Oh. (Russ L going to and fro in the Earth)

‘Battle Of The Bands’ competitions are stupid, as I’m sure we all know. ‘Popular music as a competitive sport’ is a bizarre idea, while ‘a competition you win based on how many supporters you have’ is an outright idiotic one. The larger ones based on the bands selling fixed quotas of tickets go beyond this peculiarity into the realms of being actively unpleasant. The bands do all of the promotion for the gigs due to their need to sell tickets, and cover the costs and their own petrol money through said ticket sales. ‘Sponsors’ quite often donate the ‘prizes’ (either that or you’ll be blessed enough to win a record contract or some radio play that never actually materialises). What precisely do the (supposed) promoters actually do other than eat the profits?

Enter Surface Unsigned. Danny Smith posted about them on Created In Birmingham, and after some back and forth was surprisingly surprised to find out that the above sort of thing applied. The chief differences in this case were that the nonsense was A) on a national scale with tons of heats/rounds all over the country; B) charging £6 per ticket, and C) employing a ‘text this number’ system for additional fun and profit. That’s a lot of money flowing upwards. A quote from SU’s Terms & Conditions document was posted as evidence. So far so Dick Turpin, but two months later we’d all forgotten about it just as this sort of thing is destined to be forgotten.

The massive were soon to be reminded. SU decided that the republished excerpt from their T&Cs constitutes an abuse of copyright (I say ‘decided’ advisedly; it’s not like this follows the actual law or anything) and demanded that the whole post should be removed lest legal action be taken. This frustrates me far more than their sleazy promotional system (I don’t like that, but anyone silly enough to fall for it gets what they deserve). It’s just a feeble attempt at bullying. There’s no attempt to answer or refute any of the criticism; it’s just “shut up or we’ll bash you”.

What they’re about to learn, of course, is that the internet doesn’t work like that. The CIB gang quite rightly aren’t going to kowtow to such pathetic threats, and I salute ‘em for it. The offending paragraph has been re-written in lolspeak, which in my view is a more than reasonable compromise.

Your move, SU goons.

(If you don’t like entities trying to quieten criticism in New Media by this sort of method, repost a link to the original post on your blog using Surface Unsigned as anchor text, like so. Soon the Googlejuice will overflow).

Other follow-up posts:

- CIB
- Oh Danny Boy
- C-C-C-C Chris Uniiiiiiitt
- P’Ashton (including the threatening email)
- Deelog

EDIT: There’s a collective memory post on CIB with links to all of the many posts of support ‘n’ thought that this incident has inspired. It is actually quite heartwarming.

2nd EDIT: The man who tries to shut people up with threats feels ‘bullied’. Why do I get a sinking feeling that perhaps no lessons whatsoever have been learned from this?

A little update on the Travelodge thing

I sent the letter quoted here (that was a direct c’n'p, spelling mistakes and all. Doh.) to Travelodge by recorded delivery, and as such I can confirm that it arrived on 18/09/2007. I have seen the signature to confirm this on the Royal Mail website.

The reply I received (by means of email) was on 09/10/2007. I’m prepared to allow a little while for my letter to be transferred to the appropriate department and then the time subsequently needed to reply, but this still seems slightly on the slow side. Not a big deal, though. I know we’re dealing with a large organisation and that these things take time. This is one thing I wouldn’t complain about.

My reply was from one Norbert Rave, which I have to admit is an awesome name. He signed off as ‘Operations manager’ for Docklands Travelodge, which doesn’t sound like the obvious job title that you’d charge with responding to my complaints having my booking altered to City Airport (even if it was from Docklands) and subsequently ending up with the wrong room, but then again I have no idea how their internal structures work. I appreciate the fact that I got a reply (I didn’t actually expect one), and I appreciate the sentiment - he wanted me to give him a phone number for him to call me to see what could be done to ‘make everything right’.

Well, the minor problem here was that I think Travelodge have kept me on the phone for more than long enough already during this irritating farce. I don’t like phones to begin with, and had no wish to have to have to sit with one pressed to my face for any longer if it wasn’t necessary. Which it wasn’t. The larger problem was what on earth he meant by ‘make things right” - I have already explained my problems and said that I wouldn’t be using Travelodge again. What did he possibly think he could do?

One thing, that I can think of - there was one small question left on my mind that he could have answered. I replied to his email to say that I wasn’t interested in phone communication and that he couldn’t really ‘make things right’, but that I would appreciate having one specific question answered - what actually were the ‘issues’ (shudder) surrounding our transfer? In spite of being sure enough that it was simply a result of Travelodge’s policy of deliberately overbooking, I was happy to be told if there was an alternate explanation for these ‘issues’ that the booking telephonist either couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me.

Mr Rave hasn’t replied. Since it’s been over a month and a half now, I suspect he isn’t going to.

I said before that I wouldn’t be using Travelodge again and would do as much as I could to persuade others not to either. This exchange hasn’t convinced me to alter my position in the slightest.

Here’s the body of a letter of complaint I’ve sent to Travelodge, following the recent London debacle. Everything contained therein is true.

I write to register my complaint regarding the unsatisfactory way I was treated by Travelodge on a recent trip, and to explain why I will not be using Travelodge hotels again.

I originally booked a family room at Docklands Travelodge, for the night of the 8th of September. The booking number for this stay was (~), and I received a confirmation email on the 8th of June.

I received a call in the evening of the Tuesday prior to the Saturday of my stay (the 4th of September) and was told that my booking had been moved to London City Airport Travelodge and that I had no choice at all in the matter. I was told by the gentleman on the phone that it was only “half a mile down the road”, although in actuality it is over two miles away. I do appreciate the forward notice and the fact that it wasn’t just left until I turned up at the wrong place to tell me, but I don’t appreciate that the person on the end of the phone seemed to imply that the Tuesday before the Saturday was some huge length of time and forward notice. He also seemed to think that offering me a free breakfast was some sort of panacean cure for all ills.

I was told that the alteration was due to ‘issues’ with the room. When I asked if it was due to Travelodge’s well-known and widely resent policy of deliberately overselling, he replied that it wasn’t as far as information he had been given went. Said information did not extend as far as to explaining precisely what the problem was. Is it fair to treat your staff thusly? “Why exactly am I being moved?” is an obvious question that they are going to be asked. It seems absolutely ridiculous that they can’t be told how to answer it, given many customers would be significantly more irate than myself. It’s unfair to them and unfair to the customer who doesn’t get a straight answer.

I was promised that booking confirmation would be emailed to me that evening. I still hadn’t received it by Thursday morning. When I found that entering the reference number into the Travelodge website still resulted in details of the Docklands booking being displayed, I held on the phone and listened to irritating music for 25 minutes between 9:30AM and 10:AM, but didn’t get to speak to anyone. I eventually selected the option to leave a message (which I didn’t want to do, not being aware how often you check them), asking for the confirmation to be emailed or if necessary for someone to ring back. Neither of these things happened.

Returning home on Thursday night to find a noticeable absence of communication from Travelodge, I tried to ring again but found that the booking helpline was closed. I sent an email through the ‘contact us’ form on your website (fully aware that the ‘ten working days for a reply’ limit meant it wouldn’t do the slightest bit of good), and managed to found the phone number of the reception of the Travelodge I was supposed to have been diverted to. The gentleman I spoke to there did confirm that there was a booking in my name for the Saturday night, but sounded very confused and unsure. I wasn’t sure about this myself.

My email confirmation never did arrive, and so left I left for London on Saturday morning reasonably but still not entirely sure that I was meant to be going to City Airport, and with no solid proof beyond a couple of vague phonecalls. I arrived there (dismayed to find it in the middle of factories and warehouses, no pubs or nightlife etc. This was supposed to be a like-for-like exchange for me, was it?) to find the desk staff initially confused but able to figure it out eventually. I got upstairs to find that I’d been given a double room rather than a family. I realise I should have complained at the time, but by this point I simply could not be bothered to argue anymore.

I blessedly wasn’t late for the event that was the purpose of our trip, but I did only get there with (literally) a couple of minutes to spare. Returning to the Travelodge afterwards, we found ourselves forced to buy expensive bottles of beer (all draught was off) in hotel bar, due to the aforementioned lack of anything else in the area.

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that this really took the shine off our trip. The first couple of times I used Travelodge I encountered helpful service and well-kept rooms. Since then most of the rooms seem to be shabbier, and that combined with this revolting set of circumstances has ensured I will not be using Travelodge again and will do all in my power to ensure that others know how they may well ended up being treated if they do.

Edit: There’s an update here, although not much of one.

The big wedding drew nearer still. The time came for the male end of the wedding party (including me, as an usher. I said ye-eah, ye-eah… I’ll stop) to go to pick up our suits from Young’s Hire, at ‘Suits You’ (formerly ‘Suits Plus’ in Birmingham’s Bullring), and we weren’t in the least bit pleased with how things went.

It must be stressed that we had to spend the morning waiting for them to call us to tell us it was OK to come and collect the suits. I’ll repeat that – ‘they’ rang ‘us’ to let us know that everything was ready and waiting for collection. Under the circumstances, you wouldn’t expect to turn up to find a minor detail like the GROOM’s suit missing, would you?

On top of this, my (I’m always the awkward one) jacket had a dirty great mark on it and they hadn’t given me any cufflinks (“Did you ask for them specifically?” Not myself, no, but the suits were all ordered at once and every-bloody-body else had a set). They were able to find me some cufflinks in the shop, but Trig’s suit and my jacket had to be sent around to his house in a taxi the following day.

The tailor who dealt with us was a really irritating individual, too, and then on top of everything else (this isn’t the shop’s fault, but it added to our frustration nonetheless) they needed a photocopy of a bank card to release the suits, in case they didn’t come back. Naturally, none of us had one on our person and we had to wait while hero of the hour Mike (you’ll hear more of Mike’s all-round star quality as tales of this wedding continue) dashed into town to provide the necessary.

The outstanding articles were successfully delivered the following day and so it all worked out OK in the end, but none of us were in the least bit pleased with the service.

I would not recommend them.

~ Russ L, scowling sternly as he writes this.