Hello Peter! Bye Peter!

Is hellopeter.com a fair service? Some guy on reporter.co.za wrote a complaint that he was listed on hellopeter.com for delivering bad service. Although he had the opportunity to set things straight there and then, he did not.

Hellopeter allows users to lay complaints against companies giving unsatisfactory service. BRILLIANT!!! Two huge problems though:

1. If your company was listed there, in order for you to respond and explain your side of the story, you need to pay from R13 500 up to R60 000 to do so! That seems a bit unfair if you ask me.
   
2. Claims of bad service do not get investigated. Also not so fair.
   
   As the guy on reporter.co.za stated:
   
   “Just imagine: you just started out with
   your own company. Now everyone who has ever attempted starting his own
   company will quickly point out to you how you need to stretch your
   pennies when you are still establishing yourself. Then along comes your jealous neighbour
   or even a competitor, sucks something out of his thumb and posts it on
   hellopeter.com. Immediately you are set back at least R13 500 and
   that’s excluding all the negative marketing you will have to put up
   with.“
   

Now, we do NOT need something we cannot trust. If Peter Cheales would like to run a fair service “searching for service excellence” he need to either make it free altogether or he needs to fully and properly investigate claims before publishing them on the web site!

What bugs me is why did this Creationist guy that wrote on reporter.co.za not set the records straight? He had a brilliant opportunity to do so. Now he rather complains about Hellopeter instead of referencing the complain together with his reply. Simple and free!

technorati tags:hellopeter, customerservice, complaints

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5 Comments to "Hello Peter! Bye Peter!"

• Andrew said: On 04/04/2007 at 2:09 pm

  Peter responds… http://www.fin24.co.za/articles/default/display_article.aspx?Nav=ns&ArticleID=1518-1786_2094088
  I still think it’s dodgy to ask companies to pay to respond to a complaint.

• Henre said: On 04/05/2007 at 1:25 pm

  Keeping things fair can hardly be mentioned in the same breath as internet communications. I agree that it’s too difficult to investigate these complaints and it would cost big companies millions to keep their record clean. Let’s face it, even if mega companies like Telkom, Vodacom etc drastically improve customer service, you’ll always find one- or two- (hundred) people having a peeve of some sort.

  We also need to keep in mind why people complain. On your birthday, having just won a brand new 5 series Beamer, what are the odds of you lodging a complaint if a customer service rep swears at you over the phone? Realisitically, zero. I’m exaggerating yes, but when we mortals are in a foul mood, it takes very little to make us go ape. And when we’re drifting away on eternal bliss, there is absolutely nothing that can p*ss us off.

  You need to either keep the entire service free, and expect millions of stupid, childish complaints and futile responses from these companies who’ll probably hire a person solely responsible for responding to complaints like these online. It’s much cheaper that way.

  Or you need to charge a fee for the complainant as well. If it’s a well documented and renowned website and you are guaranteed that the right people will view it, respond to it, and SOLVE the problem, I have no issue in paying a minimal fee.

  If you want any images you search google images. If you want quality photographs, you visit Dreamstime, Webshots or whichever else and you pay for them. Nothing changes in this instance. Quality serviceanything costs money.

• Richard Catto said: On 05/23/2007 at 5:37 pm

  HelloPeter.co.za can die in flames!!!

• heather cameron said: On 09/24/2007 at 8:45 am

  Last time I filed a complaint through Hello Peter absolutely nothing transpired from it. I decided to have another try and I sincerely hope that my complaint against “Cell C For Yourself “has better results.

  Just in case my complaint hasn’t reached you, here it is again:

  At the end of July I was due for an upgrade on my phone, having had a contract with Cell C for a number of years. I decided on the Nokia 6300 but ONLY on condition that the phone came complete with a USB cable. Of this I was assured so went ahead an placed the order. On delivery I noticed that the Nokia packaging had been opened and then repacked by Cell C and there was no cable. Before unpacking the phone, in case I would have to exchange it for another model, I telephoned and wrote letters to the management and received a written promise that the cable would be delivered. Two months down the line and the promises have not been fulfilled. Any further communications are met with the same promise, or, “this matter has been escalated”.

  After receiving the written undertaking to deliver the cable I proceeded to unpack and use my new phone and now it cannot be exchanged for another phone with a USB cable. I would point out that the sole purpose of changing from a Samsung to a Nokia at a similar price range was to enable me to take photographs and download them and other data to my PC.

  Yours sincerely

  Mrs Cameron

• Creationist said: On 01/11/2008 at 7:33 am

  Hi, I googled this by accident and decided to post a comment. The main thing that bugged me about Peter Cheales is that before the published the complaint they never bothered to check if it was valid. That is bad, coz the way I see it is that any time Peter Cheales needs some extra cash he can suck something out of his thumb. I think companies need a fair chance to correct themselves. The complaint could even have been fabricated by direct competition. Although Peter Cheales denies most of what I wrote in the article, a copy of their correspondence with my company was forwarded to the Reporter.co.za editorial staff. Should he have challenged me I would have made them look like monkeys.

Spit it out!

Filed in: Business by: Stii