bloody CTC

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:48:53 +0100 someone who may be Peter
Scandrett <[email protected]> wrote this:-

>The easiest way to get rid of double glazing, mortgage, conservatory etc
>salesman (in person and on the phone) is to say (truthfully, in my case)
>"I rent". They realise there's no point continuing.

"I am unemployed" also works quite well.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

 

[dkahn400]

On Jun 8, 9:16 am, David Hansen <[email protected]>
wrote:
> On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:48:53 +0100 someone who may be Peter
> Scandrett <[email protected]> wrote this:-

> >The easiest way to get rid of double glazing, mortgage, conservatory etc
> >salesman (in person and on the phone) is to say (truthfully, in my case)
> >"I rent". They realise there's no point continuing.
>
> "I am unemployed" also works quite well.

I have read that a good way of getting rid of life insurance sales
droids is to say, "I'm so glad you called. You see, I've had such
difficulty getting insurance since my 3rd heart attack."

--
Dave...

 

[MJ Ray]

dkahn400 <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have read that a good way of getting rid of life insurance sales
> droids is to say, "I'm so glad you called. You see, I've had such
> difficulty getting insurance since my 3rd heart attack."

I'm surprised they don't rub their hands with glee after working out
their commission on the very loaded premium offer. Depends if they're
a "no complications only" insurance selling droid, I guess.
--
MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Experienced webmaster-developers for hire http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
Also: statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder, workers co-op.
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

 

[Tony Raven]

MJ Ray wrote on 10/06/2007 15:00 +0100:
> dkahn400 <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I have read that a good way of getting rid of life insurance sales
>> droids is to say, "I'm so glad you called. You see, I've had such
>> difficulty getting insurance since my 3rd heart attack."
>
> I'm surprised they don't rub their hands with glee after working out
> their commission on the very loaded premium offer. Depends if they're
> a "no complications only" insurance selling droid, I guess.

They're all programmed with scripts so it can be fun to throw them a
curved ball and watch them flounder. OTOH I'm just grateful that I
don't have to do that to earn a living and have some sympathy for their
predicament.

--
Tony

"The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
is no good evidence either way."
- Bertrand Russell

 

[Chris Malcolm]

Ian Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Jun 2007 00:34:59 +0100, Andy Key <> wrote:

>> If you are unable to read the format of an email the CTC has sent you,
>> by all means ask the sender to provide it in a different format. If you
>> can't read it because of some disability or other, you are doubly (nay,
>> triply) justified in asking. But bear in mind that the format you're
>> complaining about will be readable by almost EVERY other person on the
>> mailing list.

> You are talking bollocks. I guarantee that not one person the message
> was sent to could read it. 100% failure rate.

> It wasn't a mailing list post - it was an email from one CTC bod to me
> alone - one CTC member. Sent with no plain text translation and no
> indication what the .doc file contained. No way whatsoever to
> distinguish it from any number of viral infections (in fact, it was
> rather less convincing than many virus attempts).

I've never had any replies to my few emails to the CTC over the last
few years. It occurs to me that if they sent me nothing but an
attached Word doc their email would probably have been diverted by the
university's spam filters into my spam bucket, since that kind of
cluelessness is characteristic of spam. I'm supposed to check
carefully that the spam bucket contains only spam before emptying it,
but when it only contains 99.9% spam you get a bit careless

--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

 

[Ian Smith]

On Sun, 10 Jun, Chris Malcolm <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ian Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > It wasn't a mailing list post - it was an email from one CTC bod to me
> > alone - one CTC member. Sent with no plain text translation and no
> > indication what the .doc file contained. No way whatsoever to
> > distinguish it from any number of viral infections (in fact, it was
> > rather less convincing than many virus attempts).
>
> I've never had any replies to my few emails to the CTC over the last
> few years. It occurs to me that if they sent me nothing but an
> attached Word doc their email would probably have been diverted by the
> university's spam filters into my spam bucket,

Actually, it seems as if their 'do not email' preference over-rides
everything else. They say I was not getting newsnet because I'd said
I didn't want to be emailed (I don't know when I said that, quite
possibly I did some time in the past). I would have thought that
their systems would be set up so that someone actively requesting
newsnet would over-ride the general 'do-not-email' setting, but maybe
not. Given that, it would not surprise me to find that their
'do-not-email' setting is deemed to over-ride responding to people
too.

> I'm supposed to check carefully that the spam bucket contains only
> spam before emptying it, but when it only contains 99.9% spam you
> get a bit careless

I never used to check - my main work account gets about 1200 spam
attempts a week (our current worst email address gets about 2000 spam
a week) and life is too short. However, putting greylisting on the
server has been miraculous - I'm down to about 3 a day getting through
greylisting and into the spam bucket, about 5 or 6 a day avoiding both
filter systems. Minor problems with a badly set up relay in Hong Kong
(makes one delivery attempt, waits 36 hours to do the second) but
otherwise no detected false positives and better performance than
anything else we've done.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

 

[Peter Scandrett]

Chris Malcolm wrote on 10/06/2007 19:13:

> I've never had any replies to my few emails to the CTC over the last
> few years.

Now you come to mention it... I contacted my MP about the bikes on
trains thing and they asked for us to copy the letter sent, and any
replies, to a contact at CTC.

I got quite a good reply back from my MP (Beverley Hughes) and a letter
via her from someone in the Transport dept. I pdfed it and duly
forwarded it to the CTC contact, explicitly asking for an
acknowledgement (since I'd not heard the time before when I copied them
my original communication).

I still haven't heard anything.

I thought they were just being rude... perhaps not.

Peter

--
http://www.scandrett.net/lx/
http://www.scandrett.net/bike/

 

[Tony Raven]

Peter Scandrett wrote on 11/06/2007 09:47 +0100:
> Chris Malcolm wrote on 10/06/2007 19:13:
>
>> I've never had any replies to my few emails to the CTC over the last
>> few years.
>
> Now you come to mention it... I contacted my MP about the bikes on
> trains thing and they asked for us to copy the letter sent, and any
> replies, to a contact at CTC.
>
> I got quite a good reply back from my MP (Beverley Hughes) and a letter
> via her from someone in the Transport dept. I pdfed it and duly
> forwarded it to the CTC contact, explicitly asking for an
> acknowledgement (since I'd not heard the time before when I copied them
> my original communication).
>
> I still haven't heard anything.
>
> I thought they were just being rude... perhaps not.
>

They have quite a small staff at the CTC and I suspect its a choice of
either spending time replying to each communication or doing something
about the subject of the communication or putting up membership fees to
employ more staff. Which would you prefer they did?


--
Tony

"The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
is no good evidence either way."
- Bertrand Russell

 

[Peter Scandrett]

Tony Raven wrote on 11/06/2007 10:20:
> They have quite a small staff at the CTC and I suspect its a choice of
> either spending time replying to each communication or doing something
> about the subject of the communication or putting up membership fees to
> employ more staff. Which would you prefer they did?

Not sure. I didn't really want a full letter but a quick acknowledgement
wouldn't have gone amiss, particularly when they solicited emails on
this matter. I'm one of those people who values good customer service
and communication and if the price has to go up to cover that then so be
it. I work for a charity and if we just ignored our supporters I suspect
we'd go under pretty quickly.

I'm a new(ish) member of the CTC and somewhat taken aback by the number
of negative comments made in this ng about them. It seems to me that
they are doing a good job defending cycling issues, particularly in
light of recent events (Highway Code, Cadden, Rhyll) and we should be
grateful for that...

Peter

--
http://www.scandrett.net/lx/
http://www.scandrett.net/bike/