Our April award for customer service excellence goes to Rosemary Chan of on-line retailer www.buyaswatch.co.uk.

Our user takes up the story:  “A few years ago, I bought a watch from buyaswatch.co.uk which I subsequently lost. I was trying to find a replacement and it was no longer available from the site. With no information of the design name or model number, I contacted BuyASwatch.co.uk on 16 April 2007 at around 6pm with a description and the best photograph I had of my beloved watch, in the hope that they would be able to sell me one just like it.    

By 11:30 on 17 April, I received a very helpful response from Rosemary Chan who pointed me in the direction of an online retailer specialising in past ranges of Swatch watches.”

Congratulations to Rosemary - your certificate is on the way to you

Last month we criticised Patientline for increasing the costs of its calls from hospital beds by 160%.  Now the company is under fire again, according to a BBC investigation.

Former employees have told of how a sales-driven culture meant that they needed to approach every patient, no matter how ill they were, to hit sales targets.

One unnamed former employee said “It reminded me of a cold calling job. Going from door to door, except with this it was going from patient to patient. It did not matter how ill they looked.”

A spokeswoman for Patientline said in response: “Patientline does not encourage hard-selling and our advisors are merely there to provide information and support to patients.”

utellus says

“We are not impressed by what we have seen in this report - preying on those who are most vulnerable is shameful.  However we feel that this is not simply an issue for Patientline. We have seen at first hand hard sell tactics from other organisations in hospitals - we found selling professional baby photos to new Mums in the hours after birth especially distasteful and we have to ask why some NHS Trusts allow this to happen.

We would encourage NHS Trusts to make it clear that such tactics are unacceptable, and make it easier for patients to let them know when they feel they are being exploited.”

A report from The Public Accounts Committee has criticised water watchdog Ofwat as too weak and said it should impose maximum fines on companies which fail to plug leaks.  It also urges the regulator to consider awarding customers compensation in cases of poor performance.

In its defence Ofwat insisted that where companies had not delivered, it had taken action on consumers’ behalf.  Ofwat was described as “weak… in using sanctions against companies that under-perform”.  However an Ofwat spokesman said: “Ofwat protects consumers by keeping prices down, driving improved service and where companies fail to deliver taking effective action.”

The example of Thames Water is very revealing.  Despite missing its leakage targets every year since 2000, the company was not penalised until 2005/06. Despite having new powers to impose a financial penalty,  Ofwat did not use them, accepting instead a legally binding undertaking to carry out the £150 million replacement of 230 miles of water mains.

Committee chairman Edward Leigh was particularly scathing: “Nowhere is [Ofwat’s] limp attitude towards the industry demonstrated more clearly than in the case of the serious wastage of water by Thames Water. Thames missed its annual leakage targets for six years in a row without so much as a slap on the wrist. In future, such a wanton waste of water by a company must be rewarded with the maximum possible fine.”

In April 2007 Ofwat proposed the first fine on a water company for “repeated and serious breaches” of licence conditions - the proposed penalty amounted to 0.7% of United Utilities’ annual turnover.

Are you happy with the service from your water supplier? If you’ve complained to the regulator, did you get a satisfactory outcome?  utellus…

Following a large number of complaints from drivers that they had been sold “contaminated” fuel, trading standards officials have today launched an investigation. The complaints centre on south-east England, with drivers believing that they may have been sold petrol containing ethanol, which has subsequently damaged their cars, causing juddering, misfiring and a loss of power.  Retailers including Morrisons and Tesco have been in the firing line, although both say that so far they have carried out tests and have found no evidence of contamination.

Many Virgin Media customers woke up today to find that many Sky programmes were lost to them.  A disagreement over pricing has meant that Sky has withdrawn many of its basic channels, including the popular Sky One.  Both sides are blaming the other - Virgin talks of “bullying” and “arrogance”, whilst Sky have said that they would not continue to negotiate on price.

The main losers here are the customers, who are being used as pawns by two media giants.  Neither of the two media giants can hold their hands up and say that they have put customers first, and both will need to work hard to demonstrate that they value their customers. 

The media in the last week or so have been very focused on the actions (or potential actions) of various financial institutions.  It’s not surprising that they’re in the spotlights, given some of the huge profits that have been announced; utellus takes a look at some of the stories:

Some MBNA cardholders were sent a letter at the end of last month telling them that they risk being charged what the company calls a “credit balance service fee”.  A £10 charge will be made on accounts which have been unused for 12 months, according to the American-owned company.

Graham Beale, the Nationwide Building Society’s incoming chief executive, told the Daily Telegraph that charging a current account fee may be a “fairer proposition” than offering free banking.  Mr Beale added Nationwide would not act unilaterally by imposing a fee.

As we reported at the end of last year, First Direct said it would start charging some current account customers a monthly fee.

And last week we told you that Citibank had upgraded its current account customers to a fee-based account, requiring them to opt out rather than opt in to more services.

On a more positive note, Barclays appears committed to free banking and that it was “very unlikely” it would end.  Chief Executive John Varley said “Free banking is a very good thing. I am very determined that we should protect it.”

So what does this mean for us as consumers?  For the time being, there is choice in the market, so vote with your feet.  However a word of caution - some banks have been closing accounts of customers who challenge fees, even when the customer wins.  So it may be prudent to set up another account with a different provider in case you need to switch at short notice.