JerryChicken wrote:I now check once a week to see whether any new gas regulations have been introduced so that I comply, it means hacking the confidential engineers page on the British Gas web site but its worth breaking the law to make sure I stay within the law and don't inadvertently carbon monoxide myself.
I do, though, think you've touched on an entirely relevant point.
In essence, when everybody is out to sell you something, how do you know who to trust?
Is it 'personal responsibility' to have to know, say, everything there is to know about plumping so that you don't make a bad or misinformed decision about a boiler or a car, for instance? Or as this thread has illustrated, insulation and architecture if you're buying/renting a house or want to carry out some form of home improvement? Hove we now deskilled so much that we can expect every customer to know as much about the subject as the salesman/engineer/mechanic etc?
We've mentioned it before, but there used to be pride/responsibility in customer service too, but in many cases, it no longer exists and the only motivation is the sale.
I had (another) incident recently, where my phone provider – formerly Orange and very good, but now EE and nowhere near as good – has managed to cock up twice on the same thing. They convinced me – yes, I heard the pitch, looked at the evidence and decided to give it a whirl – to try one of those myfi gadgets, which has the potential to save me some money.
On two occasions they have messed up the delivery. The attitude from a driver, ringing me from my home address to find out where I am – after I told them to deliver it to me at the office – is one of surly annoyance and 'well, you'll have to contact them'. That, of course, after the whole farce of only giving you a 'slot' for delivery with less than 24 hours notice.
The first time, I heard nothing from them (this was in the spring). The latest episode is ongoing, because having failed to deliver me this gadget – and thus having no signature for it – they've started billing me monthly as they they have.
I'd love to find another provider, but according to
Which? (personal responsibility taken in checking things out, note) all of them are pretty much as bad as each other.
So where is their 'responsibility'? Because now it seems that I have to spend my time chasing them to refund me monies taken that should not have been, because they're seem incapable of organising the proverbial in the proverbial.
To bring it back to building. The block I'm in is 18 years old. We discovered – via a burglary – that the housing association/builders put in windows that they should not have: they're too easy to prise open, as we found.
We pay building insurance to the housing association, but do you think we could get any help on repairs for that or the grilles that we decided to add?
Many of the flats have warped windows. Our back patio door/windows has one broken pane (another attempted burglary and the door has had to be repaired (at our cost) for the same reason. It's now far from capable of keeping the cold out. So, is it our responsibility to replace it – or not? What do we pay building insurance for?
The housing association says it needs to repaint the windows every few years. We (as a group of residents) have said why not simply replace the windows etc with polyurethane, then they'll won't need painting every few years and it will also solve the problem of several windows being warped and causing people to have damp problems etc.
The housing association says it cannot do that because it has to have agreement of all residents and it doesn't have the contact details for one of the flats where the owner rents it out.
Responsibility is wonderful. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work both ways.
