One More for the Boycott List?

[Sundae]

I used to work for a very large retailer of mobile (cell) phones in the UK. I was responsible for branch-to-branch transfer of phones and dealing with the courier company that we employed for this. National distribution from the warehouse was handled by a different company and a different member of the team.

I saw the invoices, and I thought we would be an important customer to them. Nope. I only ever really got to deal with the staff at the local depot and they took our bookings, complaints, claims and dealt with them as you would expect a bunch of 17 year olds working in a sandwich shop would deal with the staff of the nearby offices. We seemed to provide them with entertainment rather than any concern. Occasionaly I raised them to a sludgy form of life by copying correspondance to increasingly higher figures and getting our in-house Fraud dept involved (with mobile phones sadly you get in-house fraud) but it was never a major concern.

I documented everything - I had to cover myself - and when the contract came up for renewal I shocked the hell out of the glib saleswoman who came with pre-signed forms. She promised to look into it, and very little improved.

The above is not to discourage you. It is simply to make you aware that delivery/ courier companies seem to live in a world of their own. We finally got better service as a company when they realised we were taking it seriously and requesting protocols as well as delivery requirements. You go for it - anything you can do to highlight the situation and make the company's attitude public the better.

BTW do you have any consumer affairs/ whistle blowing programmes in the US? In the UK, people write to a TV programme called Watchdog - when they realise there are a number of complaints they investigate and changes do happen..... eventually!