Scorpiosail Blog

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Some time ago the inner tube of a tyre on one of our folding Brompton Bikes broke – the stiff valve broke off from the soft rubber, impossible to repair. I started to look for a replacement tyre, but the weels are of such a small size that it seemed impossible to find a tyre in South Africa. I looked at Bromptons home page (they are located in England) and found that they do not have a distributor in SA, so I sent them a mail, asking form a quotation for two inner tubes to be delivered in Cape Town. Their reply was astonishing:

– “We do not have a dealership in South Africa. We are unable to ship directly to you as we expect each Brompton to be checked by a qualified mechanic prior to being given to the customer to ensure it is of the highest safety and standard.”

We own two expensive Brompton Bikes. One of them is now useless because of a simple flat tyre. You would think that it would be in Brompton’s interest to keep their customers happy, when it would simply require sending a new tyre by mail. Instead they refuse because, in their opinion, the replacement of an inner tube needs to be checked by a qualified mechanic.

I have never heard of such nonsense before. Surely there cannot be a more simple service task on a bike than replacing a flat tyre! And adding insult to injury, they informed us, that we could contact their nearest distributor in South AMERICA! Thanks a lot, why not a dealer in Japan?

We have had these bikes on board for 12 years (photo above is from Nassau, Bahamas, 10 years ago) and they have been very useful. I have changed the tyres and inner tubes numerous times, but this time we didn’t have a spare on board.

This is apparently how Brompton rewards their loyal customers. Thanks for buying our bikes but we will not send you any spares.

I guess this must be a classic case, where the manufacturer turns down an opportunity to earn goodwill and instead caused a lot of bad will.

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Looking for the right yacht for a circumnavigation?

Look here …

Now back to the credit card subject.

Yesterday I tried to book flight tickets from Kuala Lumpur to Helsinki, return.

After filling in the forms on KLM’s internet booking site, page after page, I finally arrived at the final payment form, and having completed it with the details of my Amex card, it was time for the scary “hit enter” moment.

And what do I read on the next screen?

(“The provided payment details are incorrect. Please check them and click on the Continue button when they are corrected. If the problem persists, please contact your credit card company or select an other payment method.”)

So, I spend an other 30 minutes, moving back and forth between the pages and hit enter a couple of more times. Same result.

Time is now 13:00 but the time back home where my credit card customer services are located, is 5 o’clock in the morning. We had plan to leave this anchorage in Langkawi and sail to a bay where there is no phone connection. So I decide to stay in Kuah one more day and wait here for 4 hours, at this hot spot where I can use Skype instead of expensive phone calls. Fortunately they serve cold Tiger beer.

When the time is 9am in Finland I place the call to Amex. “Yes we can see that you have tried to pay twice”. When I wonder what is wrong they tell me that it was for my own good, “the system wasn’t sure that it really was you”.

I don’t buy this argument, I think there is a flaw in the design of the system. If I would have been buying something tangible, and easily tradable, like say, a golden ring, a camera or a radio, ok fair enough.

But hey, come on, I tried to buy a flight ticket issued in the same name as the credit card holder! Nobody else than me could ever have used that ticket. And, by the way, why was I told that the payment details were INCORRECT. Because of this message, I unnecessary spent 30 additional frustrating minutes trying to find out what I had done wrong, even though I hadn’t done any wrong – why was I not instead immediately told that Amex (for security reasons) didn’t approve of the payment?

I gently tried to tell the lady at the other end that this flaw had almost ruined my day, so she could relay some feedback to their it-department, but she kept repeating, “no there’s nothing wrong with the system, this is to protect you”.

(© Cartoon found at http://pr-media-blog.co.uk/tag/customer-loyalty/)

Here, in South East Asia, you will commonly be charged 3% extra when paying by credit card. This appears silly, keeping in mind that bargaining is part of many cultures of the area. Three percent is such a small amount after all, but it is annoying to be punished for using the card. I would imagine that the possibility to use credit cards increases the amount tourists spend and therefore the vendors should think of the 3% as part of their marketing costs and include it in the price. Normal tourists – I’m not talking about Russian money launderers – do not walk around with enough cash for ad hoc spending sprees.