Philips - putting barriers in place

Past experiences with Philips
In March 2009 I had the misfortune of trying to use Philips' Customer Services department. A product bought from them had failed (surround-sound speakers) and was within the Philips warranty period. They made it difficult to contact them, sent me round various departments, had contact forms which did not work, did nothing when I contacted them (so I had to keep getting in touch every nine days to complain again). In the end it took two months and a huge amount of effort on my part before they would honour the warranty. Even then I was unhappy with them - we should all be concerned about waste of the Earth's resources. Yet when I asked Philips about getting the speakers repaired, even if I had to pay, I was told that Philips no longer repair faulty products - that it is cheaper to buy new. However environmentally it is a disgrace - if a product breaks after a year Philips expect you to throw it away and buy more, even if the fault is something that is easy to fix. Electrical goods have some of the most damaging manufacturing processes and include many toxic substances; recycling can not deal with the sheer amount of goods that Western society produces then discards. Any decent manufacturer would have the ingenuity and inclination to design their products to be easily (and cheaply) repairable, and would either have their own repair scheme or would enable repairs to be made by small local companies. Philips are a big let-down here, and I am very disappointed. On top of the fact that it took two months before it was resolved, during which time I had no sound from my PC, limiting its creative uses massively.



Current experience: Philips projector breaks
So has Philips improved at all? Sadly, no.

Around 20th August my Philips Bsure XG2 home cinema projector stopped working. It has always been looked after with great care - the only time it is moved is to perform recommended maintenance such as cleaning the dust filter. When it refused to turn on my assumption was that the bulb needed replacing, so I ordered another one on 27th August, at a cost of almost £200 (yes, accessories for some Philips products are that expensive).

The bulb came and was put into the projector, only to discover that the same fault remained (noisy fan, no picture, temperature warning light). Therefore it was clear that it was a problem with the projector itself.

That shouldn't have been a problem in an ideal world. It should be possible to contact Philips Customer Support, discuss the problem, and get an estimate of where the problem might lie and if it is fixable. If so to then arrange for a paid repair at the nearest Philips repair centre, and just keep the bulb as a spare. However, if for some reason it is not repairable, then the bulb needed returning to the seller as soon as possible for a refund - otherwise I would be left with a £200 bulb and no equipment to use it in. It should be clear that a timely response from Philips would be necessary...

First I tried to find details of my nearest Philips repair centre on their website. However their website had no such information - it just seemed to be designed to persuade people to buy Philips products, and the required support information was not there. I had to use a form on the site to contact them (there was no email address) - the form was extremely dodgy and took six attempts (tried in different browsers and sessions) before it finally sent the details off. The other times it just crashed.

Confirmation of my first contact with Philips, 1st September

Then next day I got an email back off Philips, saying that Philips Customer Support can't deal with a straightforward support issue for a Philips Product - instead to ring a phone number and speak to staff in another Philips department. They did not take ownership of the query or pass it on.

I rang that number immediately (2nd September). The Philips staff at the other end said they could not give me contact details for their repair centres, but would pass my details on to it. I explained the urgency - how I just needed to speak to someone to get an idea of whether it was a fixable problem since if not I needed to return the projector bulb or risk being £200 out of pocket (in top of the money that would have been wasted in buying a Philips projector).

After that: nothing.

On 8th September I rang again, rather angry at the waste of time and hassle that I was going through. I was told that the support centre would be contacted again and asked to get back to me urgently, and that I would get a copy of the email.

I did not receive an email. No one contacted me.

On 9th September I rang again. (I should add that the support phone number obviously goes to a non-UK support centre). By now there had been over 30 minutes of phonecalls and waiting - the calls were recorded. This was when it became clear that Philips do not even have a UK repair centre for this product! I was shocked that they only keep a repair centre open in Austria; nor will they advise on anywhere in the UK where the projector could be repaired. (Bear in mind that this was not a cheap product - the projector cost over £1,500 to purchase, so this level of aftercare and support is rubbish).

Now it is the 12th September. I have been unable to watch films or use the Xbox that is connected to the projector for over 20 days. Philips have made it hard to contact them, then ignored me when I eventually spoke to someone. There is currently no prospect of getting the projector fixed in the UK (if at all), and I could be left with a £200 useless bulb on top of that since it is too late to return it.

Next steps?
I will give them another day or two and give a preliminary crap rating - which is likely to be high based on the runaround I have been given.

If they don't resolve this quickly I will also post up the details of the speakers problem too (I have all the screenshots and emails showing how poorly they treat their customers) and will rate them on both experiences. They could then join Royal Mail as the company to get crap-rated TWICE - quite an achievement.

Update 17 September 2010: Despite the original queries by email and phone, and new email of 12th September (which informed them of this website), no-one in Philips replied. There were no unaccounted-for missed calls, and no emails from them. I rang them again today for another ten minute phone call (five of which were spent on hold). I was told (again) that someone would get back to me.

Update 26 September 2010: It has now been over a month since the projector broke. Philips have still not spoken to me about the problem and given an estimate of time and cost to fix, so for all that time I have been unable to use the living room as a home cinema and entertainment room, since there is nothing to connect my Xbox to. Central Philips Customer Services have ignored my most recent email of 12th September about how unhappy I am and why (it included a link to this blog post), so they obviously don't care what customers think once they have got their money.

I have received a phonecall once on 21st September from the staff Philips directed me to, apologising for the delays, but not from the projector repair team who I urgently needed to speak to (over a month ago...) It is increasingly looking like Philips are just hoping to ignore me, leaving me with no option but to try and get the projector recycled (oh, just noticed, Philips don't recycle them either) and waste all those resources, time and £1,700. That looks like the sum of the 'Philips experience'. The irony is that their stupid slogan is: "Our Mission: Improve the quality of people’s lives through timely introduction of meaningful innovations". It should be: "Worsen people’s lives through faulty products and our refusal to make it easy to get them repaired."

I have just sent another email to Philips. What do you do when Customer Services fail you? Go above them. However the Philips website is high on gloss, low on utility. For example you can find out who is on the Board of Management or Group Management Committee but there is no way of contacting them to point out the failings of one of their core departments, and the inevitable bad publicity that will arise from it. I very much doubt that Philips will be helpful enough to provide any details though.

Update 30 September 2010: Thanks to everyone who has emailed details of problems you have had with Philips, or said you will avoid Philips products in future. Your support means a lot! I contacted some 3rd party, UK-based repair centres and they replied within a day with clear guidelines on costs and timescales for repair, some of which even offered to arrange for collection of the projector. The contrast in experience by trying to go down the 'official' route is rather sharp.

Update 3 October 2010: Along with the other emails backing me up I received a long and detailed axample of someone else's experiences which were very similar to mine. I have decided to post the text in its entirety, since the sender went to such effort to record every transaction. Many thanks! I hope you get somewhere with your repair, I can only recommend trying a third party company and never buying from Philips again.

"My Philips projector broke too so I thought I’d contact them to see if it could be fixed. That my first mistake. I should have just gone to an independent repair company. My second mistake was assuming that ‘customer care’ meant anything to Philips. My third mistake was to assume that because a customer care line had stated office hours, that there would be anyone there during those hours to answer the calls.

Here’s the sorry tale of trying to get an answer to a simple question from Philips.

Tue 14th September. I use their website to send an online enquiry (note – no direct email address available from Philips) regarding my projector. As I couldn’t find projectors listed within their general categories I choose ‘home entertainment’ as the nearest match. I get an automated reply back, which clearly isn’t based on the information I submitted as they’ve put “Dear Mr. / Mrs. [surname]”. I am neither a Mr or a Mrs, and chose another title from the options. Why haven’t they used it? Maybe a minor point, but it didn’t start me off in a good mood.

Thur 15th September. I got an email from “Luke, Philips Customer Care” saying “Unfortunately, this department does not handle queries regarding Projector products. Please contact the following number to speak to the Philips Projector Department 02079490069.”

Hmm, I thought. Why can’t they just pass on the email? Surely it’s not that difficult to transfer an enquiry? And what were the office hours of this phone number? Also, why should I have to ring them, when I’ve already made the enquiry by email, AND, ticked that I wanted to be communicated with by email? And, it’s not a free-phone number.

A little disgruntled I went back onto the Philips website to see if I could find more info about the projector team. Didn’t find anything, but, a pop-up box asked me if I wanted to try online chat with a member of Philips to answer my question, so I did. That didn’t help in any way as the person was unable to explain why the email enquiry could not be simply emailed from the home entertainment team to the projector team. The person I was chatting with, Frank, seemed to have a poor grasp of grammar and spelling, and was not particularly helpful eg
[from live chat:]

“Visitor: Not sure why Philips is putting the onus on the customer to do the running round, phoning a number, even if it is a national land line. The support pages do offer the option of using email to contact customer services, so I did. Now I have to phone.

Frank: yo have to undesrtand that email service will not be able to solve all queries, especially the more technical ones that would require a hands on trouble shooting.”

So I gave up on that route too. I thought I’d try submitting a basic enquiry about Philips repair centres via the online form again, selecting the generic contact, not a particular department. I tried THREE TIMES and each time the request was rejected to ‘Bad request.’ So I gave up on this.

I thought I’d try ringing the projector team then. No hours for this team had been provided in the email from Luke from Customer Care and so I rang at 19:45pm, but it transpires this was outside their office hours which are “M- F 8am-7pm and Saturdays 9-5.”.NB – this is very important later on.

So I decided to ring the main customer care number given in Luke’s email:
“Our Customer Care Centre can be contacted on Tel: 08003316015 Monday to Friday 8:30am till 8:00pm and Saturdays 9:00am till 6:00pm.” NB it’s important for later on to know that this is stated in the email signature as ‘Customer Care Centre’.

I spoke to a female (who’s name I didn’t catch). She didn’t know who Luke was, she was on reception and could not answer my question as to whether Philips had any UK repair centres. She explained that the Philips projector people are a separate team. I explained I can’t ring during those office hours. She said I’d have to go back online then. But the online form won’t work!!! Wasn’t hugely impressed with this level of customer care. Why didn’t she offer to pass on my query, or take my number and get someone to call me? As a last resort I hit ‘reply’ to Luke’s email to ask some questions. I never got a reply.

As I work till 6pm most nights and have various evening classes and other commitments on most nights of the week it was going to be difficult for me to ring the Projector team in the evenings, so I thought I’d try Saturday. What a fool!

Sat 18th September
Rang the Projector customer number at 11am. Note, this is WITHIN their stated open hours. What happens? An automated voice says: “Our offices are currently closed. Our opening hours are M- F 8am-7pm and Saturdays 9-5.”
Now, I’m not sure which clock and calendar they are using, but generally, in the UK, 11am on a Saturday morning generally falls into the 9am-5pm hours.

To say I was pretty cross would be an understatement!

So, I decided to ring the original customer care number to see if they could put me though, or explain why the team wasn’t there.

Derek answered. He could not help me as he explained the projector team is an EXTERNAL company that Philips contract to provide the service. His suggestion? Just keep trying. Yep, that’s right, I should keep ringing a UK landline number, at my expense of time and effort. Gee, that’s really good customer care. He claimed they only have this one telephone number for this company.

With other things to do with my time on a Saturday I gave up for a few days.

Thursday 23rd September
Got home early so that I could ring the projector team in their office hours. I rang at 18:25pm. But guess what? Yes, I got the same “our offices are currently closed” message. I began to think I was in a different time zone. I double checked my watch. I double checked the calendar. I was pretty sure that 18:25pm was within the office hours of up to 7pm. Fuming by this point I decided to ring the Philips Customer Care number again. I got through to a female (didn’t catch name) who said she’d try the number for me. She put me on hold then I got redirected to the number that is not answering! So I had to ring the main Philips number AGAIN! This was really getting beyond a joke.

I asked to speak to a senior customer services manager. Was told “I understand where you are coming from but there is nothing I can do”. Why not? Apparently this Customer Care number given on Luke’s email to me (the original reply from Philips) is actually a Technical Support customer care number for the home entertainment section, NOT a generic Philips customer care number. This was NOT stated AT ALL in the email signature, or in the email address of Luke [a generic Philip’s email]. The female said she would put me through to the main Philips switchboard. So she did. And guess what? Yes, it was closed!! Their hours are 8.30am-5:30pm.

To rub salt in the wound I then got an unwanted unsolicited item of junk email from Philips, despite having ticked the ‘do not add me to the newsletter’ box when filling in the online form. Not impressed.

Fri 24th September
I decided to give it one final attempt. I had tried Saturdays, evenings, now I would try a morning. I arrange to get to work a bit late and stayed at home to make the call to the projector team at 08:30am. I got through! I was speechless for a few seconds.

Apparently they do have the facility to arrange repair, they take details of the projector and the fault and then get back to customer by tel, email or fax. I left my email and said this was my preferred method of communication as I was not at home during the day, and do not have a mobile (yes, that is true!) and also left my telephone landline.

I also raised the issue of the out of hours phone message being on when it’s during their stated office hours. She was not aware of this and said she would look into it.

Wed 29th Sept.
Not received a reply. No phone messages. I thought I’d ring again – it was 18:13. Yep, you’ve guessed it. The automated message “Our offices are currently closed. Our opening hours are M- F 8am-7pm and Saturdays 9-5pm”. You couldn’t make it up! So after being told their line is closed when they’re meant to be open, they haven’t done anything about it. Which leads me to conclude that either they couldn’t be bothered to fix it, or, they deliberately turn the message on early so that they can work shorter hours.

Saturday 2nd October.
Still no phone call or email from them.

So, after a total of 1 online form request, 3 failed online requests, 1 online chat and over 10 phone calls I have got absolutely nowhere.

Just typing this up from my notes has taken an hour of my time. My next steps are to find an address for head office and write to the chief exec – in my experience that’s the only way to get rubbish service dealt with. Great that your blog exists because these companies don’t care a damn about their customers until it gets in the public domain."

Update 9 October 2010: Someone at Philips rang me on Tuesday 5th October, and said they were looking into the repair options and would get back to me that day or the next. They did not ring back at all. So all I know is that Philips no longer repair their own top-of-the-range equipment, which makes a mockery of the principle that you should buy the best in order to be guaranteed a quality service. Apparently they direct people to independent repair centres in the Netherlands or Austria! However the Philips member of staff was not even sure of that. So yet another weekend with no films or Xbox. Thanks Philips. It has been around 40 days since I have been able to do either of those things, and no resolution is in sight.

Update 17 October 2010: Still nothing from Philips until I contacted them again. They said they would get back to me, and had spoken to staff in Holland this time about getting the projector repaired. Despite two requests, Philips refused to provide contact details for anyone on the Board of Management or Group Management Committee so that I could inform them of the problems I was having. It appears to be an attempt to cover up the poor service. I have now requested the details from Companies House which will apparently include a financial cost. I also received an update on 14th October from the other person trying to get a projector repair.

"Tonight I rang the number Philips gave me for projector repairs. It was an automated message saying "Our offices are currently closed”. It was 6:32pm - their message said they would be open until 7pm... So, I rang the general Philips switchboard, saying I wanted the name, tel number and email of Senior Customer Services Manager. I was left on hold for 5 mins.

The next day I got the email below - it makes no grammatical sense in many places, and note that there is no reply email address to respond to them.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Call #
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:38:28 +0200
From: do_not_reply@philips.com
Reply-To: do_not_reply@philips.com

PHILIPS

We were contacted by another customers' service of our company regarding your case.
The reason was that you can't get with us on the phone.
I tried to call you but there was no reply.
I checked your case and the service center should have received your request.
If you have any further question you can always contact us.

Kind regards"

Update 18 October 2010: Brian Desmond from Philips rang to say their repair agents are Teleplan. Teleplan had changed their email addresses so Philips automated emails to them weren't getting through. I would be contacted by Teleplan.

Update 8 November 2010: the projector came back. Philips covered the cost. I was told by Teleplan that one should not use bulbs from dodgy companies (not that the bulb was in any way related to the problem in this case). The twist is that the bulb was sold to me by Teleplan a couple of years ago...

Philips' current score:
They get a crap for refusing to provide contact details for anyone on the Board of Management or Group Management Committee, preventing anyone from going above Customer Services when the CS department is clearly failing. Another crap for failures to reply, and one for dragging this out for so long. A crap for no longer repairing their own top-of-the-range equipment, and having such a low consideration of the environment and the need to make everything repairable. Another crap for their website - no details of my nearest Philips repair centre on their website, no details of how to contact senior staff - it is just designed to persuade people to buy Philips products. They get a deduction of 1 crap for not charging for a repair when they got round to it three months later (though at first they did try to charge almost £100).

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Royal Mail - mountains of junk through your letterbox

Royal Mail - again. In a saga that goes back a long way...

Junkmail
The Mailing Preference Service (MPS) is supposed to help you prevent all the wasteful junk that comes through your door. Except it is a bit rubbish, because it is run by the junkmail industry, i.e. the people sending you the unwanted rubbish in the first place. That is why they use an 'opt-out' system so that you have to go out of your way to stop receiving junkmail, rather than 'opt-in' whereby you would get no junkmail unless you asked for it, and would save mountains of paper overnight. The MPS still try and put you off opting-out first, and even then it only lasts a limited period and they do not inform you when the registration runs out. Just to show how utterly crap they are, they ignore companies who address junkmail to 'The Occupier' - their advice in those cases is "If you are receiving mailings addressed to the occupier or homeowner you must contact the company who sent the mailing directly and ask to be removed from their delivery lists" - my emphasis. Right, so you should spend your time writing to unscrupulous junkmail companies, giving them your confirmed contact details? As if that won't just increase the amount of unsolicited crap that comes through your door?



The final twist - Royal Mail run their own junkmail system and ignore whether or not you have registered with the Mailing Preference Service not to receive unsolicited junkmail. Instead they force you to register separately with them if you don't want piles of wasted paper and advertising pushing through your letterbox into your home. See the pattern here, that by making all this difficult for the homeowner they hope people will allow them to keep making money by shoving crap through your letterbox. [Note - the fact that you can even opt-out is hidden on the Royal Mail site in order to discourage you from using it. Expect a link on the first page? No chance. Even the link 'Marketing Services' - the obvious place to go to opt out of them - is a red herring, leading instead to a page that tries to persuade companies to send even more junkmail.]

Trying to stop the junkmail, 2006
I digress. Back in November 2006 I went through the process for 'opting out' of junkmail put through my door by Royal Mail. I was sick of having to sort and recycle all this rubbish, removing non-recyclable things like staples and envelope windows and enclosed pens or cards.

The email from Royal Mail first made a big effort to try and persuade you not to opt-out. Then it told you it would take up to six weeks (even though they only have to pass on your details to the local delivery office, which takes five minutes unless you are grossly inefficient). I filled in the form and returned it. I heard nothing. I emailed them November 16th 2006. Nothing. I emailed them again on November 20th 2006 asking for confirmation. Nothing. Again on December 8th 2006, saying that I was still getting unsolicited (and un-addressed) junk mail posted by Royal Mail. Nothing. Then again on January 15th 2007 saying that unless they replied I would make a complaint. No reply. At the end of January 2007 I complained to Postwatch, pointing out that Royal Mail were refusing to reply, and I was STILL getting unaddressed junk mail. Royal Mail hadn't removed my address from their junk database even though I have asked them to do so many times. I asked why I should have to go to all that trouble to stop getting something I didn't want in the first place? Junk mail is a curse, and a waste of resources. I also complained that Royal Mail stated: "It is not possible for us to separate advertising material and information that you may want, such as leaflets from Central and Local Government and other public bodies. Opting out from Royal Mail Door to Door stops all unaddressed items." Which? magazine had reported that Royal Mail were lying about this, and you will still get important Government material. Postwatch refused to do anything (email of Feb 1st 2007) - because Royal Mail had not been given enough opportunity to respond...

I gave up for some time, incredibly frustrated.

More than a year later...
The unsolicited junkmail delivered by Royal Mail piled up. I decided to try again. I emailed Royal Mail on December 22nd 2007 asking them to exclude my address from their junkmail scheme. No reply. I tried again on April 11th 2008, pointing out all the communications over the years that they had not replied to, all the times I had registered to 'opt out' and that I was still having advertising junk put through my letterbox with the regular post. I also complained that they used an 'opt-out' system which - even if it wasn't a complete failure - unfairly puts the onus on the person who never asked for environmentally-damaging and wasteful junkmail in the first place.

Guess what? No response.

I went back to Postwatch. On 16th April 2008 Postwatch's Consumer Services Officer took my case to Royal Mail. I was very pleased to have them on my side. In their letter to Royal Mail they said:

1. Please offer a sincere apology for the service failure and the inconvenience and stress caused to this person.
2. Please contact your Door-to Door department and explain why the Opt Out service is failing despite the paperwork being completed on several occasions?
3. Please investigate and explain why this customer does not receive a response to his emails.
4. Please ensure the Opt Out service is set up immediately without another form being needed to ensure no further inconvenience is caused to the customer.
5. What assurances can Royal Mail offer that the customer can rely on delivery of this unwanted advertising material to stop?

Royal Mail were quick enough to respond when it wasn't just a little customer. In Postwatch's summary of 29th April 2008 they said:

"Royal Mail has confirmed that the opt out instruction has been in place since 18 January 2008, but unfortunately, the failures you have experienced have been due to human error. This has been compounded by the fact that the delivery frames were changed and the instructions were not clearly displayed. This has now been rectified and the area Door to Door Manager has been notified of the failure. I am hopeful these steps taken will result in an immediate and sustained improvement to your service and you will receive no more unwanted mail."

Postwatch can't be faulted there. The interesting point is that even with the opt-out scheme in place I was still receiving junkmail posted by Royal Mail at the same time as delivering my letters. But surely now I wouldn't get any more?

Yeah, right.

I continued to get leaflets pushed through with my post. It was not possible to get back in touch with the Royal Mail staff who had finally responded to my query - I asked Postwatch for the contact details to save time but they said (in an email of June 9th 2008):

"Unfortunately, I cannot give you contact details for any of the staff mentioned in Royal Mail's response as the department we deal with is non-customer facing."

A surprisingly apt (if unintentional) choice of words there. Without a direct contact in Royal Mail my only option was escalating things to Postwatch! I sent them photos of the junkmail I had still been receiving, all delivered with my normal post.

On 26th June 2008 Postwatch wrote to Royal Mail again, asking them to:

1. Please investigate this matter fully and advise why the latest failure occurred despite Royal Mail’s previous assurances.
2. Please interview the Delivery Officer responsible for the failures and inform Postwatch of their comments.
3. What guarantees can Royal Mail offer that matters of this nature are taken seriously and the customer will not receive material of this nature in future?

Postwatch forwarded me the reply they received on 16th July 2008, and Postwatch's Consumer Services Officer added:

"I am glad that Royal Mail have apologised for the upset and inconvenience caused by this matter and have again reported the failure to the Delivery Office Manager. The reserve Delivery Officer who made the mistake has been interviewed and the whole Delivery Team has been briefed to ensure they are aware of your decision to Opt Out of Door to Door deliveries. Furthermore, the Special Instruction Card has also been highlighted to alert all staff to this escalated complaint. Royal Mail are confident that you will not receive any more direct/advertising mail. I appreciate that Royal Mail have offered these assurances previously, however, I hope that the improvement is immediate and sustained as a result of this complaint."

The last bit rang warning bells.

I just want to add something here. All along I was annoyed at the Royal Mail policy of making money by adding to the junkmail we receive. The decisions to do this, and to make opting out almost impossible are taken by management idiots at the highest levels of Royal Mail. I'm sure that the postal workers who sort and deliver mail are under huge pressures to do their jobs. I never wanted them to get told off or to have to deal with more complicated systems. I just wanted to stop getting junkmail, and it is obvious that current Royal Mail system does not enable you to do that.

Did it work? Did I stop getting junkmail?

Since I first tried to opt out in 2006 I have continued to receive junkmail. I took to taking photos of some of it, in case I ever felt like 'opting out' again and wanted to show what I had received. I have interspersed a selection of the images throughout this post and below to show that I continue to receive it four years later. I should add - avoid ever using any of the following crappy companies who pay Royal Mail to deliver their crappy junkmail. It is their fault that ridiculous undirected marketing systems like this continue to thrive.

What is needed?

The current system is hidden and ineffective and is a hassle, so something needs to change so we don't remain prisoners of endless junkmail. The amount of time and paper wasted nationally with unsolicited junkmail is irresponsible, and Royal Mail and the MPS should not be putting the onus on the person receiving unwanted junk to do something. One of the following systems would make it easier for people to avoid mountains of wasteful junk.

1. If you register with the Mailing Preference Service not to get junkmail then the request should automatically go on to Royal Mail and they should act on it. After 5 years the MPS could write and tell you it will expire, and give an option to extend it for another 5 years via post, email, web or phone.
2. The opt-out system is obviously flawed. An even better option is that Royal Mail (and the MPS) should switch to an opt-in system i.e. if you want junkmail you request it. Then everybody is happy.
   
3. The final option would be that once every two years Royal Mail would put a freepost card through every door saying that if you want to opt out of junkmail you can tick it and put your address on and post it back. Even better, the MPS would have access to the database and act on it too. Then no-one who doesn't want junk would get it, for the cost of one recyclable (and recycled-material) card as opposed to the bags of junkmail at present.
   

We have written to Royal Mail, the Mailing Preference Service and Postwatch about this issue, asking what they intend to do. We will award our usual 'crap scores' later, and then take the issue on to MPs and Government Ministers if we are not satisfied.

Update 16 September 2010: After seven days Royal Mail finally replied - with a standard cut and pasted response about something other than the issues we raised. How do I know it was a cut and paste job? It is identical text to emails received over a year ago. What absolute crap. Royal Mail's Customer Services don't even read and respond to your letters! Amazing levels of contempt for customers on display there. Even worse, you have no way of getting back in touch to follow up a response: the email just points you back to their website. So you can start again and get ignored all over again. CCS has emailed them again asking for the contact details of a manager, since this system of theirs is worse than hopeless. It is not clear how anyone could trust Royal Mail with a letter (or anything communications related) if this is their standard level of ineptitude. In our email we said:

"I contacted Royal Mail through this form and received a reply that completely ignored my points and instead sent me a standard response to an obviously common query, but not at all what I had asked. Please send me the email address of one of the Customer Services MANAGERS so that I can take my query up with someone more senior. I am sick of having my time wasted in this way i.e. having my email ignored then being told to start all over again and fill in another form."

Update 26 September 2010: Yesterday (after another nine days) someone at Royal Mail said they agreed that my query had not been answered and they would get back to me.

It has been 17 days since I contacted the Mailing Preference Service. They have chosen not to respond at all, as expected, presumably because they are run by the people who want you to get unsolicited junkmail. I sent them a final email today saying that I can only assume MPS don't care about the frustration their policies cause.

9 days ago ConsumerFocus got in touch and said they would reply shortly. Nothing has been heard from them since that email either. A reminder was sent today, but shouldn't be necessary.

Update 1 October 2010: Yesterday the MPS finally replied. It was no surprise that the email simply stated the current situation, pointed out that it was possible to 'reduce the unwanted mailing' by going out of your way to regularly register with various schemes, and ending by saying "a large proportion of people welcome the information and special offers they receive by post". It is no surprise that the MPS won't change the current system when it attempts to legitimise unsolicited junk mail. After all, the MPS is run by the Direct Marketing Association - the association which makes money from sending junkmail. It is like asking criminals to manage prisons - absolute nonsense.

Consumer Focus also replied the same day, but their email likewise read as an attempt to justify the status quo. The email said:

"There are several types of direct mail: named and addressed, addressed only, and unaddressed, and one scheme cannot cover all types."

Untrue - a system could be created to cover all types. It is just that the junkmail industry would resist any such move.

As to the suggestion that the industry switches to an opt-in system, Consumer Focus commented:

"If an opt-in system were to be implemented (at great cost, and it is not clear who would bear this) there is likely to be a sharp drop in the amount of direct mail being sent"

Yes, there would be a drop in unsolicited junkmail - that is the whole point! It would be a very effective way of stopping it. As to who would pay for the system: that would be the junkmail senders, such as the Direct Marketing Association, as is the case now. If they refused to foot the bill for their own industry then the Government could just ban unsolicited junkmail outright (hey, that's a good idea actually!)

The email included outright factual errors. E.g. Consumer Focus said:

"Registration with the Mailing Preference Service lasts for five years, and when your registration expires the MPS will send you a new opt-out form."

Wrong. The MPS FAQ here clearly states:

"After 5 years you will need to re-register with the service. Please note, that MPS will not notify you of this"

The final piece of dodgy information in the email was:

"it is estimated that 95% of paper used in direct marketing comes from recycled or managed resources"

Estimated by who? The junkmail senders? Anyway, 'managed' means nothing at all. Even a forest where most of the trees are just cut down is 'managed'. 'Recycled' is also meaningless alone, since the term is abused by the paper industry to sometimes include virgin pulp. Only 'post-consumer waste' recycled paper is environmentally acceptable. I receive a lot of junkmail, despite registering for all the opt-out schemes. All of it is on pristine white paper, often with plastic cards, windows and pens, and none of it labelled as recycled (let alone 'post-consumer waste' recycled paper). To make spurious claims about the junk coming through our letterboxes makes it seem as if Consumer Focus is more in the pocket of the junkmail industry than on the side of the consumer. Disappointing.

Update 9 October 2010: On 2nd October Mike Griffiths, Royal Mail Customer Service Advisor, replied by email. So it took about 23 days to get a reply. Unfortunately the reply was just a justification of their current policy - inevitable when they make money out of their junkmail scheme. (This is why it is stupid that the administration of policy is in the hands of the people who benefit from the current state of affairs: Royal Mail and the Direct Marketing Association. Nothing can change when there is corruption at this level.) Let us look at some of Mike's comments.

"the policy for it to last two years is a decision made on the basis that people do move house. "

People move house every two years? I think not. The MPS register you for 5 years - why can't Royal Mail do the same, so that it simplifies things for people?

"At the end of the two year period we would need to receive a signature from the resident confirming that they are still the householder and that they still wish to opt-out from receiving unaddressed mail."

This is disingenuous. It implies Royal Mail have some process whereby you can sign a bit of paper and extend the opt-out. You cannot. You have to go through the whole process again.

"I should explain that this is not a Royal Mail Policy, but a decision made by our Marketing Department based on various research"

What is that supposed to mean? If it is acted on then it is Royal Mail policy, regardless of which department created it. And in the first quote he said it was Royal Mail policy. Royal Mail seem to be just plain confused here.

"Finally, we do not currently notify occupiers of an address that their opt-out instructions are about to expire. ... we have no plans to change this practice"

But that was the thing I was complaining about! Repeating what I wrote in my email is no kind of answer.

"Please accept my apologies for the time it has taken me to reply and if I can help you with anything else, please let me know quoting reference number 1-1576220081. Regards Mike Griffiths Customer Service Advisor"

The twist here: no contact details for Mike were included, and the top of the email said:

"PLEASE DO NOT USE REPLY BUTTON AS YOUR MAIL WILL BE DISCARDED"

So there is no way to get back to him apart from starting the whole process again and going through the offputting barrier of the Royal Mail online form, due to their policy of not using email properly (i.e. that big button in email software that says 'reply'). Their form is definitely a barrier - you have to go through various irrelevant options, then select 'Report a fault' even if you just want to send a comment. And you are forced to select a 'title' even if you don't use them because they are an outdated sexist and elitist way of distinguishing between people.

The final kicker is that I had registered to opt-out AGAIN on Monday 6th September, yet am still receiving unaddressed junkmail for Royal Mail. They receive the request, and all they have to do is email it to the nearest delivery office. It should take an hour or two at the most. Not 33 days and counting!!! Proof of how shit their system is (if more were needed).

So we got nowhere with Royal Mail, the DMA, or ConsumerFocus. All just attempted to justify existing practice. Next we are contacting our MEPs and MP to see what they can do about this de facto junkmail quango. In the interests of fairness we have attempted to inform the quango of our next steps and why we are dissatisfied with the Royal Mail junkmail system, communication systems, and the fact that the opt-out system is a failure.

Update 23 October 2010: Only one of the MEPs did (John Bufton, UKIP) but he just said they didn't have any faith in politics: "If your MP's are unwilling to help, I can assure you, that it is probably because our national government is powerless to do anything about it. MEP's are just as powerless as they only vote on certain legislation, and due to the fact that we only have 78 MEP's, Britain always gets out voted. So much for elected representatives." The MEPs Kay Swinburne (Conservative), Derek Vaughan (Labour) and Jill Evans (Plaid Cymru) did not reply at all. So much for elected representatives.

[Addendum: On 1st November 2010 one of Jill Evan's staff replied, saying:

"On the opting out front I recommend stayprivate.org as a way to cut your own personal junk mail (and cold calling). It's a simpler and longer lasting way of engaging with MPS. It's a service set up by CF Labs to make the process of opting out easier."

They also pointed to this site as being potentially useful. No answer to the long term problems of junkmail though.]

[Addendum: On 16th November 2010 Kay Swinburne replied, as follows. Here is a shortcut to the link mentioned.

She also forwarded a further letter on 21 February 2011, though it was a copy-protected PDF so had to be printed and scanned to make it available below.

[Addendum: On 30th November 2010 Mark Williams MP replied, as follows:

"I share your opinions on junk mail. It is a waste of money, time and most importantly, resources. It is disappointing that the Mail Preference Service, The Royal Mail and ConsumerFocus have not been able to offer an effective service to stop such wasteful actions.

I have sent a letter to Edward Davey the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State who leads on Postal Affairs to ask whom to contact over the issue, and what the Government are doing to address this matter. I have attached a copy of this letter and will forward you the response as soon as I receive it.]

[Addendum: On 29th December 2010 Mark Williams MP forwarded a reply from Edward Davey MP at the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills. Unfortunately BIS' reply suggested contacting the Mailing Preference Service; registering for the Royal Mail Door to Door Service; and contacting the Direct Marketing Association. As this blog shows, I have done all of those things to no avail. The current system is a failure. The letter ends with : "There are no plans to regulate unsolicited mail". BIS obviously don't want to make themselves unpopular with the marketers so things are unlikely to change.]

Update 24 October 2010: Still getting unaddressed junkmail being delivered by the postman, despite having registered to opt out with Royal Mail.

Junkmail like this is delivered by Royal Mail most days - despite having registered to stop receiving it almost two months ago.

Their whole process is stupid and offputting. When you eventually find their web pages it says:

"If you wish to opt out of receiving Door to Door mail items, please send or email your name and address to the address below [...] or email: optout@royalmail.com.

We will then send an opt-out form to your address, which you must sign and return. We do this for security reasons - to verify that those resident at the address have requested the ‘opt out’. "

In this day and age of online communication it is ridiculous that they require a printed form to be returned. A printed form is no more 'proof' of identity than an email. It is just another way for Royal Mail to put you off.

"Once you’ve returned this form, Royal Mail will stop delivering unaddressed items to your address within 6 weeks. "

As we said above, how long should it reasonably take for them to send notice to your local delivery office? 24 hours? 36? But not 6 WEEKS. That is just taking the piss.

Despite going through this process I am still getting unaddressed junkmail from Royal Mail after almost 8 weeks. I have contacted Royal Mail and heard nothing. I got no reply to my two emails to optout@royalmail.com querying this. So the whole system is a joke anyway. This is the same experience the whole blog post started with - even when you 'opt out' you still receive the unaddressed junkmail from Royal Mail - they are incapable of running a user-friendly system.

Note that the automated emails from Royal Mail when you contact them actually say:

"If you still wish to proceed with this, you will need to submit your request in writing to the Door to Door team, at the address below, or email them at optout@royalmail.com. They will then notify your local Delivery Office of your request."

That clearly states that you can opt out via email - but when you try it they refuse, and claim that it is not possible. Is it any wonder the system is a mess?

Update 11 November 2010: Royal Mail are still delivering junkmail nine weeks after I registered not to recieve it. Query emails to optout@royalmail.com have received no response; using the main Royal Mail website contact form only leads to automated messages directing to optout@royalmail.com. The system is a mess. How can I take this forward when no Royal Mail contact details are given apart from those two, and they just send you in circles?

On October 24th I contacted Consumerfocus again, pointing out the above. I also complained that "that Royal Mail only leave their system in place for two years, and do not inform you and give you a chance to renew at the end of it. MPS registrations runs for 5 years, which is more acceptable. It would be simpler for consumers if both systems ran for 5 years. Is ConsumerFocus doing anything to rationalise these two systems for the benefit of the consumer?"

and pointed out that Royal Mail's optout emails say "If you still wish to proceed with this, you will need to submit your request in writing to the Door to Door team, at the address below, or email them at optout@royalmail.com. They will then notify your local Delivery Office of your request." That clearly states that you can opt out via email - but when you try it they refuse, and claim that it is not possible. I asked if ConsumerFocus force Royal Mail to enable opt-out by email or online form as they offer in that email, since it would be a huge benefit for consumers.

ConsumerFocus have not replied. They obviously don't give a toss about consumers.

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