Customer (Dis) Service

First of all, the exchange I’m about to describe started with a mistake I made.

Since Gareth and I aren’t married, we need to have wills and powers of attorney that delineate who gets what if one of us dies, especially since we are getting ready to purchase a house together. In a moment of cheapness, we decided to forgo a lawyer (solicitor) and order a set of prefab wills/POAs from an online company called tenminutewill.co.uk.

After I read through the FAQs on the website, paid £84 and spent significantly more than ten minutes filling out all the forms, I noticed in one of their return emails a line saying the documents were legal in England and Wales, but not Scotland. This sometimes happens; the individual countries that make up the U.K. don’t always work the same way with regard to matters of a legal nature, in much the same way that U.S. states have different laws. Realizing I somehow missed this important piece of information, I decided to try and get a refund on the grounds that I wouldn't be able to use them.

So I sent tenminutewill.co.uk’s customer support department a brief but courteous email asking for a refund. I didn't really expect to get one, but you don't get if you don't ask. The unnamed customer support rep responded with an oddly sarcastic email basically stating that I should have read all the small print and it was my own fault.

Although there are many things in the U.S. that could arguably stand improvement, American companies have customer service down to a science, which was why I was surprised by the rep’s rudeness. This prompted me to send a response that included following:

"you might want to simply post clearly on your website that your products are not valid for Scotland" and "Since you are not being reasonable, I will be sure to post on every will-related forum I can find how accommodating and helpful you've been."

I never actually intended to do this – I just felt the need to respond to sarcasm with sarcasm and it was the only thing I could think of at the time.

A few minutes later, the rep wrote back:

Why should we waste space on our Home Page just to accommodate the less than 1% of our 'Customers' who are unable to read the words:

"All documents will be downloadable (and also emailed to you) immediately in Adobe Acrobat format as soon as you've clicked the 'PROCESS' button above, will be checked by a professionally-qualified Willwriter, and are valid for assets in ENGLAND AND WALES. If you have assets elsewhere please click here. If this box is ticked, you are over 18 and have read and accept our Terms and Conditions and, if you live in Scotland or the Channel Islands (or have any assets outside England & Wales), have read these notes."

What, pray, is NOT clear about the above ????? We'd be interested to hear why YOU didn't read and understand it.

Go ahead. If you spend 100 hours on this task you might get your message across to about 0.1% of our future Customers.

Don't forget to mention that your advice applies only to those who can't be bothered to read what they're buying before handing over their money. How ironic that you're Scottish.

Regards

Portology Ltd. Willwriting Support


Again, I’ve happily accepted the blame; I just don’t happen to think any customer should be treated that poorly by a representative of a company, regardless.

One thing I’d like to point out is the rep’s last sentence:

“How ironic that you’re Scottish.”

Besides the fact that I’m not Scottish, this is a great example of the ongoing prejudice between a relatively small number of Brits in both England and Scotland.

Some Scots still consider the English to be the enemy because they resent having been taken over by England in the 18th century. It’s difficult for me to imagine that people who weren‘t born then would still hold a grudge, but there you have it. And I guess it follows that some of the English, as the victors, still consider the Scots to be inferior to them, hence the statement above.

Going back to my problem with the wills, I thought about asking our bank to try and get the money back but decided I couldn’t be bothered with more paperwork. We met with a lawyer this week and he is putting everything together for us at a very reasonable price.