Openmanage reports it as failed, it has an orange light on the caddy, its a failed disk, nuff said.

For the record its a 160Gig Sata 7200 drive worth 2/3 of  naff all.

Phone Dell, all ready with disk in hand, service tag. After 20 minutes on hold I get an engineer who wants me to put it back in the server to gather him some diagnostic logs and waste more of my life in him not believing me.

I say I have no intention of wasting more of my life to appease him, and please send me a new disk, now.

He takes my details and tells me someone will call me back.

DELL SERVICE = FAIL!

Side by side, there are some obvious differences.

A quick way reveals that the fake is a couple of grams lighter as well.

Sorry Apple!

Beware fake accessories my friends!

That’s £42 you now owe me Apple.

As it’s an iPhone though I obviously have to carry a charger with me at all times. Unfortunately my charger failed on the train down to London, I thought no worries I will pop to the Regent Street Apple Store, I need a few bits and bobs anyway, I am sure they will just replace my charger!

FAIL! Do you have a receipt sir? No but it’s an orange iPhone thus only a week old. We need to book you an appointment with an iPod genius to assist you.

I am in London I have to be somewhere in 10 minutes and my iPhone is flat, can you not just plug it inand confirm I am right and replace it.

Sorry sir that’s not the process.

Is the least path of resistance to just buy a new one?

Yes sir!

Apple – you owe me £21 – the iPhone is still awesome though

Last Tuesday evening we went back to test the theory.

The first failure came early in the day when Jake popped in to check what time they were shutting that evening (their website says 10.30pm), Jake was in fact told they were shutting at 10pm that evening.

7 of us turned up at 9.45pm (i.e.  giving them a bit of slack), the conversation went like this (I have bolded the fails):

Me: ‘Good evening, please can we have a table for 7.’

Pizza Express Waitress 1: ‘Hold on I will just check.’ Fail 2 (The answer we were looking for was ‘Yes of course, I will see what we have available’).

Pizza Express Waitress 1 (who from now on will be known as ‘The Nice One’) runs off and has a chat with Pizza Express Waitress 2 (who from now on will be known as ‘Short Angry One’), there is obviously some debate as Short Angry One returns to talk to us.

Short Angry 1: Yes you can come and sit over here.

Me: Thanks, but that is only a table for 6 and its in the corridor, next to Kitchen, can we just go and sit upstairs.

Short Angry 1: Sorry, the upstairs restaurant is closed this evening. Fail 3 (The answer we were looking for is ‘Yes, no problem, please come this way’.

Me: I am sorry I don’t really want to sit in the corridor with one of us on the end of a table, please can we go upstairs.

Short Angry One: No, as I said upstairs is shut. Fail 4 (We gave you a second chance, you should have taken the hint).

Me: Do you mind if we have a quick chat in private… (we both move to one side).

Me: I wouldn’t normally argue any further, but your boss, Debbie Phillips assured me that we would always be able to be seated upstairs and it would never be closed, now please can we sit upstairs.

Short Angry One: I DON’T CARE, I SAID UPSTAIRS IS CLOSED, NOW PLEASE STOP INVADING MY SPACE. FAIL 5 (Don’t raise your voice to me or any other customer ever, plus you just passed up you third and final chance).

Me: Okay, as you wish.

We were shown to our table in the corridor. We then tried to shoot a video message (Tracy has blogged and posted it here), and Pizza Express Waitress 3 (Slightly taller angry but marginally concerned one) told us to stop filming! Incredible!

Anyway we ordered, and the food was good, so that was okay.

We decided then to keep drinking and stay as long as we could (just to see how long it would take them to kick us out), we asked when they would be shutting the bar, they said 11pm, so at 10.55 we did the right thing and ordered a round, this consisted of:

3 x Double Jack Daniels and Coke
1 x Double Vodka and Red Bull
2 x Peroni
1 x Coke (for the designated driver).

Now I am willing to bet there isn’t much change out of £25 at Pizza Express prices, however Short Angry One said ‘Sorry, I am not serving you anymore alcohol, you have had enough I think’. Which we hadn’t and was, IMHO, purely an act of bitterness.

Sigh… Another call to Debbie coming up.

Anyway Outside Line, the digital agency responsible for Beroccas online marketing contacted me, basically they have a special Berocca bloggers relief pack, which you can get yourself at this special microsite:

http://www.berocca.co.uk/bloggerrelief

Clever stuff Berocca/Outside Line, I like it!

We walk into Pizza Express, Coventry and its pretty full, all the staff are still on serving, and we ask for a table for 5, the girl serving us looked concerned and ran off upstairs to ask her manager.

She came downstairs and said ‘sorry no we can’t serve you as we are closed’, we went to great pains to explain that we come in all the time, and that we will be quick, and could we talk to the manager. Nothing, in fact she blanked us and walked off!

This all makes no sense, its not like they had finished for the night, in fact we probably would probably have been in and out faster than some of the people having a more leisurely meal.

We would have spent well in excess of £100, been really happy that they served us, instead they have lost out on the revenue and 5 peoples goodwill.

We ended up going to the wonderful Thai Dusit, where they were more than happy to feed us, take our money and stay open as long as we wanted.

The Coventry Pizza Express constantly dissappoints in respect of customer service, I think that at least 25% of the time I go there one of the following occurs:

1) Sorry we aren’t serving anymore (despite the restaurant staff and other customers still being there).

2) Sorry we are full (despite the fact that we know they have an upstairs seating area with no-one in it).

Basically I am coming to the conclusion that Pizza Express just don’t want my money, which is a shame because I like eating there!

I should have known better when the onerous ordering system forced me to supply home phone and mobile before continuing (My only home phone line is for ADSL and fax), but I ploughed on.

I selected the free delivery because although it said delivery would take 14 days, I didn’t really need it yet, so I could wait.

The next day I got a hassling call from their logistics trying to talk me into paying for delivery so I could get it quicker, and that I would have to wait for the tv to be delivered ‘directly from the manufacturer’.

I eventually convinced them, that I was happy with the free delivery option (though I sensed I would regret it).

Yesterday they phoned me to say that delivery would be today between 10 and 6, I ensured that there was someone at the house all day. They happened to turn up while I was out with the TV, and then demanded to see the credit card I paid with (despite it being delivered to the same address as the card). The card was of course with me, so they took the TV away again. In addition they revealed how they lied to me, it was their own people delivering the TV to me rather than ‘direct from the manufacturer’, so basically their free delivery option is them delivering it whenever they can be bothered.

I phoned up to rearrange delivery and they told me that redelivery would cost me £35 – more than if I had taken their 2 day delivery option in the first place.

I just went with the, fair enough I will cancel my order… and now they are T&Cing me… (see below).

Basically rubbish, my recommendation is DO NOT USE RGB DIRECT.

—–Original Message—–
From: RGB Customer Services [mailto:service@rgbdirect.co.uk]
Sent: 27 June 2008 17:28
To: Ben King
Subject: RE: Failed Delivery Charge apply

 Dear Sir, Further to your email , please note that any failed delivery are subjectedto a charge of £35.00 for refund to process. With reference to the creditcard swipe , we always take manual verification swipe of Credit/debit cardon delivery this is completely for security reasons , we have also statedclearly on our terms and conditions  www.rgbdirect.co.uk . As you have placed order on internet , you must have seen the terms andconditions of delivery . At this stage if you wish to cancel the order ,there will be £35.00 failed delivery charge apply to your account. Pleaseconfirm accordingly and we will process the refund as per your request.   Thank you Kind regards  Customer Services Tel:  0208 478 1444Mob:0796 696 8734Fax: 0208 924 0114Email:Service@rgbdirect.co.uk