Imagine this. You're an MP trying to persuade a rail company to change its mind over the closure of a station ticket booth. The rail company has a Freepost address for customer complaints and invites people to write to them. So you hand out postcards to commuters urging them to do just that. You are then told by the rail company that they will bill you for the cost of the postage. Do you...
A) pay up and vow not to do it again
B) tell them what they can do with their invoice
This happened to Labour MP Joan Ryan. The Rail company was First Capital. She chose option B.
If Ms Ryan would like to get in touch, I'd happily share the Freepost address with my 70,000 readers. That should teach them not to be so crass.
Could it be here...
ReplyDeleteFreepost RRBR-REEJ-KTKY
First Capital Connect
Customer Relations Department
PO Box 443
PLYMOUTH
PL4 6WP
Did you mean this address,
ReplyDeleteFreepost RRBR-REEJ-KTKY First Capital Connect Customer Relations Department PO Box 443 PLYMOUTH PL4 6WP
or some other one?
In case she doesn't get in touch, the comany's website offers this as an address for their Customer Relations Department
ReplyDeleteFreepost RRBR-REEJ-KTKY
First Capital Connect
Customer Relations Department
PO Box 443
PLYMOUTH
PL4 6WP
Hope your readers find this helpful.
Iain,
ReplyDeleteAccording to their webpage, this is the adress to complain to:
Freepost RRBR-REEJ-KTKY
First Capital Connect
Customer Relations Department
PO Box 443
PLYMOUTH
PL4 6WP
How on earth do they think they can get away with subverting democracy by threatening MPs like this ? Maybe they just thought the taxpayer would 'pick up the tab' ?
ReplyDeleteSorry Iain the rail company IMHO is quite correct in their action.
ReplyDeleteIf I had a business offering free customer service at cost to my business only to find that this service was subsidising a politician's campaign against my business, I too would withdraw my abused free service and bill the politician for expenses incurred.
Oh, the fun we can have with this. Do you think we could bankrupt them with complaints?
ReplyDeleteI will publicise on my Plurk page: http://www.plurk.com/paulpinfield
Or, how about we post bricks to them with the Freepost address attached?
ReplyDeleteSeems to me that if a company wants to encourage feedback by using a freepost address they ought to accept the cost of post generated by an issue that people care about - even if prompted by an mp or this blog. The closure of ticketbooths has always been such an issue to regular users of the railways - wherever they live.
ReplyDeleteNot sure about this. It is right to have freepost address for complaints - it is good PR. And to offer reply paid for customers. But if you are being campaigned against for a business decision that you have made after looking at your business and probably after all the necessary and required customer research, then why should you fund the campaign postage? Especially if a lot of the correspondence comes from people who have nothing whatever to do with the loss of the service concerned but are just on some political or corporate bashing kick?
ReplyDeleteIf it was my business I would cancel the freepost service and tell my customers exactly why and bill the MP.
Or how would you feel as a business owner if it happened to you, Mr Dale?
I met Joan when she was a Home Office minister. She struck me as a pretty normal person, and one of the 'good guys'.
ReplyDeleteThat obviously meant she couldn't last as a Minister....
Please don't everyone - I commute on an FCC line and will end up paying for this campaign through my season ticket!
ReplyDeleteI have on my wall right now a "green ink" special from a dedicated opponent, full of references to "the nasty party" and how poor street cleansing was when the "ratepayers" ran the borough of Chingford - some memories obviously never fade.
ReplyDeleteThis time, this guy/girl even put a stamp on it because we weren't able to use our freepost address, though I also have a letter to collect for which no postage was paid. I'm takin gthe green ink thing down with me to get a comparison.
Previously, from the same correspondent, I have had parcels of porn, old newspapers, cut up cereal packets etc, all at our expense thorugh the freepost.
It is just one of those things, but actually publicising somebody else's freepost address is a bit rich.
I fully support what Joan did. Handing out postcards to commuters and encouraging them to think about taking action and protesting about something that directly affects them is, in my opinion, the right thing to do. In my experience as a daily commuter, too many fellow passengers are too apathetic until it's too late.
ReplyDeleteWell done for raising this Iain - this astonishingly arrogant and high-handed attitude from "First Capital" (presumably just a front for some bank leasing debt repackager or Scottish religious nutter or something similar) reveals the attitude many of the public monopoly corporations now have to both the public and their representatives.
ReplyDeleteI think First Connect were foolish as they have made themselves a hostage to fortune and should have put it down to experience. However I do think Joan Ryan abused the facility.
ReplyDeleteLots of local Labour Party branches use Freepost addresses for campaigning.
Does Joan Ryan's constituency party? If so, can someone advise us of the address so that Iain's 70,000 readers can write to Joan Ryan and tell her what we think about the Labour Government.
I am sure she will appreciate the gesture!
Send them a couple of phone books.
ReplyDeleteIf the rail company really is interested in getting customer feedback, and also doesn't want the risk of a financial bottomless pit from using a Freepost address - why not simply put a "suggestions box" inside the ticket office and let people pop their letters in that?
ReplyDeleteOf course - might not work if the company is trying to close the ticket office.
It would of course be wrong and morally reprehensible for people to now use the freepost address to send FCC bulky and/or heavy items through the post which would contribute massively to their postal bill...
ReplyDeleteMore seriously, it won't cost you more than the price of a postcard and a few centimetres of biro ink to let them know that you find their attempt to intimidate an elected representative doing a half-decent job to be repugnant.
I cannot believe Iain is sticking up for J**n Ry*n.
ReplyDeleteThat woman is dreadful. As the 3rd most expensive MP in Britain, she uses taxpayers' money to keep her Parliamentary seat - despite voting in Parliament against an EU Treaty referendum, voting in favour of Post Office closures (3 recently closed in Enfield North) and calling cuts to Chase Farm hospital "a victory".
This woman will be booted out at the next election. People in Enfield have had enough of her rubbish.
Thanks, Iain, for supporting a Labour MP fighting a marginal seat.
Furious, I was criticising the rail company, not praising Joan Ryan.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the time a spammer's home address became known. People searched the Internet for companies that would send out paper catalogues, and then requested them on his behalf.
ReplyDeleteThis campaign became quite well known. Pretty soon this man's mail was a couple of mailbags taken out of the back of a post van, rather than a couple of envelopes taken out of the postman's bike basket. Of course mixed up in all this junk was his important personal mail.
Still, couldn't happen to a nicer man...
Lola said...
ReplyDelete....Or how would you feel as a business owner if it happened to you, Mr Dale?
November 13, 2008 9:35 PM
*************************
Surprised to find myself disagreeing with you, Lola, but on this occasion I must. I start from the premise that Mr Dale takes a passing interest in what his customers think. The same cannot be said of First Capital Connect (if, indeed, that is the rail firm concerned) who are far from customer-friendly. I wrote to them about a senseless and intentional degradation of service at my local station and got a corporate-garbage reply, stating in effect that worse service is what customers had asked for. I wrote again, pointing out their fallacy and that it had cost a great deal to bring about, and got the same reply with knobs on.
Their staff, who actually care about passengers and are very helpful, tell me that they make the same points and are similarly are ignored and, when threatened with violence by the public, are barely supported.
IMHO they deserve any kicking that people care to administer.
complain how dare they
ReplyDeletewe signed up to deregulation
that means First Capital Connect
dont have to care
Joan Ryan is a good MP regardless of her Party
ReplyDeletewe need more MPs who are good consituency MPs
so few are....of all parties
Keep it up Ms Ryan
and well done Iain for a non sectarian post
it does you credit
What a pathetic man you must be, Iain. For a start, you don't even know the name of the TOC concerned - First Capital Connect. Secondly, the fact you are supporting such a vile woman beggars belief!
ReplyDeleteFCC, is 100% correct in its actions, why should it subsidise such a vile woman's campaign against it..
Oh, I forgot to mention, to all the people who say they have poor customer service when they email/write to them, there's a way to never have this problem. Email Elaine - First Capital Connect's MD - you will always get a fast, helpful response, with a positive outcome..
ReplyDeleteIf Joan Ryan was not such an unpleasant operator I would defend the campaign tactic. However ... and now her expenses have been published - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5336436/Joan-Ryan-expenses-switch-after-4500-spend.html
ReplyDelete