Does anyone else enjoy haggling?

Desert Orchid

Desert Orchid

Senior Jockey
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
Messages
25,024
I went off it for a while. Got fed up trying to push car salesmen to their limit. But I enjoyed this wee 'chat' this morning:

Welcome to Tesco Mobile live chat. Someone will start chatting with you soon.
You're through to Sanjeev.
Sanjeev: Hi I'm Sanjeev. How can I help?
Maurice: I'm going abroad for a couple of weeks and my current tariff with O2 is very expensive. What's the very best deal you can offer me. I'm a very light user.
Sanjeev: I can certainly help you with this.
Sanjeev: You can get a SIM deal with us.
Maurice: According to O2, my average spend on my PAYG is about £4 per month. I told them I'd use the phone more if it wasn't so expensive.
Sanjeev: But you will be charged as per roaming standard while you travel outside the UK.
Maurice: I see deals in shops in town coming in around £7.50 per month. That would be my limit, I reckon.
Maurice: What's roaming standard? How much per minute to phone the UK from Spain?
Sanjeev: Was that a SIM deal?
Sanjeev: Let me help you with the link to check the charges from other countries to UK.
Maurice: No, it was a Windows Phone with something like 200 minutes, 500 texts and 500 thingummies of data.
Sanjeev: Please use this link to check the charges.
Sanjeev: I'm sorry to say, our all the free allowances are valid only in UK.
Maurice: With a SIM deal would I need a PAC code from O2? The one they gave me expired on 16 January.
Maurice: I don't mind paying for calls from abroad so long as the charges aren't over the top.
Sanjeev: No worries you call them again to get get the new PAC code.
Maurice: So what's your best deal?
Sanjeev: Let me help you with the best a available SIM deal.
Sanjeev: We are offering a good deal in £10 a month in this deal you can get 1000minutes, 5000 texts and 1 GB of data. This deal is available on 12 months of contract.
Maurice: Thanks, Sanjeev. If that's your best deal we're wasting each other's time.
Sanjeev: We are offering a great deal in £7.50 a month in this deal you can get 250 minutes, 5000 texts and 500 MB of data. This deal is available on 12 months of contract.
Maurice: How quickly could it be set up and would I keep my number?
Sanjeev: You can surely be keep your existing phone number with us.
Sanjeev: Let me explain it to you how you can keep your existing phone number with us.
Sanjeev: You can place your order now, when you receive your order you need to contact us with the PAC code. We'll then transfer your existing phone number to Tesco. When your old number will be transferred, your old contract will be cancelled automatically
Maurice: How long would that take? I leave on Wednesday, very early.
Sanjeev: The standard timings for delivery is 3-5 working days however most of our orders have been delivered within 2-3 working days.
Sanjeev: And our number transfer time scale is maximum 24 to 48 hours.
Maurice: Leave it with me just now, Sanjeev. I'm on my way into town. If no-one can beat that, I'll get back in touch. Thanks.
Sanjeev: Ok, No worries looking forward to see you as a Tesco Mobile Customer soon.
Sanjeev: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Maurice: Not unless you can get that price down a bit more...
Sanjeev: I'd be happy to assist you with that today.
Sanjeev: We'd really like your feedback. Click on 'End chat' in the top right of this screen to tell us what you think. Bye.
Sanjeev: Have a nice day
 
With time becoming an issue prior to my holiday, I eventually got through to O2 retentions.

They put me on a cheaper tariff which more than halves my PAYG calls and text charges. It also brings down the cost of phoning the UK from Spain down from £1.50 per minute to 24p, so it might be easier for me just to call my bets in.
 
an capall said:
I am impressed with Sanjiv, concise and thorough.
Click to expand...

Two thoughts occur to me.

1) This sentence would be better with the word Sahib added to the end. "Sanjeev: You can surely be keep your existing phone number with us."

2) They should bring back It Aint Half Hot Mum.
 
My company sells a very inexpensive household item to this supermarket chain, amonst others. By cheap I mean under a £1(selling price) for what would be known as a 'classic'. More LED low energy ones obviously cost more but last longer and use less electricity. If one is found to be broken and returned by a customer, this supermarket chain charge my company £7 plus administration fee to be decided on a case by case basis, plus a percentage for goodwill, and a fee for disposable. If a 'classic' this would mean putting in the bin, if another type hopefully in a recycle bin as they cannot be bothered to send it back to us. Recycle fee on a classic is nothing, on another type up to 19p but this applies to high end items, average fee is 5p and this is a compulsory charge and has to be charged and declared on a quarterly basis just like VAT. Last quarter 6 such items were returned to customers or not sold but found to be faulty, they can't tell us which,. They refuse to give us product codes so we know which items are faulty, so we cannot report it back to our head office and claim the cost of sales back into our books. They originally charged £25 per item plus plus because they claimed these items had been returned and an investigation demanded to know why it had not worked. When I asked for copies of the investigations, as allowed by the contract terms, it was realised that actually there had been no investigation and they had made a mistake, but they still couldn't give me the product codes.
Some may say don't agree to these type of charges but large supermarket chains have suppliers over a barrel. Another well known supermarket who we have also just started to supply having paid 'an entry fee' to take our product are trying to charge £48 per 'claim' for each returned item.
So no wonder they could do a deal with the money they are making with ridiculous charges like this.
 
Last edited:
I haggle whenever I can. It sometimes causes friction at home. Mrs O once walked out of a shop when I started to haggle. The item in question had been reduced from £299 to £149.

Having learned some time earlier that the mark up in this line is around 400%, I offered £100 but on seeing Mrs O disappear out of the door I quickly muttered something like, 'Oh, I'm sorry, my wife must be feeling unwell, I'll have to get back to you,' and left.

She's used to it now and is even quite supportive when I get started.
 
If I tried to haggle I'd probably talk them into charging me more. However, I leave it to the S.O. who used to be a rep. It's amazing how much people will reduce things by. And at places like Boots he always asks what freebies they're giving away.
 
I haggle whenever I can. It sometimes causes friction at home. Mrs O once walked out of a shop when I started to haggle
Click to expand...

Well if you will say "blow job or no job"
 
an capall said:
I am impressed with Sanjiv, concise and thorough.
Click to expand...

I'd agree and any large company out there could learn a lot from it - perhaps even go so far as to put the answers together in some form of script for customer services employees to rigidly stick to, always searching the customer's question in the 'keywords' of their available answers, but alas, it'll never happen.
 
Steve T said:
I'd agree and any large company out there could learn a lot from it - perhaps even go so far as to put the answers together in some form of script for customer services employees to rigidly stick to, always searching the customer's question in the 'keywords' of their available answers, but alas, it'll never happen.
Click to expand...

:lol:
 
Back
Top