Category Archives: Unsatisfactory outcomes

Discussions that didn’t lead to a good conclusion

Jimmy Stuart: weird smell, poor quality, and terrible customer service

A few months ago, I received a fancy shirt from Jimmy Stuart for my birthday. I had confirmed with the gifter that it was the pattern I wanted, but we were both quite disappointed with what we found, and smelled, in the box.

We decided to request a return for a full refund but the company refused. Not even the intervention of an NSW Fair Trading mediator helped, and we find ourselves having paid ~$115 in total (with return postage) for a ~$80 shirt (due to second postage), that we probably would not have paid more than $30. Also, the smell is still there.

Lesson learned: don’t buy clothes online without making sure you can get a refund if dissatisfied, as Fair Trading mediators bear little weight against bad-faith vendors.

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Plastic

As Van Badham wrote this week, the people who have gone plastic free have all had some breaking point. After months of trying to be mindful of our plastic use, but accepting that for some things, it was inescapable, I was finally pushed to the edge by an article which reported that micro-plastic had been found in ice in the Arctic. THE ARCTIC. That, and finally internalising that recycling isn’t really a thing – it is just a distraction from solving the real problem of masses and masses of plastic that doesn’t need to be made.

So, now our household doesn’t get to eat strawberries, or blueberries, because of the little plastic punnets that they come in.[Update: now growing our own plants] Polyester is out, natural fibres, bamboo in particular is in. Milk in plastic bottles is out, waxed cardboard is in. The roll of Glad wrap that we have in the drawer is the last one I’ll ever buy, ditto for the garbage bin liners. Pasta in a plastic package is out, cardboard boxes are in.

Lush have a good range of solid shampoos (this one is particularly good – makes my hair fresh, and scalp non-itchy), and I’ll try their face-wash this week.

I’m struggling with inescapables: toothpaste, medicine, bread and cheese packaging.

I know on some level that our small family isn’t going to make a huge amount of difference in the scheme of things. There is already too much plastic. Some companies are trying to do the right thing, by offering corn-based plastics, but, it seems like there are a lot of problems with that too.

Anyway, we will continue to minimise our plastic waste, and, in doing so, we get to create a whole new category of complaint letters – emails to companies to complain about their plastic use.

Here is our first, probably of many, to Carman’s. Well, many emails in general, not specifically to Carman’s.

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Book Depository: too much security, not enough communication

Christmas time. I decided to order books as presents from the Book Depository, and have them delivered to my son and his family in Australia. It has always worked in the past, with any other provider. Probably even with the Book Depository, but not this time.

When the parcel was not showing up much after the stated delivery date, I started enquiring, but nothing helpful was forthcoming. “[D]ue to security reasons [they] are unable to disclose”, the order was cancelled. No notice was ever sent that this had happened, and particularly not why.

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Europcar Car Rental Cork Airport: Disappointment, Promises, and More Disappointment

On a trip to Ireland in October, we had to rent a car to see ourselves around. We booked the car online from a website called “Irish car rentals”, but it turns out to be a front for europcar.ie.

We had been warned about hidden charges for additional collision insurances (Collision Damage Waiver, CDW), and that one way to avoid those charges was to pay with a credit card offering some sort of coverage.

So we had this covered, but the pain did not stop here.

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Australia Post’s consistent performance

A few hours ago, I had to look up the details of an Australia Post outlet, on my phone. Fortunately, Australia Post has a rather slick and to-the-point mobile website.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work…

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Nuk Suction Baby Bowls

We have entered the world of baby paraphernalia, mostly because we managed to co-operate long enough to have a baby.

A thing to note is that new parents are taken advantage of by all of the baby supply people in two ways – first, the fear that your child will die or feel poor without some expensive bit of equipment; and second, if you don’t have some special bit of equipment, you will be massively inconvenienced.

Being mildly suspicious of the the whole industry, we did buy a lot of stuff secondhand before our baby was born. However, as time goes on, sometimes we need equipment (or so we think!) faster than we can source it, and some things are better off being bought new.   Anyway, this flurry of spending has given birth (yes, I said it) to a whole new category on here: Baby Paraphernalia, in the hope that we can save unwitting new parents from wasting their money.

Our first review will be about the Nuk Suction Bowl.

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CommonWealth Bank: Not So Helpful

I recently realised that I had been paying fees on my CommonWealth Bank Account that I shouldn’t have. When enquiring about why I hadn’t been informed about this, and left paying them, I was told that the information had been given to me through advertisements (Why not a personal message? I wonder…). Additionaly, my consent was needed for the fees to be waived, though it surfaced that my consent wasn’t so needed for the fees to be applied in the first place. In light of this extensive information and due process (not!), the bank refused to refund these undue fees.

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