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Editor's Notes

• #2: This is a short presentation inspired by Ed Milliband’s keynote speech. Horrible to watch, I’m told, but I found it very interesting to read. The presentation raises concerns through three case studies – a large retail multi-national, Tesco, (but it could be any shed builder), a small service provider, ASP Host and Web Solutions, and a professional organisation, The Law Society in the wider sense of the term.
• #3: “fast-buck” Britain has always existed but it didn’t really become common until the Thatcher years. Now, it seems to be all pervasive. Just watch the Apprentice for 5 minutes and pray that industry isn’t really like that. Yes, it’s all about business viability (making money) but surely there is a place for dignity, respect, consideration, communication etc in the world of commerce? Hmmm seemingly not.When my mother died, the Nightingale Nursing Home got £709 out of her account before I got around to closing her account. No problem? Huh! It took me 18 months and a very considerate police officer to get that money back. The doctors(!!), R & S Sondhi who ran the home claimed it was an administrative error. People like that shouldn’t be allowed to run nursing homes. The Care Commission agrees but I would have to incur the cost of a successful civil case against the Sondhis before they would be able to do anything about them. I believe all nursing homes should be non-profit organisations. It is immoral to make money out of people on their death beds.
• #4: Case Study One: Based on a George Monbiot article in the Guardian. If the shed company loses, I reckon that they shouldn’t be allowed to apply again for at least 10 years. Also I believe that every shed should have some architectural merit even if it’s just a jokey façade. Anything but a giant logo and lurid paint job and if it has to have a giant logo then it should be in neon (compulsory!). “In opposition, both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats promised to give communities a right of appeal against planning decisions. The Conservatives also promised to limit developers’ rights of appeal. All dust.” George Monbiot
• #5: George Monbiot calls them “Wullies” but I’ve got a friend called Wullie so I just can’t do that. Much prefer WUL.There was a series called Town with Nick Crane on the telly recently. I just about fell out of my chair when Tesco was complemented on the architecture of a town centre Tesco. I think it had a wavey roof but otherwise was the spitting image of the one above. Surely Tesco can do better than that. Mind you, at least it was in the right place – the town centre – pulling people into the CBD rather than drawing them away.Tesco should be bright enough to work this out themselves. Real consideration for the community that they want to invade, sorry, service, is impossible to fake but it is not impossible to engender.
• #6: The geography behind the location of these stores is very straight forward. Peripheral greenfield or brownfield site with excellent road communications, preferably on the breaking point of at least two but sometimes three settlements. Reilly’s Law of Retail Gravitation – remember it? Used to be taught in 3rd and fourth year geography in Scotland and is still occasionally taught in sixth year. A few of our past students are obviously very busy locating sheds!
• #7: When you are daft enough to get caught by a simple scam, the tendency is not to own up. Just go away and hide. I don’t mind admitting that I’m stupid as long as in doing so other people are warned of possible pitfalls. If I was still teaching I would be using these slides to wise up the kids. I used to spend ages explaining what consumer resistance was. Didn’t do any good. Most of them still demanded instant gratification and went out and bought overpriced Sky, Apple, etc products. If something is overpriced and doesn’t sell well the price falls rapidly.The trouble with ASP was they seemed like really nice people. How wrong can you be.
• #8: Even BT provides billing reminders! To even call this email a billing reminder is an insult to anyone’s intelligence.
• #9: (Buckfast is the drink of choice for our very young street amoebas. They eventually progress to cans of lager and cider in their twenties.)Twucwuc land is somewhere in Stafford seemingly.
• #10: Their reply was even more mindboggling. I hadn’t read the terms and conditions. I have now. It’s a scream. They really do show their true colours. I tried to put a link in here but guess what. The page wasn’t found! They do this. If you google them the first 10 pages are all links provided by themselves. You’ve got to get to page 10 before the truth starts coming up. I was supposed to give a month’s notice of cancellation before the “rolling contract” kicked in. How do you know when the rolling contract kicks in? Why should they care. They are only interested in charging you in advance. I removed the website so they are literally charging me for a blank page. I don’t think that this will worry them.It is basically blackmail. Give us your money or we will damage your credit record. The long distance selling act is supposed to protect consumers according to the Office of Fair Trading. Ho hum.
• #11: The police aren’t interested. It’s a “civil case” as far as they are concerned. The Office of Fair Trading describe ASPs modus operandi as a malpractice rather than a scam. The main thing is just to let people know what they are dealing with. I do hope that bloggers pick up on this and pass the message on. Individual slides are available for download on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/geojuice/sets/72157625481228013/with/6189866865/Enjoy!
• #12: The deeds of our house are with Intelligent Finance. We paid off the mortgage several years ago but IF won’t give us our deeds unless we engage the services of a solicitor. Why?
• #13: There is a website called “Solicitors from Hell”. The Law Society is spending a lot of time and effort trying to close it down. Solicitors would be a lot better off spending a little time and effort working out why the website exists and why it is so popular. If the Law Society set up their own website showing comparative prices for the same task between companies and allowing clients to rate the service which they received for quality and value for money, there would not be the same feeding frenzy which surrounds the “Hell” website. It won’t happen. Why not?Solicitors work very hard – to become partners, to make money. They make a lot of mistakes, most of which get swept under the carpet. Added price transparency and customer feedback would improve their standing no end. The Law Society needs to sort this out itself before regulations are forced upon it.
• #15: Now calm down, dear! These are just four would be leaders who have degraded our standards of living, and our standards of behaviour. (Maybe Greenspan is OK on the behaviour front but then he did more economic damage than the other three combined with his promotion of the derivatives market and subprime mortgages.) If only….