I stand, against the Faceless Man

I want a car! I want a smooth, shiny, silent (almost) metal thing on wheels with an iPod connector so that your music can sing uninterrupted through the speakers.

Oh, I loved that. Last weekend we hired a car to take a long-anticipated trip to Nottingham for the surprise birthday party our friends hold every year for at least three people (yes, I know the surprise bit is a touch ironic). I am not sure what sort of car it was - grey, five seater at a push - but the iPod connector seemed the height of luxury (and the car did about five million more miles to the gallon than our old tank had done). True, E, Lexy and Coco were a little squashed in the back, while in the front, Ted and I - the ones who get car sick - couldn’t hear each other talk because of the loud music, but that connector…

OK, I’m easily pleased and as you will soon see, pretty shallow, but it strikes me that hiring a car from time to time gives us the best of both worlds. We can drive the latest model with all its mod cons and fleetingly impress the neighbours with our great wealth, though, somehow, I suspect that the obvious need we have for house repairs tells them another story. The rest of the time we can save money, keep fit and be smug about our green credentials, maybe keeping quiet about the car hiring lest it undermine our smugness. Of course we could have paid an extra £1.50 a day to the car hire company as a carbon offset but what with the extra we were aready paying to reduce our excess in case of accident, the price was steep enough already.

Hiring a car isn’t selling out, honestly. It is being what is known as car-light, or car-lite if you want to be modern and illiterate. And it has distinct advantages. No more worrying about garage bills, no more worries about insurance.

An insurance is something I worry about, with good cause. I am still investigating this matter, but tell me - is it right that an insurance company can charge £300 for 30 days insurance? That’s right. I had taken out new insurance just before the car broke down and when I came to cash it in, a mere 30 days after signing up, I found that the company in question wished to charge an ‘administration’ fee of £38 (as pushing a few buttons on a computer is very costly), and £176.21 for, as far as I can see, being a mug enough to sign up with them in the first place. I was told that this was something to do with the fee they had to pay the underwriter, but no-one could tell me what that fee was. In fact, there was no-one to ask as everyone beyond the poor souls on the customer service desk is nameless and faceless.

“What difference would it make if you had a name to contact?” asked the man who had been on the receiving end of my rant. And therein lies a problem in the way we do business these days. It is all impersonal. There is no-one who can give you answers. There is no-one to discuss things with. The customer service team can do what the system says, and let’s face it, computer says no.

A good example of this problem came last year when my newish laptop (still under guarantee at least) developed a problem and went back to the suppliers for repair. It returned without an ‘on’ button. 

Unsurprisingly, I was a little miffed and rang the company to ask them to remedy the situation. The help desk said they would sort it out IN THREE WEEKS TIME. I became more miffed. I was passed from one person to another. I demanded to speak to someone higher up in the management team. I was told that such a person was not ‘customer facing’. I had a vision of a group of serious men and women sitting at desks high up in a windowless tower, each one of them facing a grey stone wall.

I did some online investigations. I found a name. I went to the top. Within 10 minutes of my email to the head of customer services I received a telephone call from the man himself. It was sorted. David Grieve, you were a star. And that is why it makes a difference if I had a name to contact.

Mind you, it would have been a good idea if I had read the small print.