Successful Conclusion to Churchill Dispute

This actually happened a few weeks back, but I've been on holiday for two weeks, so no chance to update before now.

After disputing the offer I was made by Churchill, I finally got to speak to a far more reasonable and understanding person in the Customer Complaints team. He agreed that it wasn't just about specification, but also about the brand of the product - even though this is not clear in the policy wording.

We haggled a bit over the final amount, but in the end I am pleased with the result and believe it was a good compromise that allows me to go out and buy a laptop of similar style.

It's a shame it took several complaints and emails before getting to that point - I even had to chase up after receiving a letter promising a prompt response, after I had waited two weeks.

Personally I think Churchill Insurance keeps the language on their policy deliberately vague in their policy for this sort of issue, as I doubt many people would push as hard as I did. If that is the case then I do not like that business style, as it comes across as trying to provide a minimum level of service and not caring about the quality. If you compare that with the level of service you get with a brand like Apple, it just doesn't stack up.

Anyway, a good result and yet another reminder that it pays to be persistent and stand up for your rights

Do you believe your Insurance company?

I can feel another dispute coming on, this time with Churchill insurance, a dispute over a home insurance claim.

Specifically, this dispute is arising from the definition of “as new” also known as “new for old”.

In this case an old laptop was accidentally damaged and has been assessed as uneconomic for repair – so far so good.  The laptop was a Sony Vaio, a premium brand, which when bought for over £1200, was described as a “desktop replacement entertainment machine” and in independent reviews, it was described as "Extremely elegant and time proof design” and  T3 magazine said “It looks hotter than a bikini-clad Caprice, has a great screen and uses the latest tech. All in all, it's hard to beat.”

The insurance company has offered, as a replacement, a Samsung laptop reviewed by PC Advisor as: “Build quality is also fairly solid, if a bit chunky and plasticky feeling. It’s a well-rounded package and certainly worth short-listing if you’re shopping for a no-frills laptop under £500”

On the face of it, hardly a good comparison.

So how can the insurance think this is a good replacement?  Well they say it is because it is a much better technical specification than the original laptop – which it is.  Not surprisingly of course with Moore’s Law driving tech specs higher and higher every 18 months – it’s impossible to buy a brand new laptop with the old specification.

So why am I unhappy?  Well, although, I would get a new laptop with a much better specification than I had – I am a bit of a brand junkie and Sony have been my brand of choice for a lot of my high tech kit for a long time (excepting my Apple iPhone)

Personally I don’t think replacing a high end (in  its day) well designed premium brand laptop with a chunky, plasticky no-frills laptop is what “as new” means.  Choosing a new laptop isn’t just about processor speed, RAM and Gigabytes, it’s also about the emotional Brand choice.

 However, this is where the problem comes in - there is no actual definition in the policy of “As new”, certainly no mention of “equivalent or better specification”.

For curiosity, I checked the policy documents for a few other major insurance companies and they are all just as vague.  The only one that is different is a mention on a review site I found about how Sainsbury’s Bank interprets “New for Old”.  It says:

“Sainsbury's Bank offers you peace of mind at affordable rates and with superb customer service. Policy holder's claims are handled promptly allowing the policy holder to rebuild or replace that which is most important. With the “New For Old” feature, the policy holder who paid £125 for a brand new television in the 90s will be able to get the same quality of television today even if that television costs £300. Why? Because Sainsbury's Bank sees you as a person not just as another account or policy holder; because Sainsbury's Banks understands if you are comfortable and believe in their service, you will continue to be a client year after year.”

I think this type of clear and unambiguous language is exactly what consumers need and I applaud it, although I couldn't actually find this on the current Sainsbury's bank website.

I then telephoned the Association of British Insurers and asked if there was an Industry best practice about the interpretation of “new for Old” – surprisingly there isn’t.

This is main reason, why I have decided to pursue this a bit further – I wonder how many people just accept this type of replacement, glad to have their kit replaced. 

But I don’t think it should be this way, Insurance companies looking for every opportunity to minimise their payout.  Policy documents need to be explicit about what “New for Old” actually means so when consumers are shopping around for the right policy for them, it is clear what they are getting.

If you know of any case studies in this area, please do comment and let me know, or you can reach me via Twitter

123-Reg - Problem resolved, but core issues remain

As of this morning, I now have 4 working websites, with 4 separate webhosting packages - effectively back to where I started over two weeks ago - except the packages I now have are better and allow the use of Wordpress.

So, overall I am better off, but I would have preferred not to have had the inconvenience and hassle of this whole experience.

In the end, 123-reg did the right thing, sorted it out and apologised.  However, looking at some of the comments I have received after writing this blog and describing my experiences on Twitter, I think 123-reg still have some significant issues with their products and services. 

123-reg webhosting - Named and Shamed as providing poor customer service

It’s been quite a while since I have written on this blog – I really should get out of the habit of writing only when I am complaining about something – but I tend to use Twitter for my day to day comments.

So this post is about another example of poor customer service and my struggle to get a decent response from a big business when something goes wrong.

In every case when I have a complaint like this, I always try to go through the internal customer service and complaints process and only resort to this type of activity when my patience is exhausted.

So this time it’s about webhosting.

I’ve used 123-reg.co.uk for many years as both to purchase domains, manage my email domains and host my websites.

I have 4 separate domains hosted with 123-reg.co.uk:

• mutton.co.uk – a personal page really only bought for the email domain
• Thirdaspect.co.uk – a corporate site for my consultancy business
• Brosena.co.uk – a corporate site for an Irish Dancing business
• Elitesecretarialservices.co.uk – a corporate site for my partner’s virtual PA business

For each domain I had purchased just the basic hosting package as none of the sites have high traffic.  The original package did not allow installation of any software such as Wordpress or Drupal, just basic HTML

I recently decided to move some of the sites over to use a CMS system and chose Wordpress for the broad range of Themes available as well as the ease of use.  I logged into the 123-reg.co.uk website to look at upgrading my webhosting to allow the installation and I noticed that all the packages had been updated to now offer Wordpress as a free app for all webhosting packages.  I also noticed that they were now offering shared hosting for multiple domains in just one webhosting package.

So instead of having 4 separate webhosting packages with 4 separate domains – it looked like I would be able to have just 1 hosting package with 4 domains hosted within it.

(Technically this was the first mistake made by 123-reg by not offering existing customers the benefits of their new packages, or being ready to offer them to old customers who notice the change – why do businesses alienate their best customers like this – customers who actually already paying good money for their services)

So I called 123-reg on Wednesday 8 June and talked to their customer service teams – I explained what I wanted to do and they told me that as an existing customer the new packages were not yet available for me – only to new customers, but it was suggested if I upgraded 1 of the hosting packages to the next level – business hosting – I would get all the new services and then I could cancel the other 3 hosting packages and get a pro-rata refund on the unused portions (they were annual packages)

This sounded good to me, so I agreed – I paid for a new annual package (about £75) and was told to copy my websites into the new webhosting, then use domain mapping to point my domains at the new versions.  I was also advised that the DNS change could take up to 48 hours  but should happen very quickly as it was all within the 123-reg shared hosting.

I copied the files across and then tried to use the domain mapping to point the domains to the right place.

Mistake 1

Unfortunately the 123-reg control panel can be a bit temperamental – I could see exactly what I should be doing, choosing a domain, then choosing where to map it to – but every time I tried, in multiple browsers, the form never populated with data so I couldn’t actually do it.  So I raised the first support ticket on Thursday 9^th June.

I got a very fast response to my ticket – within 6 minutes – telling me the domain mapping had been put in place but that I should wait up to 48 hours for the DNS change.

Content with this, I got on with installing Wordpress into the one domain that was already within the webhosting and started to build a new website.

48 hours passed and I could see no change to the hosting listed for my domains in the 123-reg control panel.  To see if anything had happened, I logged into my webhosting via FTP and made a small change to one of the site homepages and then refreshed the site – no change was reflected, so I could tell the domain was still loading the old version of the website.

I posted an update to the ticket stating that the domain mapping had not taken affect and it had been over 48 hours.

Mistake 2

This time it took 2 days to get answer (Saturday to Monday) – telling me that the Domain mapping wouldn’t work until the old webhosting had been deleted and could I call their Customer Services to resolve matter.  Why should I have to call them, costing me money, when what they had told me to do didn’t work?

Hoping to resolve this matter quickly, I did call and spoke to a customer service team member, who frankly, did not know what they were talking about.  First they claimed that the person I had spoken to the previous week had done the wrong thing, pointed the domains to the original webhosting and said what I actually needed to do was web forwarding and he transferred me to a technical helpline.

The second person I spoke to disagreed and said no it was definitely Domain Forwarding and said I needed to speak to another team – again I was transferred.  This time I sat on hold for 20 minutes until giving up in disgust.

I raised another ticket and asked for somebody to call me back.  Nobody did.

If it is clear that a customer has an unresolved problem and the company admits it was their fault, surely best practice would be for someone in the customer service team to take ownership of the problem and try to resolve it, not keep passing the customer from team to team?

12 hours go by and get an answer to my ticket saying, the three old webhosting packages need to be deleted before any Domain Mapping will work, only the Customer Relationship team can do this so please call them.

Mistake 3

I telephoned and tried to resolve the matter over the phone.  The person I spoke to again didn’t seem to know what was going on and what was the best thing to do or who was the best person to speak to.  I asked to speak to a supervisor and was told nobody was available.  I asked for a supervisor to call me and was told we don’t call customers.  I insisted that somebody call me back otherwise I would take the complaint further and I was reassured someone would call me.

Nobody called back and my original ticket with the history of the issue was closed as resolved.

Companies who do not have an effective complaint escalation procedure are missing an opportunity to turn a negative experience in to a positive experience through good service. 

I recently had occasion to use an Apple Genius Bar repair service in an Apple store in London and the end result far exceeded my expectations, leaving me with a very positive feeling about the business – one which I proceeded to share to my professional network via Social Media

Mistakes 4 & 5

On 15 June, I opened a new ticket, referenced the old ticket and asked for a call back

Within three hours I had a reply asking me for more information – obviously the agent replying had not bothered to read the original ticket.

I did however then receive a call back from a supervisor.  I explained all the problems I had been having. She was quite brusque with me and stated:

• I should not have been told I would get a refund on the old packages, they don’t do that
• I really need to talk to a technical person who could resolve this for m
• As a gesture of goodwill, she would extend my new webhosting package by 1 year 

I accepted the year extension and asked her to put it in an email to confirm what she had done.

I was then put through to the person the supervisor said could solve all the problems and was immediately told, actually no, I still need to speak to the webhosting team and she was about to transfer me. 

I told her that I had no confidence in that team and had been assured she could help.  So in the end, she proceeded to delete the original hosting and set up the domain mapping I originally had tried to do a week ago – it took less than 5 minutes.

I was told (again) it might take 48 hours to resolve the DNS changes and in that time all three of my other domains would be unavailable.

Unhappy with this, but content that I seemed to have found someone who actually knew what they were talking about, I resolved to wait for the domains to reappear.  I also reminded her that I had not received any email from her colleague about the extension to my webhosting.

If a company chooses to offer a service such as multiple domain hosting in a shared web hosting environment, then they have a duty of care to existing customers to deliver a high quality service that minimises disruption to a customer’s business.  In addition, if a customer service rep promises to do something, they must follow through.

Mistakes 6

17 June came around and none of my domains had reappeared – in fact, if anybody tried to access any one of the three domains, they were immediately redirected to the 4^th domain that was sitting in the root of the web hosting – a totally unconnected brand – very confusing for the visitor.

I called the helpful customer service agent back asking for help and she said I needed to now speak to webhosting team – but she promised to talk to them first and explain the situation.  I waited on hold and then she came back and told me that the failure of the Domain Mapping was a “known issue” and had been escalated in their engineering team – but no idea when it would be resolved, so I just had to wait.

If a company experiences a major technical issue that requires escalation, surely they should notify affected customers ASAP, especially customers who have already raised this issue independently?

Mistake 7

I added a comment to the ticket on Saturday 18 June, complaining about the lack of contact, the outstanding issue and the fact that as it was the weekend, no doubt nobody would respond to me before Monday

If a company delivers a service in a 24/7 environment such as webhosting, then a 24/7 customer response should also be available

Mistakes 8 & 9

Monday 20 June, still no response (as expected) and now I notice no email being received on one of my domains.  I update the original ticket and add a new one for the email issue

I receive an answer within 10 minutes, stating that it looks like what I want to do and have always wanted to do – namely, have multiple domains in one webhosting all using Wordpress is actually not possible.  It actually says:

“However, this is an oversight I believe in the way 123-Apps and the new "mapping" features work together and will need to be properly investigated and debugged by our development team"

The reply then goes on to suggest a possible temporary solution and asks if I want to proceed.

I give my permission to proceed and immediately my three other websites are suddenly available, but now the 4^th - Wordpress site – is now not loading correctly.

When a company discovers that one of its services is flawed and is not delivering what has been promised, they have an obligation to resolve the issue ASAP and discuss the resolution with affected customers – I would suggest this should not be done by technical staff but should have been raised to a more senior level

Mistakes 10 & 11

Over the next two days, I have regular dialogue with the technical support agent trying to resolve this issue and get all 4 sites available.  The agent tells me at one point:

“So basically, by trying to fix things with workarounds, we are clouding the original issue and making things worse for elitesecretarialservices.co.uk”

So he freely admits this is a workaround and the core underlying system IS FLAWED.  I try several times to talk on the phone with him, but repeatedly told “we don’t do call-backs” so we continue using the ticketing system.

Finally by re-installing the 4^th website from a back-up earlier in the week, we manage to get the site back up and all 4 of my sites are available.

I ask if there is any reason why I should NOT install Wordpress into any of the other domains and I am told:

"No, I can think of no reason why you would not be able to install Wordpress as either a 123-App or directly from Wordpress for any of those mapped domains"

So I attempt to install Wordpress into one of my other domains but although it says it installed, when I try to access the Wordpress Admin control panel, I get a failed page.  So I uninstall, thinking I will try again.

I don’t know why, but I decided to check on the status of my other domains and discover, that my 1^st Wordpress site has disappeared – I login to the webhosting by FTP and I can see the whole site has been deleted and I realise what has happened.  My attempted installation in one of the mapped domains resulted in Wordpress being re-installed into the root of the webhosting and it overwrote my other site – when I deleted it – the website was deleted too.

I update the ticket and call the entire webhosting system from 123-reg a pile of shit – obviously a personal opinion.

I state my disgust as the level of service, poor quality of the product and the catalogue of errors over the past two weeks – I ask for a call back by a supervisor.

The immediate response is sorry we don’t do call backs, but here is our address if you want to write to us.

Enough is enough – I put my blogging hat on and tweet about the crap service.

I used to work in a business that had a simple strategy for dealing with problems – if you discovered a problem, you own it until you can pass it on to somebody who can resolve it.

How can a company like 123-reg owned by Web Fusion Ltd., claim on its own website to deliver outstanding customer care when its customer service agents openly admit their own products are flawed, fail to resolve the core problem and then hide behind a customer service doctrine of not actually calling customers when they have made a complaint.

I have sent a link to this blog via LinkedIn to Thomas Vollrath, MD of Web Fusion – I have also tweeted him, but I will not be able to read what he might say as he has protected his Twitter profile and I can’t follow him, without his permission.

 I’ll let you know his response (if I get one)

My Dell Hell - Dell vs Dave Mutton - In court this Thursday 12 August, 2010

It’s been quite a while since I updated this Blog for lots of different reasons, but the main factor was that court proceedings in the UK can take a long time to process


In the last few months several important things have happened:

• I had contact from a solicitor working at Geoffrey Leaver solicitors, on behalf for Dell. He had two objectives, one was to re-arrange collection of the extra laptop which finally happened in mid April and the second was to discuss my claim
• We had several conversations based around the fact that I was looking to achieve two core objectives:
• Primarily to have Dell publicly acknowledge and apologise for their poor Customer Service
• Receive appropriate compensation for the time and effort I have gone to and for my son for the upset and inconvenience of not receiving his Christmas present on time
• Despite several calls, I think the main focus from the solicitor was retrieving the laptop and he never really gave serious consideration to my case
• Consequently, time passed, various deadlines for the court elapsed and I continued the process
• On Monday 2nd August, I had to pay a final listing fee to the court for the case to proceed. I received a letter from the solicitor on Saturday 31 July with a Without Prejudice offer from Dell. This offer of several hundred pounds would just about cover my costs incurred so far, but I feel still did not give me any compensation for the all the hassle I have gone through. Furthermore, the offer was conditional on not publicising the offer and payment in any format, such as this blog.
• I replied to the solicitor, making these points and stating that not only was the cash on offer unacceptable, but also the fact that I would not be allowed to mention the settlement was totally against one of the primary purposes of me taking this case to court in the first place
• I suggested that an improved offer, accompanied by a public letter of apology from Dell would be acceptable.
• This was formally rejected by Dell, their solicitor stated: “My clients do not consider this proposal to be reasonable and it is rejected.”

Consequently, this Thursday at 2pm I will be attending the High Wycombe County Court and defending my case for compensation from Dell Computers for terrible Customer Service

What is most interesting is a story that I saw on BBC TV news this week – which is also available on the BBC News website – here

This story was about a 59-year-old man from Rotherham who has successfully billed British Gas for his time after two years of ongoing disputes with the energy supplier.

Barry Payling said he was paid more than £2,000 by the company after he threatened to take them to court for a "horrendous catalogue of errors".

British Gas said it had paid the money as "a gesture of goodwill, an apology" - not for Mr Payling's time.

BBC TV News interviewed Sarah Pennels, a well-known personal finance journalist and broadcaster, who runs Savvywoman.co.uk

This is perfect timing for me, setting a great precedent and I will contact Ms Pennels to see if she is interested in my case

I will try to update this blog over the next few days as and if things develop, watch this space

Dell Computers - bunch of useless incompetents

It's 7pm and what a surprise, no courier has turned up to collect the spare Inspiron 1545 laptop.

This collection was arranged one month ago, but I remembered and I would expect a multi $billion business with sophisticated customer service systems to remember too.

I'll just add it to the ever growing list of reasons why I will never buy from Dell Computers again and also raise it in court if I get the chance.

Dell Computers vs Dave Mutton Update

Nothing much has happened in the past few weeks since Dell formally acknowledged my claim. They have 28 days from the date of service to formally respond, then it's up to the court to decide what happens next. This notice expires in two weeks on Monday 22 March.

I now have the details of the solicitors acting on behalf of Dell Computers, namely, Geoffrey Leaver Solicitors based in Milton Keynes. I Wonder if they will make any effort to contact me and check the facts of the matter before making their response. I don't hold any hope that Dell Customer services in India have detailed records of my complaint as they are so inefficient.

The only other thing happening today is the extra Inspiron 1545 laptop that I have had unopened since late December, should be collected by Dell. I say should, I had confirmation on a an email on 15th February that it would be collected today, but so far had no other communication. So presumably, Dell expect me to wait in all day for their courier - I think not.

I will not go out of my way to be away from home, but neither will I wait in to ensure collection. I give it a 50% chance that a) The courier from Dell Computers actually turns up and b) I'm actually here to hand over the Inspiron 1545 laptop.

by the way, if you are reading this and you work at Dell, I had occasion to buy a new Netbook recently and guess what? I didn't buy Dell - so there is the first sale you've lost as a direct result of your incompetent customer service.

I bought a stylish Samsung N220 netbook and so far I am very happy with it.

Dell Computers vs Dave Mutton

Checked in on my court claim for compensation against Dell Computers last night and they have formally acknowledged the claim. This means they now have 28 days to prepare and file a defence.

I'm not surprised that Dell Computers legal team are more efficient than their terrible Customer Service team based in India. So it will be interesting now to see what they do next - will they try to contact me and make an offer or will they take it all the way and I'll see them in court.

Looking at my Google Analytics data, I am still getting a lot of traffic from Dell servers, so somebody over there is watching this blog - interestingly I haven't had any further traffic recently from the Radian6 service. I wonder if they changed the way they use it - getting a lot of traffic direct using my name as a search word. Maybe someone in their Social Media team realised that the when they click in the Radian6 report it shows up as a referring site to whichever blog or site they are looking at??

Finally, although my emails to Michael_Dell@dell.com didn't get a direct response, I did get my missing Inspiron laptop eventually - it's just symbolic of the inefficiency of Dell that they offered me compensation worth less than the missing software and making no allowance for the unbelievable hassle I have had dealing with their incompetent customer service team.

To anybody who is struggling with your own Dell Hell, it might be a late order for a Dell laptop or Dell desktop, a problem with Dell technical support, or any other type of Dell after sales support, my advice to keep on persevering and I recommend you do this:

• Keep a note of when and how long it takes you to do anything - this could be how long you stay on hold when you call Dell Customer Services, how long it takes you to write an email to Dell technical Support, or even how long it takes to write a blog post or Tweet about how poor Dell Computers customer service is
  
• Always ask for a name and email address for who you are talking to - they will not always give it - so make a note of that too
  
• when you send any emails always set your options to ask for a read receipt and copy everybody you have been dealing with on the same email
  
• Don't lose your temper on the phone - be polite, but don't let them get what they want which is for you to go away. If you have a legitimate problem, be persistent
  
• If it is clear that the person you are dealing with has no way to help you, then ask to speak to their supervisor - ask for their name and contact details before they transfer you (or put you on hold)
  
• If somebody says they will call you back, make sure you get:
  
  • Their name
    
  • Their contact details, name and email
    
  • A specific time when they will call back, or the latest time. Then repeat this back to them as some CS calls are recorded, e.g. "To confirm, you "their name" will call me back by 2pm on "day and date" regarding my complaint about "your problem"
    
  • ask them to email you and confirm what actions they are taking and when they will get back to you
    
  
  
• Above all else - Don't Give Up
  

I hope that helps you with your Dell Hell. I've been dealing with my complaint now since the middle of December 2009...

No News from Dell - I'm not surprised

It's been almost a week since I issued my claim in the county court for compensation from Dell Computers for terrible customer service. They have 14 days to respond and I'm hoping that they are such a disorganised company that they will not even bother to defend and I will win my claim.

Of course if they do actually choose to defend that will also be interesting as it will mean that there legal team are far more efficient than their customer service team - nice choice of priorities.

Thanks to the people who have sent me messages of support either on the blog or via Twitter - I am keeping both updated (#dellsucks on Twitter) with any news and who knows maybe I will start a trend...

Legal Process started against Dell Computers

I have today submitted a claim in the County Court for compensation against Dell Computers for their appalling customer service and arrogant attitude. Full details of this process have already been posted on this blog in my most recent posts.

To bring the record fully up to date I have been exchanging emails with a customer service rep at Dell who offered his apologies; confirmed the c£50 compensation; stated that the missing software was now no longer available (no offer of anything to replace it - was worth £60); confirmed that they will collect the extra laptop on 8th March (this is about how long I had to wait to get the order). Finally, he also confirmed that Dell would defend any court action, so I look forward to the next steps in this process.

Finally, I have also decided to seek publicity for my dispute and will be contacting several consumer affairs programmes on both TV and Radio.

Big corporations have to accept that they cannot behave this way to customers who are paying them money for goods and services.

I got Dell's attention at last

Less than 24 hours after emailing Michael Dell and notifying him that that I intend to make a claim in court against Dell Computers, I had a phone call from the "Dell Customer Service Escalation team".

Unfortunately, it still isn't good news, he offered me a free copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 - worth about £60, or a 10% discount on the order worth about £48. He obviously hasn't done his homework as I rejected that offer weeks ago. So I told him that his offer was totally unacceptable and I would see them in court. Dell Computers has until Friday to make a better offer, otherwise I will make my claim.

At least one thing is good - my advice to anybody who is in dispute with Dell Computers is to threaten to take them to court and send your email to michael_dell@dell.com.

More news when it happens

Open email to Michael Dell generating traffic

My open email yesterday to Michael Dell has generated a ten fold increase in traffic to this blog. I can see from the stats that about 20% of the traffic came from Dell itself in both India (Dell customer services) and the US, presumably Dell Corporate. Several visitors from a interesting site Radian6 which is some form of Social Media monitoring service - so I think my message got through to someone at Dell - but will it get to the man at the top, Michael Dell himself.

I also had an anonymous comment posted to the blog: "I work at Dell and I couldn't agree with you more"

I've not had any further contact yet from Dell Customer Services, so still waiting...

Poor Functionality Part 2 (I think) - or "How to check in Online with Alitalia airline"

I was on a business trip to Milan recently and it was a very early start - 6.00am, so naturally anything that would help speed things up in the morning would be welcome, such as Online check in.

For anybody who is not a regular traveller, online check in allows you (with a good airline) to check in up to 24 hours before you fly, print out your own boarding pass and just go straight through security when you get to the airport.

So on the day before, I went to the Alitalia site to check in for my very early flight. Most airline sites will allow you to check in based on your airline locator code - a 6 to 8 character code unique to your reference and your surname or airline loyalty card number.

On Alitalia, I tried several time to get into online check in suing this code and my other details but it would not recognise me - then I realised they were actually asking for the e-ticket number which is something much longer atleast 13 characters and not usually used by any passenger - first mistake.

So I tried again with this much more difficult number and still couldn't get in. Now as my flight was so early in the morning, I decided not to give up and go to the airport even earlier and rang Alitalia customer services.

I explained my problem and a very bored sounding person told me that she knew exactly what the problem was. She asked me to try and login again using the e-ticket number, but when typing in my name she asked me to add MR to the end of my first name, e.g. DaveMR.

This I did and wonder of wonders I was in and could select my seat. In fact, I could select any seat - I could see clearly that almost nobody must use this system as every seat was available for me to select and after my experience I am not surprised!