Cell C, I am fed up and now I am lodging an official complaint

One of the wonderful things about South Africa is the Advertising Standards Authority. This is a proactive organization with teeth and it is not afraid to use them. I love the ASA!

When a company is advertising something falsely, misleadingly, or if the advertisement is offensive, you can lodge a complaint with the organization and it will investigate. If it agrees with you (and they seem to be very pro-complainant) it will make the company remove or modify its advertising to be more acceptable.

I am going to complain to the ASA about Cell C and its false advertising about the "Whoosh" stick. The advertising is patently false...they fact that the stick may, on occasion, reach lightning speed does not give them the right to mislead potential buyers into thinking it is always that fast when, in fact, for a significant portion of time the stick is either miserably slow or completely off line (I had a four hour drop out earlier this week that wreaked havoc on my attempts to get a vacant flat rented!).

The ASA has its own standards for reporting. You can report a company on line via their complaint form or by email, but whichever you choose, they require certain information. The following is from their website:

All complaints lodged with the ASA must meet the following criteria:

* The complaint must be in writing.

* The identity of the complainant(s) must be disclosed.

* The contact details of the complainant(s) should be clearly stated.

* The complainant(s) identity or passport number must be provided.

* The grounds on which the complaint is based must be clearly stated.

* Where the complaint relates to advertising on broadcast media (e.g. television, radio or on cinema) information should be furnished on where and when the advertisement was screened / transmitted.

* Where signs, posters or any form of outdoor advertising is involved, the nature of the advertisement and the wording should be specified.

* When the complaint is about print advertising, the relevant advertisement should be attached.

* If possible, the contact name, address or telephone / fax number of the advertiser should be provided.

Complaints may be submitted as follows:

* By delivery, to the ASA at Willowview, Burnside Island Office Park, 410 Jan Smuts Avenue, Craighall Park, Johannesburg;

* By post to, PO Box 41555, Craighall, 2024;

* By telefacsimile, to +27 11 781 1616; or

* E-mail complaint to: complaint@asasa.org.za

* Use the e-complaint form on this website

Their website is located at www.asasa.org.za. If you are as fed up with Cell C's misleading advertising and crap product, you now have a productive avenue of complaint. Use it!

Hello---I'm back!

It took Telkom (not-so-fondly known as "Hellkom" hereabouts) two weeks to get my phone and internet lines installed, and then the internet line failed after a few hours. It took them an entire week to get a technician out here to fix what turns out to have been a faulty installation.

So, as of late yesterday I am back on line, but right now I am up to my eyeballs in alligators, so I won't be able to post all the stuff I wrote while I was off line...but I will get to it soon, I promise!!

You CANNOT rely on Defy

Defy is a major local appliance brand and their catchphrase is "You can rely on Defy!"

On 1 June I found myself with a rapidly dying freezer, half of my side-by-side refrigerator, and I called my local service centre. You can imagine my dismay, while on interminable hold, to hear the phrase "you can rely on Defy" repeated over an over in place of the ordinary annoying music that us supposed to soothe our temperaments as we wait endlessly for the attention of a bored and unhelpful customer service rep. You see, this was the fourth major breakdown of this fridge in the four short years I have owned it...on Defy, I was learning, I could not rely.

It took 24 knuckle-biting hours to get a technician out to fix the fridge. It cost R700...the equivalent of a week's groceries...to fix the freezer. I managed to save most of the food, but expected that it would be another year before the thing cropped up with a new problem. No such luck.

Barely a month has gone by and Saturday my husband opened the freezer to find the ice cubes had turned to water, the ice cream to cream, the frozen veggies soft enough to chew as they were. I popped a thermometer inside and found the freezer to be warmer than the fridge!

Since it was 4:30 on a Saturday...and Johannesburg retailers roll up their sidewalks and go comatose at 5 on Saturdays we hurried to our nearest discount outlet to buy a freezer. Unbelievably, every one of their stand alone freezers were out of stock!! Hubby managed to talk the floor manager into selling us the display model...at a discount, no less...and to round up some guys to deliver it for us ASAP. By 6:30 I was cooking those thawed veggies and rebagging them for their return to a frozen state. This time we bought Bosch, a premier German brand, makers of my eminently reliable washer and dryer.

So this morning we await the return of the technician. This is the fifth major repair in four years, four of them to the freezer. If this is what Defy defines as reliable, I want absolutely nothing to so with them or their appliances ever again.

Learn from my misfortune: you CANNOT rely on Defy!

** ** **

Below is the "comment" I left on their website. I expect neither a reply nor compensation:

My husband and I bought a 660 litre side-by-side [Defy] refrigerator freezer from Makro approximately four years ago. In the few years we have owned it, the machine has required five major repairs, including replacement of the compressor on the refrigerator side during the first year of ownership.

Today I am awaiting a technician for the second time in less than five weeks for yet another freezer repair. So unreliable is this machine that we went out and bought a separate freezer this weekend when the Defy freezer failed for the third time in less than a year.

It is bad enough that the machine is so unreliable, but to have your service centre act like a freezer with 200+ litres of rapidly thawing food is not an urgent situation is absolutely maddening. Whoever runs your service centre needs to understand that a dead freezer has a much greater urgency than a groaning tumble dryer or a grumpy washing machine. Food is not only expensive, spoiled food can cause major health issues. A pair of jeans that doesn't get dry because the dryer is malfunctioning will not compromise the owner's health and safety...or their budget... the way a freezer full of spoiling meat will.

I have come to the conclusion that not only are your products grossly unreliable, your service department is essentially useless: not only cannot they not appropriately triage the incoming failure reports and dispatch technicians first to the most urgent calls, e.g., dead refrigerators and freezers, there is no service...not even at a premium charge...for appliances that fail after 5 pm on a Friday. I find this absolutely inexcusable.

It may not occur to you that losing a refrigerator and/or freezer full of food is a problem because, perhaps, you can afford to go out and replace the lot without a qualm. I assure you, however, that people whose financial situation does not allow them to purchase top of the line appliances like Bosch are not people who have a stash of cash with which to go out and replace the entire contents of their refrigerator and/or freezer at the failure of a compressor.

I think is it irresponsible of your company to not provide repair service for after-hour emergencies and to fail to appropriately triage repair calls when they come in: waiting 3 days to get my dryer fixed will be annoying; waiting more than a few hours to get my refrigerator fixed is potentially hazardous, definitely costly, and wholly irresponsible on YOUR part for forcing such a situation on me.

As it stands, given that this refrigerator/freezer has been grossly unreliable from the first, I think Defy should replace it free of charge AND refund every rand we have been obliged to spend on this lemon since we brought it home. I know you won't do that, though, and that is why I will never, EVER purchase another Defy product, nor will any of my friends, family members, or anyone else I may have the opportunity to influence.

Don’t mess with success

When I first moved to this town more than five years ago, there were two “white tablecloth” restaurants, both worthy of note: Dale’s Place and Chaplan’s.

Dale’s Place was situated in a charming old house on the “right” side of the highway (meaning the side nearest the beach), conveniently located next to a traffic light that allowed patrons easy access to the side street parking. You couldn’t get a table without a booking, the menu offerings ranged from the prosaic to the exotic, and preparation was sublime. It was the kind of place where you reserved a table for celebrations, special dinners, or to treat yourself to a fine meal accompanied by fine wines, followed by a shock to your credit card.

Chaplan’s, located on the other side of the highway but too convenient to a posh suburb to be ignored, had a different sort of menu and somewhat more subdued pricing. It didn’t require bookings, but it was not uncommon to wait at the bar for a table as it was always busy. The innovative menu…tempura prawn or mezze platter appetisers, champagne sorbet for dessert, for example…kept our taste buds alert and our wallet open.

You may have noticed that I have referred to both establishments in the past tense… There is a reason for that: Dale’s has been consigned to the mists of history and Chaplan’s is barrelling headlong down the same path. In both cases, the owners and innovators of the venues have sold up, taken their profits and run, leaving ignorant Philistines in control of what were once fine dining establishments.

We actually ate at Dale’s shortly after the handover: we had no idea Dale was no longer at the helm and we were baffled at the unexpectedly poor service, puzzling menu additions and deletions, and the decline in the quality of the food. We never went back, feeling we had been charged premium prices for seriously substandard food and insulting service. Obviously we were not the only patrons who felt this way, as Dale’s began a slow, agonizing, embarrassingly public decline. It stood on a prominent corner where we were forced to witness its painful demise each time we drove past. At first, we noticed that the veranda, an area usually packed with patrons, was without diners. Then one of us remarked on the emptiness of the parking lot. A deli…which I visited and found virtually without stock…opened in part of the unused space, and then a piano bar sign was prominently posted on the outside of what was once a fine dining establishment. The deli morphed into a café, and then a gift shop, and big signs offering specials went up on the august façade of what was now a failed restaurant. Drive by today and you will find a small office building where, only five years ago, a venerable old residence housed a first rate restaurant that delighted the palates of local fine food aficionados.

A couple of months ago we visited Chaplan’s and the first thing I noticed was a change in the menu: many of the things I liked were missing. Hubby soon remarked on the indifferent service and, reminding me of Dale’s, wondered aloud if the place had been sold. Last night we returned and we noted that the place was uncharacteristically empty for a Friday. We took a table, ordered drinks, and opened the menu only to find it had been stripped of everything I liked and nothing new and tantalizing had been inserted to take up the slack. In fact, only one new menu item was discovered…an appetizer that, somehow unsurprisingly, had been misspelled. We paid for our drinks and left, but not until determining that, indeed, the restaurant had been sold and the new owners had reinvented the menu to “personalize” it a little. We won’t be back and Hubby opines that in a year or less, Chaplan’s will either have changed hands again or will be as defunct as Dale’s.

Obviously the new owners of Dale’s Place, an Italian couple, knew their business was in trouble. They implemented a dizzying array of changes in at attempt the stem the flow of red ink, all to no avail. But did they ever bother to ponder the reason for the decline and target their efforts in that direction? I don’t think so…and I think if they had, they could have turned it around.

You see, Dale’s was well-regarded for its menu, in particular its game dishes, local seafood and “Cape cuisine”…local Cape Town traditional foods. Our disastrous last meal there revealed many of the original dishes missing and, in their place, Italian food. Sorry, but Italian food is not what Dale’s patrons came to eat, so changing the menu was a really stupid thing to do. Since the new owners retained Dale’s kitchen staff, it would have been a very simple thing to keep the menu intact and the people whose patronage made Dale’s a local landmark would continue to come in to eat it. But they had to put their own personal mark on the place and introduce dishes that were not in keeping with the restaurant’s traditional cuisine. They took away things the patrons liked and substituted things they didn’t like…Italian food, aside from pizza, is not a big hit here in South Africa…and the patrons reacted predictably…they went away and stayed away and the restaurant eventually had to close its doors. They bought one of the most successful, well-regarded restaurants in Cape Town and killed it, all because of ego.

Sadly, the same thing seems to be happening at Chaplan’s, and I don’t understand why. If the venue is successful, if it has a following and the patrons like the food, why change it? Sure, a slow introduction of new things may ultimately add some favourites to the menu, but to take over a thriving restaurant and immediately change the menu, to remove customer favourites and substitute unknowns, is just business suicide! It is arrogant and stupid and counter-productive and business buyers who engage in such foolishness deserve the financial drubbing they eventually take.

Common sense would dictate that the diners who mob a restaurant specializing in prime steaks and game meat are not there for Italian food! If your heart is set on running an Italian restaurant, buy one of those that is in the tank and make things better, or open an Italian joint from scratch! And in a more eclectic venue like Chaplan’s, cheapening the plates by removing garnishes and sauces, and forgetting the importance of presentation, serves only to make patrons nervous about the restaurant’s future and impels them to seek new places to eat. Changing the menu to “inject a personal touch,” as we were informed at Chaplan’s, is a really dim-witted and egotistical thing to do: if the restaurant is turning a profit on the existing menu, in what world does significantly changing that menu equate to increased revenues? People are funny about their food, and when you change it…especially when you take away the things they like…they don’t cheerily embrace your substitutions, they go find another place where they can get what they want instead of what you want to give them!

As Jeff Foxworthy likes to say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Good bye, Dale’s Place…we miss you. Good bye, Chaplan’s…we already miss the place you used to be, the menu you once had. Let’s just hope that Alexia’s doesn’t change hands next!

Click on the wings!

and look for me under the Violet Burroughs tab

Sunday Morning Breakfast Out: Take 2

Hubby and I went out to breakfast yesterday and decided to return to the same place this morning: he, because they serve “baked beans” (pork and beans to Americans) with one of the breakfasts, me because I was curious if the speedy service we received yesterday was the norm.

This little coffee shop, called Beanz, is inside the small Table View Mall and located directly across from the entrance to the Pick n Pay (South Africa’s answer to Safeway). At 9:30 on a Saturday morning, the parking lot was jammed and the mall…including Beanz…was busy. Bu the service was fast, efficient and pleasant, despite the place being nearly full.

Hubby and I returned this morning and it was a whole different story. Where yesterday we took the only available booth in the place, this morning there were only two occupied tables when we walked in. The young lady who brought us our menus…before I even had my sunglasses off and traded for my normal specs…took our drink orders and when Hubby started to ask for sweetener, her eyes flicked to the little container of sugar and sweetener packets already on the table.

If yesterday’s service was good, today’s was phenomenal. There were three employees out front…two servers and a manager…and nobody went without attention for long. Before our drinks were served, another server came and took our order, no quibbling over special orders (Hubby wanted a frank with his breakfast) and or quailing over scrambling the eggs. No sooner had our order been taken than the original server appeared with the drinks…and my Coke Light was a full 340ml can, not one of those puny little ones or a fountain coke which always seem to be just a wee bit flat.

The food arrived before Hubby had finished his coffee, and everything was perfect. Generous portions correctly prepared and served quickly…even the toast was hot enough to melt the butter spread onto it. During the course of our meal the server stopped by once to see if everything was ok, and my plate was removed shortly after I finished. There was no waiting around to pay the bill because the server was too busy chatting with a co-worker…nope, when Hubby put his credit card out with the little folder, the server was right there to collect it. By the time our bill was settled and we were on our way back to the car, we had been in the place only half an hour…

Contrasted with our experience of three weeks ago, this place was a breath of fresh air: good food, well-prepared, efficiently served, all at a cost of only R135, tip included!

Beanz, we are coming back! And if you are reading this in Cape Town, I highly recommend you try this place!

Dodge City Dispute: do I need a silver bullet or a wooden stake??

If the latest installment of the apparently immortal Dodge City dispute doesn’t interest you, click this link for something you might like instead: http://cheaptricksntips.blogspot.com/ . For those of you who want to know what is the latest numbskull trick Mr. Dodge City has pulled, read on.

It is no secret I have a low traffic blog. It’s been that way since its inception more than four years ago and I’ve done very little to change that. Just last week I learned about blog page rankings but I have no idea how to find out what mine is…and I don’t care enough to spend the time finding out what it is, why it is supposed to matter, or how to find out what mine is. The importance of this disclaimer will become apparent in due course.

Anyway, this past week I noticed a jump in my stats (I have one of those little counter thingies you can get free on the web). Today, I had a further jump, all without any appreciable reason. Surely my recent blogs about the burst hot water heater haven’t rung a lot of empathetic bells? I checked the site that gathers the stats…most of which is Greek to me…and saw that the blog had an unusual number of Google hits. When check for the Google search words, I suddenly realized that people were picking up words from Mr. DC’s blog, plugging them into Google, and ending up at my blog. Bizarre, eh?

So, I checked his blog to see what was going on and imagine my shock to see the name of my blog emblazoned in bright letters at the top of his posts!! No kidding! “A View From The Other Side” was part of the actual title of two of his three posts!

Now, I’ve been blogging for more than four years, but I don’t know much about the technical aspects of it…and I don’t care to know…but this guy is even more ignorant than I am about how blogging works. He is driving traffic to my blog with his obsession…people who come to his blog to find out about his restaurant (one of the diners is located in one of the most popular tourist attractions in Cape Town) are, instead, finding out that he has an obsession about a customer who complained about the service…and the curious ones are finding me through Google. He may have figured out how to put up a WordPress blog, but he has no idea how he is hurting himself and helping me by informing every person who finds his blog that if customers complain about the service, they could end up being the target of some obsessive cyber-stalking and character assassination! And, he hasn’t figured that driving traffic to my blog makes it more popular when people do searches for me or for topics I have written about in my very eclectic blog.

So, today he posted a rather long rant in response to a short comment from someone I used to occasionally spar with on the web. Interestingly, he didn’t post my comment to the very same blog entry, so it is now official that he is refusing to allow me to have the same say on his blog that he had on mine. Heaven forefend there should be any information published on his blog that does not exactly conform to what he wants people to believe! Anyway, Jim (my erstwhile sparring partner) posted this comment:

Well this has been interesting, for me SV was OK we never saw eye to eye on just about anything, but I still liked her. And if you’ve managed to get her to change her blog well your a better man then me Gunga Din….But I don’t eat urgers [sic], or stuff like it…and carry on blogging can be ineresting [sic], funny or down right frustrating, but you gotta stop plugging the place…Cheers [Jim has a decidedly conservative bent while I am known to be a wild-eyed liberal--of course we didn’t agree on anything!]

Here is Mr. DC’s response to Jim's comment (in red) and my remarks on that response (in green):

re: re: Dodge City Diner - Customer Service Response

Thanks for your comment. Has been an interesting experience for me as well. Have been in restuarant [sic] game for more than 20 years and never come across anything like it.

A restuarant [sic] Complainant’s motive typically lies in either wanting a refund and/or just drawing the problem to the attention of management for rectification in good faith. Well, there are other reasons…like, I like the food but your crappy service is driving me away. Like, this is my third visit to this venue and the service has been bad every time (see my original mail/blog post), but this time it was just bad beyond belief. Like, maybe I was wanting to get the service fixed so I wouldn’t have to stop coming into the restaurant because the service was so dismal?

SV’s complaint appeared to be backed by an additional motive - events suggest getting exposure for herself - maybe as a writer or whatever. How so? Notice there is no quote or direct reference to anything that would support this allegation. And the evidence suggests otherwise: four+ years of happily blogging along as a low traffic site with no evidence to suggest an attempt to increase it. Logic, also, is on my side…if I wanted to make a name for myself as a writer, why would I pick on an unknown diner at the bottom of the world? Wouldn’t I try to piggyback my efforts on something a bit more visible than a diner that has no website, no reputation outside this one city, not even a blog? The whole allegation doesn’t make an iota of sense. SV’s blog content suggests vindictiveness as a possible motive as well. Again…in what way? Where is a quote or some logical explanation for this allegation? He can’t do it because there isn’t anything. SV’s 2 odd page complaint was outside the norm in almost every sense. Well, “2 odd page” is usually interpreted as meaning “more than two pages.” If you say you have "twenty odd cents," don't you mean twenty cents plus a few? Using 10 pt Arial, it comes to barely 1.25 pages: here is just one of many, many examples of the distortions of truth that permeate his blog entries and emails to me. As far as my complaint being “outside the norm,” what kind of indictment is that? Only people who write complaints inside “the norm,” whatever that might be, are entitled to being taken seriously and treated with respect?

Problem is that while SV secures her desired exposure, [at best this is speculation; at worst, libel] an inaccurate account of events can do serious and unreasonable damage to the business concerned [true…but my account is not inaccurate and, if I am wrong and it is inaccurate he has intractably refused to tell me what is inaccurate about it so I can make corrections] - threatening the livelihoods of all deriving an income from the business. In DCD’s case we have 4 outlets emplying [sic] about 300 staff. It became necessary that I warn her of my right to recover damages in due course if necessary. Why, then, has he refused to tell me what is inaccurate? I have never refused to change an inaccuracy, but if he won’t tell me what they are, isn’t he the reason any inaccuracies that might exist haven’t been corrected?

During the dispute with SV, a very brief very miserable complaint was logged on Food24 against another DCD outlet. The Complainant suggested that Food24 readers do a google search - where they would coincidentally find SV’s blog. Hence my concern that exposure for her blog was a likely motive behing logging the complaint. Oh, what a crock! My mention of Food24 was days before someone posted that review. Any person anywhere in the world who had web access could have posted it. Not only did I not post it, nobody who has ever read my blog would mistake that review for my style of writing. He claims (below) that he has contacted Food24 to learn who posted the review but the fact that he doesn't know sure hasn’t stopped him from blaming me, has it?

I have asked for further details from the food24 complainant. No response as yet and events suggest that the complaint was fabricated and simply intended to unreasonably harm DCD’s reputation. That is entirely possible…but there’s no reason to think it was me. I was doing just fine exchanging emails with him and had no reason to go elsewhere, particularly since I was asking, in almost every email, for him to tell me what he thought was inaccurate so that I could consider an amendment. Maybe he’s the kind of person who tries to resolve a dispute on one hand while undermining those efforts on the other, but I’m not. Besides, I was winning that email war...what possible reason would I have to move to a new venue (like he did with his new blog)? SV swears that she has no knowledge of who may have logged the complaint! But on the balance of probability? How about some evidence instead of speculation? How about refraining from blaming someone until there is even a tiny smidgen of proof? Probability? If you are talking probabilities, what is most probable is that someone else read the early entry mentioning Food24 and made the review, given that hundreds of millions of people had that opportunity. Do I strike anybody reading this as being stupid enough to foreshadow something like that myself? Believe me, if I was going to put up a rude review, I wouldn’t advertise it ahead of time…and it would have been written with a great deal more panache.

Actual details of SV’s service experience in our store as per vidoe [sic] coverage was as follows: 9.44 enter store, greeted by manager, 9.46 waiter takes order for coke/cappucino, drinks at table 9.52, canderel at table 9.54. SV out of store by 9.59. This if the very first time I have seen most of this information! And how interesting that he limits his review of the video to time. In his apology email he refers to this video and states that the drinks took longer than the corporate standard and that there was no excuse for the staff being unable to find the Canderel. He even admits that a staff member left the restaurant to get Canderel from an outside source. Interestingly, this review also fails to mention my getting up from the table and going to the register to inquire what was taking so long to get the Canderel…and the fumble at the register, where it took three members of staff to process a cash transaction is omitted as well. Staff recall an altication [sic} of sorts between SV and hubby before they walked into the store - so emotions were high at the outset it seems! This is an out-and-out lie. Not only were we not engaged in an altercation, we were actually discussing various venues for Sunday morning breakfast and, upon seeing the Dodge City (we were en route to Spur), we decided to try them. We’ve had burgers there (and they are excellent) and the service wasn’t that good, but since only one other table was occupied when we entered, we actually expected to get better service than we had had in the past! Aside from the fact that Hubby and I seldom argue, when we do argue, we definitely don’t do it in public! If there were any high emotions as we entered, they were positive anticipation…they make magic with hamburgers, why not with breakfast, too? I find it very interesting that Mr. DC has failed to mention (or, to date, even acknowledge) my husband’s email to him clearly repudiating the charge that we were not having an altercation nor did I “unreasonably abuse” him as Mr. DC’s staff alleges. SV first blog claimed experience took 30 minutes - but has subsequently backed down on this and other aspects of claim. Another distortion of the truth. My first blog entry on the subject was a verbatim copy of my email to Dodge City. The second entry was posted immediately after I received his apology email which included a mention that his video footage showed we were there 15 minutes rather than the 30 I had estimated. Without so much as a suggestion from him, I made a new entry into the blog in which I accepted his service time and corrected the time to 15 minutes. I could not amend the first entry because it was a verbatim copy of the letter I sent…a copy is a copy, errors and all. This is considerably different from me “backing down,” especially when you consider that he did not sent the first attacking email to me until at least two days after I had made the correction!

I responded to the complaint with an apology and R50 voucher as a token of appreciation for bringing matter to my attention. This is true. He also mentioned the video footage and that his footage showed us we were in the store 15 minutes, not the 30 I estimated. At this point I had no reason to doubt the existence of the video nor his claim of 15 minutes. I immediately posted a correction…without requiring any proof from him, just taking his word for it. Cost of food order was approx R15. Um…I’m not entirely sure about this…I paid for this with an R50 note and I seem to recall getting about R25 back…but I could be wrong. I was so irritated by the time the three staff members finally figured out how to make the till accept a cash payment, I did not carefully count my change. But I do recall an R20 note and one R5 coin… SV rejected voucher –not true…my husband refused the voucher…so he did get the email and was just too rude to respond or even acknowledge receipt (of course he wouldn’t…it didn’t support his twisted version of the truth or his staff’s specious “observations”!) What he could not know is that, prior to his attack on me (after the two day silence), Hubby and I were planning to use the voucher, but at the Waterfront store where our service experiences have been better...not as good as they should be, but better- so refund not the motive. Well how amazing…a correct logical deduction! At last! So what was the motive DCD asks? DCD did not ask anything…DCD merely created a massive straw man and is now happily flailing away at it. No apparent good faith anywhere in logging the complaint. Since when does making a complaint require “good faith”? And it’s an awfully narrow view of the world to assume that there are only two possible reasons for complaint: gain or vengeance. How about something completely outside that restrictive little box: enlightened self-interest? I like the food but the crappy service was driving me away…why hasn’t it occurred to this person that my motive was to get him to improve the service so I would be able to continue patronizing his business? And what about ranting? Has he never heard of a rant?? If we removed every blog from the internet that contains a rant, would there be any left?

Re your concern re my trying to get exposure -Jim expressed a concern about Mr. DCD wanting to get exposure? Where? not to worry, that is not my intention. Ah...so his statement that exposure is not his intention is supposed to be sufficient to prove his intent, but that doesn't work for me? What is his intent, then? To libel a complaining customer? He has three entries on this blog and that's all he talks about! New at the blogging game. Recent entry was an effort to change the blog title to something other than DCD & see if it worked. Yah, right…and he changed the title of two of his blog entries to include my blog name…I’m wondering what WordPress would think of that since clicking my blog name on some Google results directs to his blog instead of mine…doesn’t that violate TOS? Try clicking on the link below and see for yourself.

This entry was posted on September 23, 2008 at 1:13 pm and is filed under A View from the other Side, dodge-city-diner with tags A View from the other Side, dodge-city-diner, dodge-city-diner-cape-town, dodge-city-diner-waterfront.

So, even though I know he’s not going to publish my comment…at least he hasn’t published mine in the past, so I have no reason to expect he’ll publish this one…I gave it my best shot:

Thought you might like to know that people are taking key phrases from your blog, putting them in Google and ending up at mine where they can read the whole story...your emails as well as my repeated requests that you tell me what you think needed changing and your refusals to tell. I know you won't publish this comment...I mean, why let me have my say the way I let you have yours by publishing your side of the story word-for-word?...but that's OK because I'll publish it myself.

But you might want to rethink this tactic...you are actually sending people to my blog who otherwise would never have heard of this, so you are telling everybody what bad service you have and how rudely you respond to someone who calls it to your attention. And, because they can take just about any phrase out of your blog, plug it into Google, you are actually sending people to read my side of the story! I doubt this is what you intended, but that's what you are doing (I checked my stat counter this morning and found multiple hits from Google, the key words lifted wholesale from your entries.)

I've always had a low-traffic blog (for four years), never wanted more than that because I blog primarily for myself and a few regular readers (most of whom are foreigners, BTW) but your blog has increased my hits by making people curious, so I'm gaining a bit of new readership thanks to you.

Oh, and does it seem appropriate to you that what purports to be a corporate website is publishing what amounts to character assassination...and not even having the common decency to allow the target a rebuttal? Not a very good business move...more like a spiteful kid indulging in some name-calling than an exercise in good corporate relations. But why should I care? If you want a highly unprofessional web image that holds you...and by extension, your company...up in a bad light, I guess it's no skin off my nose.

Thanks for all the referral readers though. Appreciate the mention and you creating all the buzz.

Believe it or not, there’s more! His second blog entry (19 Sept) was a verbatim copy of his first (16 Sept) entry with one notable exception: he changed the title of the piece to the name of my blog. Maybe that is how Jim (see intro to this entry) found him. I left a reply, since my previous reply to this entry had not been published.

Yup, you know this isn't true and sending people to my blog will prove it because your emails---proving it wasn't true---are published there.

Thanks for the referrals, though. You've made people curious (about something they would never even have known about it you'd been quiet and let it drop) and now they are coming to my blog to get the rest of the story. I wondered where all the extra traffic was coming from, since I usually have a quiet, low traffic blog and there's been a flurry of unexpected activity over the last few days. Now I know why.

In case you are wondering why I keep making entries about this…why I don’t take the high road and just ignore him…it is because of the doctrine of “tacit agreement” which, if my research is correct, is still in viable in South African law. A magistrate may impute tacit agreement to a litigant based on their conduct…or lack thereof…so if I err, it must be on the side of caution.

You see, if he publishes untrue statements about me and I do not refute them, a magistrate may impute my agreement to those statements because I did not refute them. Kind of a “well, if it wasn’t true, why didn’t you say so?” sort of thing. Tacit consent and tacit agreement are situations in which taking the high road could actually work against you. And, since this guy continues to bring up legal action, it’s not prudent of me to ignore his libels in the interest of taking the high road. It is more prudent of me to refute.

And that’s what this entry is all about.

Dodge City dispute: more lives than a cat!

I should have known it was too good to be true. When Mr. DC emailed me the other night saying “Please do not communicate with me on this matter any longer,” maybe I should have smelled a rat. Well, truthfully, I guess I did smell a rat because I closed with “Dare I hope this is finished? I guess if I haven’t heard anything more in the next week or so (I thought it was over after three days of silence but it turns out I was wrong) I’ll believe it is done.” I should have listened to my gut and instead written “Dare I hope this is finished? Now, that would just be foolish, wouldn’t it?”

His one sentence missive seemed a bit sudden and out of character, based on previous correspondence. But frankly, after the flurry of threats and nonsense he had been bombarding me with all day, it was a relief and I happily acquiesced. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

A couple of times a month I Google my screen name (sweetvioletsa) to see what comes up. I did that yesterday and guess what I found as the last entry on Google’s first page? http://wordpress.com/tag/dodge-city-diner-cape-town/. Seems my erstwhile correspondent has launched himself a blog! And it couldn’t be a coincidence that this launch just happened to occur on the exact same day he requested that I no longer communicate with him, now could it?

I read his entry…which he posted twice, on separate sub-pages…and sent a brief comment. I didn’t expect he would publish the comment—he has comment moderation turned on—but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and wait a day before publishing it myself. Interestingly, he has had full voice on my blog…his one blog comment has been published and once he became contentious, I published his emails in full (rather than excerpts)…but apparently he has no intention of allowing me the same voice I have given him. Well, I suppose that is in keeping with his apparent “no criticism allowed” philosophy…it wouldn’t do for his blog to reveal an inconvenient truth or two, now would it?

Here is what he published on his blog:
Dodge City Diner - Customer Service Response
D.C.D. would like to clarify a few issues regarding a recent customer (ie sweetvioletsa) service complaint noted on the web. In line with standard procedure, the customer’s version of events was accepted without question at the outset and a complimentary gift voucher was offered as a token of appreciation for having reported the matter to us.

When video footage of the incident was later reviewed, it it became apparent that the client’s version of events materially misrepresented the actual sequence of events. The customer was simply asked to please amend her blog accordingly. She refused - despite our pointing out that the Dodge City brand would suffer unfair damage as a result of her inaccurate account of events. This blog is being published as a last resort and in order to meet our legal obligation to mitigate the potential for unfair damage to the reputation of our brand.

Dodge City Diner is, and always will be, deeply committed to providing the highest standard of service to its patrons. The free voucher offered to the client was 3 times the value of her purchase

And this is what I wrote in a comment and, to date, he has not published it (he has comment moderation turned on):
You know this is not true. You refused to tell me what you thought needed amending and I asked you repeatedly to do so. And I have the emails (already published on my blog at http://sweetvioletsa.blogspot.com/ ) that prove this.

Please stop making a fool of yourself...and giving your establishment a black eye...and let this matter drop. I have tried to lay it to rest four times already and you just don't seem to want to let it go.

The service sucked, you admitted the service sucked, you apologized for the sucky service...and I corrected the ONE error you pointed out. That should have been the end of it. And it was until you turned up two days later demanding I amend the blog WITHOUT SPECIFYING what you thought needed amendment, and then threatening me.

Again, I have the emails to prove it, as you well know. So, why not quit while you are ahead, let it die and fade from memory? You are keeping it alive and in doing so, keeping it in front of the public, allowing them to go back to my blog and read the whole story, including your emails to me, in which you cast you in a very bad light. Let it go, man! Let time bury it and find some thing else...where you won't continue to shoot yourself in the foot...to obsess about.

Since I doubt you'll publish this, I'll keep a copy to publish myself, just in case.

And here’s what I didn’t say but decided to omit in the interest of brevity:

the customer’s version of events was accepted without question at the outset
Not true: in an email he specifically stated that his video footage confirmed my complaint and pointed out what he claimed to be a service time error which I amended in my next entry

When video footage of the incident was later reviewed, it it became apparent that the client’s version of events materially misrepresented the actual sequence of events
Not true: the video footage had already been reviewed, according to his previous email, and he agreed the service was slow and the staff was unable to find a standard condiment item, even though it was in stock. He further agreed that a member of the staff actually left the restaurant to obtain that item. All of this took a LOT of time…and that was the crux of my complaint…inexcusably slow service.

The customer was simply asked to please amend her blog accordingly.
True. What is omitted here, however, is that no specific divergence between the video footage and my account was offered, making it rather difficult for me to make amendment. How do you change something if you don’t know what is in dispute?

She refused - despite our pointing out that the Dodge City brand would suffer unfair damage as a result of her inaccurate account of events.
Not true. At no time did I refuse. I asked him to give me the specifics and said I would take it under consideration. If he had given me legitimate differences between the video and my account, I would have very likely have amended since the video is much more accurate than a human memory can be. Unfortunately, he evaded, ignored, or flat out refused to inform me of specific places where our accounts diverge. No amendment, therefore, was possible.

This blog is being published as a last resort and in order to meet our legal obligation to mitigate the potential for unfair damage to the reputation of our brand
Well, if that is the case, why isn’t he publishing my comment? And how does publishing the blog…with or without my comment…how does this libel against me (I can prove he is lying, after all) mitigate anything? Seems to me that he is going to do himself more harm than good…anybody with half a brain can Google Dodge City Diner and find my blog. Does he really mean to drive traffic to my blog and give his readers a peek at the awful things he has said?

The free voucher offered to the client was 3 times the value of her purchase
Not true: it was roughly double (R50). And what he fails to point out is that there is a reason we only purchased about R24 worth of product (a cappuccino and a Coke Lite) : the service was so abysmal we weren’t even able to place a food order in a timely manner! The waitress neglected to bring sweetener with my husband’s coffee, even though he has specifically asked for it (he’s diabetic…it’s a habit). When she brought the drinks Hubby gave his food order and, at the end of it, asked about the sweetener. Without taking my order and submitting it to the kitchen, the waitress left…and I mean that literally. After futilely searching for the sweetener, she left the restaurant! Now, Mr. DC’s account and mine diverge here…he says a manager left to get the sweetener, but I disagree: Hubby saw her leave, and I was at the register asking the manager what was going on with the sweetener when I saw her come back in. I will have to actually see that video footage before I’ll consider amending that. The fact remains, however, that during her long absence we decided to go elsewhere for breakfast.

So, the voucher was for roughly double a small purchase that was so small because the crappy service drove us away.

So, sadly, the dispute continues, just in another venue. Please feel free to visit his blog (http://wordpress.com/tag/dodge-city-diner-cape-town/) and see for yourself. But don’t count on any unflattering comments being published there…they might damage his Brand and we can’t have that, even when it’s the truth!

Dodge City dispute: dead at last?

For those who are new to the Dodge City v SweetViolet contretemps, a brief recap:

Ten days ago my husband and I tried to have breakfast at a local restaurant. The service was so awful we left without even placing our food orders. Later in the day I wrote an email to the management and copied that letter to my blog.

A day later the manager contacted me. He acknowledged the service was poor and, citing video footage, claimed my reported service time was in error. He further apologized for the poor service. I amended the service time in my next entry, then dropped it, assuming there was nothing left to discuss.

Two days later I received an email in which he says that his video footage suggests that my blog is in error…this is the same video footage that he cited as verifying my complaint just two days before, mind you…and ending with a thinly veiled threat of litigation if I don’t “amend” the blog. Of course, he didn’t give me a clue what he thought needed amending, which rather prevented my even taking it under consideration.

For the next few days we traded emails and then someone who apparently thought my correspondent was being something less than kind in his communication with me, posted a negative review on one of our local restaurant review sites…one I had mentioned in a blog post…and suddenly he abandoned his original bone and began chewing on that one. The fact that 100 million or more people have internet access and could therefore have read my blog…and posted the negative review…seemed to escape him.

We’ve traded a number of emails…and lately threats… (which you can find in earlier entries) over the past week and what follows below is today’s email exchange (his in red, mine in green):

Events that lead me to believe that you were, in the balance of probability, party to the filing of the Food24 review include:
1 The fact that no person had ever commented about Dodge City Diner on Food24 prior Friday 12th Sept.
2 Dodge City hardly ever has customer complaints.
3 The party filing the review clearly knew of the blogs that you had published on the web, how to find them and clearly wanted readers to find these and read them - as much as you seem to.
4 The party filing the review appears to share your view that Dodge City threatens Bloggers. An unusual interpretation of my correspondence and at the very least reflects a very unusual, and in-depth, interest in the content to your blog.
5 The party filing the review clearly had sympathy for your cause and that of bloggers in general - as you do.
6 Your knowledge of Food24 review filing procedures and apparent knowledge that I have not contacted the person that filed the review.
7 You appear to either know or are, at the very least, getting feedback from the the party that filed the review.
8 The style of, and apparent intent behind, the review was in reasonably line with that of your numerous blogs. The review made no attempt to describe the poor service incident and it appeared that the sole purpose of the review was to exact very deliberate, vindictive and unfair damage the reputation of Dodge City in the marketplace.
9 Your recorded understanding, prior to 12th Sept, that a negative review on Food24 would be very damaging to a restaurant's reputation.

I trust that you now recognise:
1 the reasons behind my suspicion that you are, in the balance of probability, party to the filing of the Food24 review
2 my right to sue you for damages suffered - a process that will allow for me to cross examine you under oath.
3 that I am not harassing you. I am simply excercising my legal right to recovery of unreasonable damages suffered

----------------
I didn’t respond and barely an hour later this arrived:

It is apparent that you have an unusually good working knowledge of how Food24 conducts its affairs, adding to my already very sound reasons to conclude that you were, in the balance of probability, party to the filing of the fabricated poor service review on Food 24 against Dodge City Waterfront. The onus of proof that I bear to succeed in a damages claim against you lies in proving your complicity "in the balance of probability".

I am entitled to sue you for damages and doing so does not constitute harassment. You are entitled to defend my action against you.

I responded:

I refer you to http://www.food24.com/Restaurant/0,,3630,00.html “We'll never display your email address however for your review to be posted it must be valid.”
One only needs to be able to read English to know as much as I do about how Food24 conducts their business affairs.

Within half an hour this arrived:

Unconvinced I'm afraid. Please refer to my counter arguments mailed a short while ago.

I would like to suggest that you consider the merits of ceasing all unreasonable and vindictive efforts to damage the Dodge City brand reputation at your earliest convenience.

I have no particular wish to engage in a legal dispute with your conduct is leaving me with no option

The extent to which our conflict escalates from here lies entirely in your hands.

I responded:

I have no need to convince you of anything. The truth is the truth whether you choose to believe it or not.

To what conduct are you referring? Be specific, please.

How do you define escalate? Do you mean my responding to your emails or something else? Be specific, please.

About an hour later, this arrived:

Please do not communicate with me on this matter any longer.

To which I immediately replied:

I am happy to oblige

******************

Dare I hope this is finished? I guess if I haven’t heard anything more in the next week or so (I thought it was over after three days of silence but it turns out I was wrong) I’ll believe it is done.

It’s gratifying that it went out with a whimper and not a bang, though.

Dodge City: the Undead

Three times I have laid this thing to rest and moved on. So what do I get in my email this morning?

I refer to my mail to you of 12th September.

Can you please provide me with an address where the summons referred to below may be served on you.

Should you fail to provide the required information, a tracing agent will be recruited to secure the necessary information. The tracing agent's costs will be for your account should the action against you be successful.

If you are innocent as claimed, you clearly have no reason for concern.

My last email to him stated: If you really want this removed, contact Food24 and have them check their records as to who posted it. If you fail to take this action, it can be construed that you do not want it removed, you are just seeking ways to further harass me. How do I know that YOU didn’t post it in an attempt to extract money from me?

Now…see if you can figure out what this guy wants from me:

I’ve gone to the Food24 site (http://www.food24.com/Restaurant/0,,3630,00.html )and the bad review is gone;

on 13 September he posted the following on the Food24 site: Apologies for your poor service experience at Dodge City V&A Lauren. We welcome customer feedback and are committed to providing the highest possible level of service to our patrons. We would really appreciate receiving more detail regarding your experience in order that we can make amends to you and prevent a reoccurrence thereof. Kind regards, Dodge City Management. (Lauren in the name of the person who posted the bad review);

The Food24 site states: We'll never display your email address however for your review to be posted it must be valid, so obviously they can track the review back to the originator.

Since the originator was not me…nor anyone I know (don’t know anyone named Lauren), and he can verify with Food24 that I am not the originator…just what is his agenda here?

How do I know he didn’t post that review in an attempt to create a stronger case for himself vis-à-vis extorting money from me? He has abandoned his tactic of accusing me of posting false information on my blog…because he can’t provide any examples, perhaps?...and is now vigorously paddling only this boat. He can’t prove a thing…there is nothing to prove…but defending against a lawsuit, even when innocent of charges, costs money.

So I am pondering how to respond. He has no case, but even that will cost to defend against. Perhaps I should respond demanding the names and addresses of the employees who slandered me with accusations of loud public altercations and unreasonable abuse of my husband? Or point out that I have a file of his harassing emails, false accusations, and refusals to reveal the alleged faults, thereby preventing me from correcting anything? Perhaps I should point out that the court will require him to prove I posted (or abetted in the posting) of the review, that he will have to show the court the address of the poster (from News24…he can subpoena the info) and then prove that I have any kind of association with that person? Since he can’t, the court is then bound to view this as a frivolous and malicious lawsuit, which they don’t like.

I dunno…maybe I should email him with

“You are threatening me with a frivolous and malicious lawsuit and attempting to use the courts to extort money from me. You are harassing me with the clear intent of lining your own pockets and with a further, veiled, intent of penalizing me for refusing to remove unflattering statements about your restaurant from my blog.

“You can prove nothing because there is nothing to prove. To claim compensation for damages, you cannot present the court with a thumb-sucked figure and wild-eyed estimate of loss of revenue. You will have to prove loss…right down to the last rand…and then you will have to prove that I was responsible. Speculation is not good enough, especially since Food24 is in possession of the email address of the reviewer…and I guarantee it is not me or anyone I know.

“Since Food24 has taken down the review, it is reasonable to assume you have been in contact with them: any basis you might have had for complaint in this matter is now resolved.

“Food24 requires reviewers to post a valid email address and you have had ample opportunity to confirm with them that the reviewer’s email address was not mine. I strongly suggest that you do not attempt to bring litigation on speculation: prove to yourself, using the same standard the court will require (that email address and a link of some kind between me and the reviewer, for example) that I bear any culpability before proceeding.

“My causes for concern are these: you are wasting a great deal of my time with kak, time I could put to better use elsewhere; you are harassing me…this is my fourth attempt to lay this to rest and you won’t let it go; you are attempting to penalize me for exercising a protected right; and you are about to cost me money in the form of defence fees.

“Surely you know the courts take a dim view of frivolous and malicious suits such as what you are threatening to bring: you have no basis for complaint; there is no way to connect me with the reviewer because there is no connection; you have thumbsucked a damage amount rather than presented a claim along with proof of my culpability; you have made no effort to resolve this outside of the courts. Do you really think that, under these circumstances, a magistrate can find in your favour?

“Do not contact me further in this regard. If you persist in harassing me, I will refer this matter to my attorneys to bring charges.”

I’m still thinking about it…

*************************

OK, I thought about it...here's is what I sent back as a reply:

Food24 will not post a review unless the reviewer submits a valid email address...so it is very easy for you to verify if one of my email addresses was the originator. If you do not undertake a sincere effort…including use of a subpoena, if necessary…to verify who actually posted the review and then establish an incontrovertible connection between the reviewer and myself, then it can be logically construed that you are not interested in the truth, you are interested in harassing and/or extracting money from me.

Further contact from you in this matter will be considered harassment and may be referred to my attorneys for action.

Dodge City: 5,000 bucks a day...

Well, I answered yesterday’s nastygram with a simple, short, and succinct reply:

I shall not respond to further email from you unless your mail specifically enumerates the errors you wish corrected and what you wish to see in the way of a correction.

Should be the end of it, right? Well, this is what just arrived in the email:

I would like to draw your attention to the following issues related to the posting of a negative review against Dodge City Waterfront on Food24 today :
1. You are regarded, in the balance of probability, to be either the party that posted the review or arranged such.
2. It is understood that the review has been fabricated. The wording thereof suggests deliberate intention to damage the reputation of the Waterfront outlet and to cause financial loss to the owner of the outlet.
3. The owner of the Dodge City Waterfront outlet is not the same party that owns the Canal Walk outlet.
4. The Dodge City franchise and the owner of the V&A outlet have suffered financial loss as a result of the fabricated service complaint that has been made in a public forum.
5. Damages are estimated to be R5,000 for every day that the review remains posted on the Food24 webpage.
6. You are invited to retract, or to arrange the retraction of, the fabricated service review immediately.
7. Should you fail to act in accordance with request recorded in para 7 [sic] above, a summons for damages suffered will be prepared and served against you once your place of residence, or employment, has been established.
I will argue in due course that I have done everything possible mitigate the damages now suffered by the Dodge City in the form of providing you with a written warning of the implications of making deliberately false and/or exaggerated claims aimed at causing unreasonable financial damage to the Dodge City brand and its outlets.

Well, I’m afraid I can’t take credit for this one. The odd coincidence here, however, is that before I wrote the original letter to my friendly correspondent, I actually went to Food24 to find the Dodge City for Canal Walk…I was planning to leave the message “Great burgers and shakes but the service is dismal. Go to the Waterfront diner instead.” But there wasn’t a Food24 entry for the Canal Walk store, so I wrote a letter to the email address listed on the Food24 site instead, expecting that if it didn’t go to the franchise owner, it would likely be forwarded to him by the recipient. Since the email address was simply dodgecity@mweb.co.za, however, I figured it would probably go right to Mr. Dodge City himself.

And no, I didn’t put anyone up to it. In fact, any rational person who reads what’s been going on over the last few days would have to conclude I wasn’t involved since I have made repeated efforts to get this guy to tell me what he wants, my plan being to correct any real errors and ignore the rest in the interest of peace. In yesterday’s mail to him I repeated no less than six times, directly or indirectly, my request to inform me what has his knickers in such a knot, pointing out that I can’t do anything to relieve his distress until I know what’s causing it. Well, unsurprisingly, he hasn’t come forth with anything…maybe because there isn’t anything? I am beginning to think this guy has a hidden agenda here, since he refuses to give me the information needed to satisfy his demands and escalates this thing every time I try to lay it to rest.

So, I answered him: “I didn’t post it.” Simple, succinct, to-the-point.

Which prompted him to reply yet again:

You are going to have to convince the Magistrate - not me. As far as I am concerned, the wording of the Food24 review suggests that you are, in the balance of probability, a party thereto. That is all that I will have to prove in due course and I have absolute confidence in my ability to do so. I attend to all Dodge City's legal affairs personally and represent the brand in court when necessary. I look forward to debating the merits of your conduct in court in due course should you not arrange the required retraction of the Food24 review and settlement of damages suffered by Dodge City and its franchisee up to the time of retraction.

The contents of your blog to date (including your prior reference to Food24 and your understanding of the damage that could be caused by a negative review on this webpage), and that of your latest blog bedfellow, are unlikely to assist your effort to claim innocence. I will argue that you are vindictive and intent upon maximising damage to the Dodge City brand for reasons that are not particularly clear at present.

My rights and those of my franchisees are reserved.

OK, so now I’m starting to smell a big fat rat. How do I know this guy was telling the truth about a videotape of our visit to the diner? Since I didn’t check the time, I only guessed (with my husband’s input) that we were there for half an hour. When Mr. Dodge City said his video tape showed 15 minutes I neither demanded to see the tape nor dug in my heels to defend my position: I just accepted his word, corrected my error, and dropped the whole thing. It was two days later that he resurrected the thing with the character assassination mail.

Today I attempted to close it again with my two sentence reply that I would not be responding unless his mail specifically enumerated his complaints and desired corrections. I had not anticipated a further escalation on his part and his latest salvo required response:

I know nothing about this, either directly or indirectly: If you really want this removed, contact Food24 and have them check their records as to who posted it. If you fail to take this action, it can be construed that you do not want it removed, you are just seeking ways to further harass me. How do I know that YOU didn’t post it in an attempt to extract money from me?

I have attempted on two occasions to lay this to rest: once after your apology, and then again today when I said I was not going to respond further. You are the one who keeps resurrecting and escalating.

I’d like to help you, but I am unable to compel or cause Food24 to retract a review with which I had nothing to do.

At the time of this writing, the poll has had only six votes, but so far the response has been unanimous: #3 has it. If anyone has damaged the franchise’s good will, it has been the franchise owner himself. I let it go after his apology…why couldn’t he?

So far, he hasn’t replied to my latest response…nor has he had the courtesy to acknowledge respond to Hubby’s email of two days ago. I will keep you posted…

Dodge City: Can anybody figure out what this guy wants from me?

Yesterday I received this email:

I would strongly advise that you confine your blog to facts that you will be able to prove in due course if necessary.

You are not entitled to try and make a name for yourself as a writer via internet exposure at the expense of the reputation of a largely innocent party. I regard you to be impossible to please and, with respect, it is likely that an average person reading your rantings, eg about a cappuccino that took 6 minutes to deliver, would conclude similarly. I would honestly suggest that that you either stick to fiction writing or do something about improving your memory recall.

My rights and the rights of the Canal Walk franchisee are reserved.

In the event of you persisting with the disclosure of false, grossly exaggerated, or in some cases, trumped up facts about Dodge City, I will have no option other than to enforce the full extent of my right to relief against you without further notice.

I replied, trying to absolutely stick to the issue: the service was bad, he acknowledged the service was bad, but he wants me to “amend” my blog in some way but won’t respond to my multiple requests to tell me where he believes my blog is in error and in need of amendment:

On 08/09/08 I received the following from you: Video footage of the event shows that you entered the store at 9.44am and left 15 minutes later at 9.59am - not 30 minutes as you suggest.

On 09/09/08, in my very next blog entry, I corrected the error: I was incorrect about the time…it was 15 minutes, not 30, and I also emailed my acceptance of your service time: Since we paid in cash and did not have a time-stamped credit-card receipt, we could but guess at the length of time we spent at the store. I will accept your video time of fifteen minutes,

Later that same day you responded: The 6 minutes it took to get the coffee to you was slower than standard time allowed. Problem was that the milk had not been foamed in advance. Re the Canderel - they did have the product in the store but could not find it. No excuses - staff should no[sic] known where it was kept. Your waitress did not leave the store to get the Canderel - one of the managers did….The Franchisee has been advised of your grievance and has assured me that remedial action will be taken to get product delivery times back to Franchise standard… On behalf of Dodge City Diner, please accept my apologies

I did not respond to this mail as I considered the matter closed at this point: you acknowledged at least some of the problems and apologized for our unfortunate experience. My husband and I discussed it and decided that we would not return.

On 10/09/08, two days later, you sent me this email: “I would like to ask that you please consider the merits of amending your blogg [sic] regarding Dodge City. The justification behind my request for amendment is as follows: 1. Video footage suggests that your blogg [sic] does not reasonably represent the facts or sequence of events surrounding your service experience. 2. It is reasonable to suggest that the blogg [sic], in its current form, would do unreasonable damage to the goodwill of the Dodge City brand and the investment of the Canal Walk franchisee.

There was nothing in this mail, however, to indicate what you thought needed to be amended. Up to this point, in fact, you had been in agreement that the service was, based on your own observations via your own video footage, below your own corporate standard...and the one error you had pointed out to me had already been corrected.

I replied the same day saying: “Yesterday I posted a follow up blog entry in which I corrected the time difference, acceding to your time of 15 minutes for our entire visit and 6 minutes for delivery of our drinks. In what way do “the facts or sequence of events” differ in your video as compared to my blog? Assuming that I am willing to make an amendment, I cannot do so without knowing the points of contention…” Later in the mail I reiterated the point: “To the best of [my] knowledge and recollection, my blog is correct. If you can demonstrate where it is not, I will take amendment under consideration.”

Your reply on 10/09/08 acknowledges my correction: Thanks for amending the service times recorded in your revised blog. The remainder of your reply, however, does not address my requests for you to indicate where my blog and your video tape diverge. Your email, however, does request that I amend my blog to include certain inflammatory accusations that were included in your email, and I have complied with that request. A new entry was made to the blog with your mail quoted in its entirety, thereby precluding the possibility of a misquote or fault with my memory leading to something incorrect being published.

On 11/9/08, I responded to your email, again pointing out that I had asked you where our versions of the events diverged: I asked you to provide me with examples of how your video footage differs substantively from my blog, since amendment is impossible if I don’t know what needs to be amended. And I furthermore indicated a willingness to comply with your request (as I had already done twice by correcting the time and by publishing your statement as requested): Instead of providing the information I need in order to comply with your request, however, you respond with an ad hominem attack and gratuitous insults.

On the morning of 11/9/08, my husband also responded to your email of 10/09/08, providing correction to erroneous information supplied to you by your staff. To date, he has not received a reply or even an acknowledgment of receipt from you.

Which brings us to your missive of yesterday afternoon: You state: I would strongly advise that you confine your blog to facts that you will be able to prove in due course if necessary.

You see, therein lies the problem: we both are in possession of a set of “facts” which we each believe to be true. You, however, are the only person in possession of both sets of “facts,” and you aren’t sharing. Since I don’t have possession of the video footage and I cannot read your mind, I can’t change anything on the blog without input from you. Since I don’t know what you are taking issue with, I cannot amend that which so distresses you.

Since you have agreed in writing that the service was below your own standard and I have corrected the time error, I don’t know what other “facts” remain in dispute. I have asked more than once for you to give me the information and you have not been forthcoming. I am therefore unable to make amendments to satisfy you without knowing what is in dispute.

You further state: In the event of you persisting with the disclosure of false, grossly exaggerated, or in some cases, trumped up facts about Dodge City… Please indicate which facts I have disclosed that are false, grossly exaggerated, or trumped up. I do not have the option of retracting, correcting, amending, or otherwise changing statements with which you take issue until and unless you reveal to me what they are.

Well, you’d think this would be sufficient to bring the man to the realization that I’m not unwilling to correct errors, but since I don’t see any remaining errors, he’s just going to have to rub my myopic little nose in them.

Here’s what I got in response:
You have a legal obligation to ensure that any disclosure by yourself, that negatively impacts on Dodge City's reputation in the marketplace, fairly represents the true state of affairs.

I have no obligation to convince you that my account of events correct. My obligation is limited to drawing your attention to the fact that your disclosures on the internet are regarded to be unreasonably damaging to Dodge City's reputation, that the Brand is likely to be suffering damages as a result thereof, and to advise you that you are legally liable for any damages suffered after your receipt of the said notice.

Dodge City's conduct in dealing with your initial email complaint to me was in line with international best practice ie I accepted your version of events without question and made a geuine effort to make amends - in your case, thanking you for taking the trouble to draw the matter to my attention, and offering 3 times the value of purchase as compensation. Dodge City seldom receives customer complaints, but when received they are dealt with consistently, urgently and responsibly - as was done in your case. In this regard, your attention is drawn to the following facts:
1. I attempted to email a response within hours of receipt of email - albeit being a Sunday afternoon. The mail was returned undelivered..
2. I came across your complaint on the web during a regular search to review customer feedback that evening. The nature and wording of your complaint was outside of the norm, suggesting that it was backed by a motive that extended beyond simply wanting to raise a genuine grievance. It is likely that an average reader of your blog would conclude that you derived a degree of pleasure from the process of complaining and relished the prospect of doing unreasonable damage to the Dodge City brand.
3. Your response to my efforts to make good, and to appease you in general, was contemptious. I am not sure what you were expecting by way of compensation but 99,999% of complainants would have been more than happy with the genuine apology and the R50 voucher.
4. Dodge City welcomes customer feedback - regardless of whether positive or negative. We do not victimise complainants as you suggest may happen to you.

I reiterate that in the event of you persisting with the disclosure of false, grossly exaggerated, or in some cases, trumped up facts about Dodge City, I will have no option other than to enforce the full extent of my right to relief against you without further notice.

I'm going to have to ponder my response to this one, since I'm getting the strong smell of paternalism here. Correct me if I am wrong, but is he no longer focussing on alleged misstatements of fact and has gone on to try to tell me (and by extension, every other blogger in the world) not only what I can say but how I can say it? I'm open to suggestions, opinions, and insights.

Lekker weekend, you guys!

Dodge City: Hubby enters the tiltyard

So, night before last I received the nastygram below from the Dodge City owner:

Thanks for amending the service times recorded in your revised blog.

Dodge City staff mentioned that you were engaged in a loud verbal altercation with your husband outside the store before entering. Their impression was that you were being unreasonably abusive towards him. I would have thought that, as an objective and balanced critic of human performance, you would have added this snippet of information to your account of events - or is that you take pleasure in finding fault in everyone around you but are blind to you own deficiencies.

I would appreciate you amending the blog to add the objective opinion expressed above.

My response was:

Thanks for amending the service times recorded in your revised blog.
You are welcome.

Dodge City staff mentioned that you were engaged in a loud verbal altercation with your husband outside the store before entering. Dodge City staff is incorrect. My husband and I seldom quarrel and when we do, it is always in the utmost privacy. Their impression was that you were being unreasonably abusive towards him. There is such a thing as “reasonably abusive”? Has it occurred to you that the staff is trying to shift focus from their dismal performance by casting me as a querulous and abusive individual whose complaints therefore need not be taken seriously? Do you doubt the evidence of your own video footage?

I would have thought that, as an objective and balanced critic of human performance, you would have added this snippet of information to your account of events- Even if this slander was correct, exactly what bearing would it have on your staff’s appalling performance? The topic here is the performance of your staff, not my behaviour, particularly behaviour not directed to the staff. or is that you take pleasure in finding fault in everyone around you but are blind to you own deficiencies. Are you now saying that your staff’s performance was above reproach, that there was no fault in their service delivery? Or it is only people who are, themselves, above reproach who have the right to complain about substandard service? I asked you to provide me with examples of how your video footage differs substantively from my blog, since amendment is impossible if I don’t know what needs to be amended. Instead of providing the information I need in order to comply with your request, however, you respond with an ad hominem attack and gratuitous insults.

I would appreciate you amending the blog to add the objective opinion expressed above.
The opinion expressed above is far from objective and is, in fact, based in slander. I would appreciate your forwarding to me the names and contact information of the persons who have so egregiously misinformed you so that I may explore my options with regard to a defamation suit against whoever made these statements.

Hubby is out of town, but he does have email, so I forwarded the nasty email to him for comment. This morning I received the following message from my husband, a copy of the email he sent to the restaurant owner in response to the nastygram:

Dear Mr A________

I must profess to being quite astonished by your email…to my wife. A few things are clear from your message…:

1. Not only are your staff bad at delivering good service, but they are obviously hard of hearing and lacking in visual acuity to boot. I experienced no "verbal altercation" nor was my wife "unreasonably abusive" towards me. As an aside, I'd love to hear your definition of "reasonable abuse" - perhaps it’s what you subject your employees to to make them surly and unresponsive to customers? Or maybe it’s just the kak* service that you deliver to your customers? Or maybe it’s the sort of nonsensical email you have written below?

2. Your inference below is that one has to be an "objective and balanced" critic of human performance in order to have a valid complaint about service and that my wife's alleged "abuse" had some sort of bearing on your bad service. This is grade A bulldust. It’s quite obvious that you have no intention of taking note of the feedback, let alone acting on it. In other words, STOP avoiding the crux of the issue, which is that you need to improve your service!

3. I fail to see what my wife's deficiencies, whatever they may be, have to do with the basic facts of the issue which is that the service you delivered was sub-standard.

Thank you for confirming our decision not to patronize your establishment ever again. The memory of your bad service (including your missive below) is going to last far longer than the good taste of your hamburgers and milkshakes.


Kind Regards
N G________ ([Sweet Violet]’s un-abused Husband)

P.S: Please feel free to tear up your R50 "courtesy voucher". A free meal is too high a price to pay for your "reasonable abuse"

P.P.S: I will be recommending to my wife that she publish your response… and my reply thereto on her blog. I think it’s in the interest of diners to know what they can expect if they complain about service levels at Dodge City diners.

* “kak”: Afrikaans word for “shit” or “crap”

Whew! Like me, Hubby has a long, long fuse. He’s much more laid back than I am and it takes a lot to rile him up….but this did it.

I wonder if the restaurant owner gave any consideration to the subtext of his insulting little missive. Hubby and I each caught the “unreasonably abusive” comment: does the man really mean to imply that there is both reasonable and unreasonable abuse? Having already assassinated my character, what of his insinuations regarding Hubby’s? My sweet, reserved, good-tempered, well-mannered husband has been cast as a boorish lout who engages in loud public squabbles with his harridan of a wife rather than the man he is: one who would bite off his own tongue rather than publicly humiliate himself in such a manner. Paradoxically, he is concurrently portrayed as a pitiable character, a hapless wimp subject to public browbeating from the quarrelsome shrew to whom he is married.

The further subtext is that only those who are without personality defects of any kind are entitled to complain about poor or neglectful treatment: only those who are “objective and balanced critic[s] of human performance,” it seems, are entitled to take exception to less-than-perfect service. This, of course, is nonsense…as one of the comments on an earlier blog entry on this topic says: “Even if you and your husband had had a full on physical altercation outside their restaurant, what does that have to do with their service?”

The commenter, Kerryn, further observes: “It seems that demanding reasonable service, and getting annoyed when your waitron is inept is 'over reacting' and being 'unreasonable'.” It is interesting that she should bring this up…the next instalment of this saga (yes, there is more!) veers in that direction.