are trouble!”

This was the advice given to me by a lawyer friend many years ago. I suppose, given his occupation, he met a lot of people who were in a lot of trouble. It surprised me at the time though, as my friend was a gregarious ball of fun.

However, his advice was from then on firmly lodged in the back of my mind. With my dealings with suppliers, staff and customers it was always there, niggling away at me; prompting me to look for ulterior motives. For a fairly easy going chap, such as I am, it was a nightmare.

As I strode my way up the length of Britain on my LEJOG I was met with a constant stream of kindnesses. I found that if I had a smiley disposition I met with a whole host of wonderful people. Conversely, when in a gloomy or tired frame of mind, I met some absolute stinkers.

I put all this down as one of Life’s Big Lessons. If I had learned anything about Britain, it was that it is a pretty splendid place in terms of the people you meet and the glorious countryside you stroll through.

One such splendid chap, who I have written about on the blog before, is Daryl May.

Daryl is currently holed up in Tain, in Northern Scotland with a rather nasty blister on the sole of his foot. I believe it has come about from badly fitting boots. Now Daryl is a chap with an incredibly smiley disposition – this comes leaping off the page when you read his account of his last year’s LEJOG.

He has taken a week or so off from this year's JOGLE (John O 'Groats to Land's End) walk to heal his blisters. He has used this time to order new boots, in fact the same boots that he wore last year which did okay. That seems like good sense. This is where it starts going downhill fast. I will quote from an email from Daryl to me of last night:


"I found the same boots as fitted me on my last Lejog on the web at objectiv.co.uk, which is the web address of an outfit in Macclesfield called Baker Macintosh Ltd. The site promised same-day dispatch and overnight delivery. Just the ticket for a hiker needing boots in the wild.

I placed my order on Feb 18 before their "next-day" deadline, and hoped for a Feb 19 delivery. Some hope. First they said they'd dispatched the boots Feb 19. Then they said Feb 20. When the boots hadn't arrived by Feb 25, I finally had evidence from ParcelForce that they'd never left the seller.

Trying to get the status from Baker Macintosh was hellishly frustrating: 40 phone calls to either a busy number, a message machine and no call-backs, or people who misreported the status or didn't call back. Plus multiple emails that they consigned to an e-ticket system where the issue was closed without answering!

Tonight the Director is going to call me, they said. Ready and waiting, Mr. Baker. It's now 8 pm.

Companies like this shouldn't be in business. They give internet buying a bad name."


So, maybe my lawyer friend was right. People are trouble. Well, Mr Baker seems to be!

The upside to all this (haven’t you noticed that there is always an upside?) is that Daryl has met Gavin Meldrum. I put Gavin (known as ‘Eddie’ to his mates on the TGO Challenge) onto Daryl as I believed that he lived reasonably close to Daryl’s current rather static position. Well, Gavin has done well – he took Daryl out for an airing for a day and has suggested a good boot shop in Inverness should the missing boots never materialize.

So that’s the ‘Good’ and the ‘Bad’ dealt with. And the Ugly?

That’s Eddie’s mate Tom. A right ugly swine!

Cheers!

3 comments:

  1. I have not been waiting quite that long, but the problem is the same........ordered 7/3/08, got email for neopost.com about despatch on 10/03/08 and no sign yet, nor can I contact anybody.....
    Karin Bareford

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Karin

    Best advice would be to cancel the order and get your money back - they sound like a right load of sharks to me. Its always better to buy from a shop and try them on anyway, as Daryl has found!

    Good luck.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My issue with objectiv is not quite the same as everyone elses but just as frustrating. My shoes that I ordered from them arrived and after a few days of wear, the sole started to come off from the shoe. I sent them back and 6 weeks later I am still waiting for a refund. I am now currently in the process of taking them to a small claims court.

    ReplyDelete

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