Seeking stories of consumer citizen warriors who have crossed swords with commercial and governmental behemoths.
My Other Blog - (Something Completely Different)
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CONSUMER STORIES OF CITIZEN WARRIORS The purpose of this web site is to seek input from fellow CITIZEN WARRIORS who have crossed swords with major corporations or government departments, and who have the documentation - back and forth snail mail correspondence, form letters, e-mail, on line chats etc., that tells the story of their battle or battles. I am writing a book on the subject, basically consisting of a collection of too funny for words or too ridiculous to believe consumer experiences. I call it BATTLING THE BEHEMOTHS And I need help. I need the stories of your experiences. To give you an idea of the flavor of the "BEHEMOTH BATTLES" that I'm looking for, take a look at the INTRODUCTION that I've written for the book and the titles and brief descriptions below of a few of MY battles. I've included the full text of two of them to illustrate a couple of techniques that I have used to record my battles. None of this is to be confused with web sites that show complaint letters or promote books on how to write complaint letters. My book, to which I'm inviting contributions, is about STORIES of clashes between individuals and corporations or governments that can be told by back and forth correspondence, e-mail, on-line "chats" all held together with personal narrative - like these samples. THE CONFOUNDED CABLE CAPER or AT&T THE HORROR YEARSThis is the one that made me decide that there needed to be a collection of these stories in a book for the whole world to read. It's the tragic/comedy story of trying to get AT&T Broadband installed, then RE-installed after a nationwide disconnection of the service. 18,000 words. You'll find it hard to believe that a major corporation can operate like the Keystone Cops and stay in business.!! Just to give you an idea, take a look at the OPENING SALVO - TWO LETTERS It goes downhill from here!!!
FUN AND GAMES WITH THE LITERARY GUILD Illustrates the combination of back and forth correspondence and connective narrative with me using English and the Literary Guild using "Behemoth Speak.". Full text. 2,600 words . HERTZOPOLY
A Transatlantic billing mix up, utilizing back and forth correspondence, presented as (I hope) a humorous article about a mythical disease named HERZOPHOBIA. Full text. 4,000 words. BRING ME FOOD AND BRING ME WINEFood and Wine Magazine made us an offer we couldn't refuse. Or did they just want our money? The correspondence and narrative that found the answer. 1600 words. WHERE'S GEORGE WASHINGTON WHEN YOU NEED HIM? A two year battle with the BRITISH ARMY in the 1990's, trying to find and collect a bonus that they owed me from my teenage service (age 15 to 18) in the 1940's!!! You'll wonder how they finished up on the winning side of world war two!! 5,000 words Those are capsule descriptions of a few of MY Battles With Behemoths. How about yours? Let's get together and expose Behemoth Behavior to the world!! I'd love to hear from you at gazink@comcast.net P.S. If you'd like to know who I am, take a peek at
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jeff Smith
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BATTLING THE BEHEMOTHS
INTRODUCTION
When historians look back at the twentieth and twenty first centuries, what seminal moments do you think they will record? What would be the things, the events, the thoughts and words that changed the history of our times? What will be the moments that the history writers will look back at and say - from this point on, it was never the same?
Wars will be on the list. No question about that. World war one. World war two. The war on terror. Inventions too. Great discoveries. The theory of evolution. E=MC squared. Radio. Television. Personal computers. Cell phones. Space travel.
Sweeping social and political changes will be on the list. The 1918 flu epidemic. The great depression. The Holocaust. The Russian revolution. The cold war. The end of the cold war. The spread of democracy. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism.
And people of course, Churchill.. Roosevelt... Stalin.. .Hitler... Einstein...Jonas Salk.... John F Kennedy.. Martin Luther King...Osama Bin Laden....And words that inspired and moved us and changed the way we looked at life... Blood Sweat and Tears... A date that will live in Infamy...I have a Dream........... and....."please listen carefully because our menu has changed?"
Oops!! Now how did that get in there? Well, it got there because in its way, it truly belongs. Anyone who has had to deal with a major corporation or organization during the past two or three decades knows the phrase. It may not be poetic or of any great literary merit, but in its own way it may be as significant to our every day life as anything ever said by Winston Churchill or Franklin Roosevelt or Rudy Giuliani. I visualize it as the motto emblazoned across the guardian gates of the age of the mega merger and the disappearing humanoids. They are the words that speak of size and remoteness and layers upon layers of impersonal bureaucracy.
Do you remember the good old days? Well, maybe that's not a fair question. The good old days aren't the same for a 75 year old as they are for a teenager. But for most of us who are past the age of 40 or maybe 50, we remember when there was one telephone company that served us all. It was Ma Bell. When we needed something installed or fixed, a Ma Bell technician would come to the house and install it or fix it and there wasn't any charge. We remember a time when Time Magazine was Time Magazine and Warner Brothers was a company that made movies and AOL was just three letters of the alphabet.
There used to be corner grocery stores and general stores and you could go in and talk to the owner about any problems and if you were a little short, maybe he'd put your groceries on the cuff for a few weeks. The local drug store was a place where you stop for a soda and some conversation while you waited for your prescription to be filled. Now we have Walmart and Walgreen's and where are the owners of those companies and how can we talk to them? Not in any easy fashion, that's for sure.
Much of the time, we don't even know who owns who or what. In the last third of the twentieth century there were eruptions of merger mania taking place, it seemed like every other week. Companies were gobbling up other companies like hoards of voracious seventeen year locusts that had emerged a year late and couldn't get enough to satisfy their appetites. Big companies swallowed the small. Sometimes, small companies found ways to swallow up much bigger ones. And the layers that separated them from those of us who used their products or services got thicker and thicker.
The same can be said of the bureaucracies that rule our lives. President after president vow to reduce and streamline the size of government, particularly Republican presidents who sometimes give the impression that they really believe that the country can function very well with virtually no government and no taxes. But the size of the Federal bureaucracy moves only in one direction - up. People who have to deal with Immigration and Naturalization Service often feel that they are being given no more consideration than cattle on the way to the slaughterhouse. Just about every year, there are proposals to simplify the tax codes and just about every year there are changes in our tax forms - but no simplification. And the tax code remains close to 10,000 pages long with five and three quarter million words. Compare that to something like the 1,444 pages and 660,000 words of War and Peace and you begin to get the sense of what Behemoth really means.
Even government at the local level has become more and more remote from the taxpayer that supports it. If you don't think so, take a look at your next property tax bill and count the number of taxing bodies. Or, if you live in an urban area, look in your telephone book under government and see the layer upon layer of governmental bodies.. counties, townships, villages and "districts" - one after the other. It boggles the mind.
Well, you might say, obviously we must need all of these government bodies.. and after all, things seem to be going smoothly and services we need seem to be provided. And as for big companies, isn't that the way of progress and isn't it more efficient and so on and so on.? Well maybe, but more often than not, the bigger and more complicated the organization or company, the more difficult it is for the individual taxpayer or consumer to deal with them - and particularly so if you have a problem or a complaint. I'm not saying that problems or complaints can't be resolved swiftly and efficiently to everyone's satisfaction, but far too often, the clash between the individual and the Behemoth results in something quite different. Even a simple question can sometimes start you down the path into a labyrinth of bureaucratic double speak that can leave you wondering how anything ever gets done in this or any other country.
I decided to write this book (or perhaps a better word is compile it because it includes the experiences of a lot of people in addition to my own), for three reasons. First to show how any individual with access to writing materials - and nowadays that includes e-mail - can do battle, often successfully, with the biggest bureaucracies in the world. Secondly, to expose the unbelievable inefficiency and downright stupidity that you can find residing at all levels of these bureaucracies. And third and most importantly, to show you how you can make a game out of your Battles With Behemoths and in most cases, have fun while you do battle. The experiences described and documented in these pages are all those of battles between individuals and various kinds of Behemoths. They range in time from the early nineteen seventies to the early two thousands . Some concern very serious matters. Others are of a frivolous nature. Some are humorous. Some are tragic. All have beginnings. Not all have endings. You'll read of problems that were resolved and some that were never resolved. You'll see that you can indeed "fight city hall" if you're determined enough, but you can't always win.
You will wonder how on earth some of the companies or government offices are able to function at all with the kind of thickheadedness that their employees demonstrate in these stories. You'll shake your head in disbelief at the incredible inefficiency of some of the world's largest corporations. If you've ever read the comic strip Mr. Boffo, you're familiar with it's recurring "Unclear On The Concept" feature, and you'll recognize it here. You'll wonder how some of the Davids battling the evil Goliaths retained their sanity. Well, maybe not all of them did..... You be the judge.
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The Confounded Cable Caper's Opening SalvoIn the summer of 2001, I had three telephone lines in my house, plus one fax machine and one computer. The fax machine was a primitive early model without bells or whistles that we'd received as a gift and was almost never used. It usedto be used on occasion when someone wanted to send us a letter in a hurry instead of sending it by snail mail , but that was before we acquired our first computer and e-mail. Still, one of the phone lines was permanently hooked up to the inactive fax machine and another was used for our computer dial up connection to an Internet server. (The third was our home telephone number). As we began to spend more and more time surfing the Internet, we became more and more aware of how long it took to bring up certain sites or to download any information. But the price was right - we were paying only $9.95 a month for unlimited use, so we really couldn't complain. But then our server announced a price increase - to more than DOUBLE the $9.95. At the same time, AT&T was doing heavy promotion of their cable Internet access service, AT&T Broadband. On all the time. No dial up. Fast downloads. Almost instant access to web sites. And an introductory rate of only $19.95 a month for three months! It would go up to $46 a month after the first three months, but we did some calculating and concluded that if we dropped the phone line that was being used for the dial up service, which of course would no longer be needed with a cable connection, and dropped the phone line that was hooked up to the fax that was almost never used, we could have the cable hook up for about the same price that we'd be paying if we kept the two extra phone lines and stayed with our dial up server at the increased price. So we decided to go for the AT&T offer. What happened next is best described by the following: July 25, 2001
Daniel E. Somers
President and CEO
AT&T Broadband & Internet Services
32 Sixth Avenue
New York, NY 10013
Dear Mr. Somers:
Can you imagine this scenario?
Tiffany's calls to tell you that the bracelet that you ordered for your wife has arrived on this day as promised. You've arranged time in your schedule for this moment. You stop in to pick it up. There it is, under the glass case. It looks beautiful. But the clerk tells you sorry. I don't have a key handy to open the case. You express amazement. He expresses sorrow. You then talk to another clerk. Then to the assistant manager. Then to the manager. None of them has a key, but they all assure you that if you come back in about five weeks, they will have a key and you can get the bracelet then.
What would you do? Tell them to stuff it? Never deal with Tiffany's again? File a lawsuit? Lodge a complaint with the Better Business Bureau? All four?
Well that's about the experience I am undergoing at the moment with AT&T Broadband, and if there was some way I could do all of the four things above, I would do them - if you'll pardon the expression - in a New York minute.
I ordered Broadband. It was scheduled for installation July 21. I was told there would be a two hour window for arrival. Since no one called on that day to tell me which two hours, I called one of your many toll free numbers and was told between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. At 4 p.m. your installer called and asked if I wanted to proceed with the installation. I told him of course. Was he kidding?
The installer arrived shortly thereafter but soon informed me that his "hammer drill" was broken and he couldn't drill the necessary hole to bring your cable into my house. He asked ME if I had a hammer drill. I have lots of goodies in my home, but not a single hammer drill among them.
He said I would have to be rescheduled. Not that he would go back to home base and get a working drill. I would have to be rescheduled. I expressed dismay. He said he would have his dispatcher call me. The dispatcher called a few minutes later while I was on a three way emergency call and said that I could be rescheduled for August 28!! I made the mistake of saying that I couldn't talk to him at that moment but that August 28 was totally unacceptable and I would call back to work out another, much earlier date. Like the next day. Or the day after. Like with any normal company that wanted my business and had just let me down badly.
Since in my haste I forgot to ask for his number, I had to use the star 69 service to find it, but the number that that provided connected me to interminable voice mail hell and no sign of anything resembling a dispatcher.
Then began one of the most frustrating experiences to which a consumer could be subjected. I called one toll free number after another, trying to find a number for a local dispatcher. No one knew of such a number. The best that anyone at any of the toll free numbers could offer - I can't recall if it was someone in Ohio, Georgia or Arizona - was that someone, presumably from one of these distant points, would call me back within 72 hours. What that would accomplish wasn't clear. And I am waiting for that call as I type this letter, four days later.
On Monday morning, July 23, I drove to the local AT&T Cable building at 9651 Gross Point Road in Skokie, Illinois, which I believe was once your cable installation headquarters. I was advised that cable installation had moved to a facility in Mount Prospect, Illinois, and the Skokie facility now only houses studios and a bill payment office for cable customers. However, a receptionist at this facility gave me a telephone number - 847-813-5904 which purported to be the Broadband installation office. The number was busy all day - and I do mean ALL day. In frustration, I consulted the telephone book and found a number listed for AT&T Cable in a suburb near my home with an 813-5900 number, which, even though it was not a Mount Prospect address, I assumed to be the main switchboard for Broadband Services. 813-5904 certainly appeared to be an extension of 813-5900 and I figured I could sneak in through the front door.
I called 813-5900 and was put on hold by a voice mail robot which I stuck on a speaker phone while I tried to do some work, and waited something like 45 minutes while an unattractive voice kept informing me that everyone was too busy taking care of other customers to talk to me. At least it didn't try to tell me that my call was important to you, because if I'm important., Lord help customers and potential customers that you don't consider to be important.
When a humanoid finally came on the line, there ensued many minutes of conversation before it dawned on her that I was a Broadband customer and she dealt with something else. Not only that, but she was in Waukegan, Illinois, which is a toll call from my house, despite the fact that the number is listed in the telephone directory at an address in Highland Park, Illinois, a local call. This young lady tried to help by suggesting that I call one of the many 800 or 888 numbers that I was already familiar with. I told her it was a waste of time but she assured me that SHE could reach someone and that SHE would call me back shortly. That's another call I sit waiting for.
You do a hell of a job promoting Broadband, but if everything doesn't go off without a hitch from order placement to successful installation, you expose your potential customers to the epitome of user unfriendliness. I call it telephone hell.
The people at the other end of your toll free numbers seem to be frozen in a sea of helplessness. They all express sorrow. They all express sympathy. But they're all paralyzed. None of them know how to get in touch with anyone locally who I could talk to about the problem. They simply don't have that information. They have monitor screens that tell them my whole woeful story, but they can't tell me what I can do about it other than wait until August 28 and hope that someone with a working drill shows up.
I understand that AT&T Broadband is popular and that many people are signing up for the service and that there is a wait for installation. But I cannot understand or excuse the way I am being treated. You goofed. In a normal business situation, you should be falling all over yourselves to repair this goof. If that means putting one man on overtime for one day so that your installation schedule isn't thrown out of whack, that's what you should do. Instead, because of YOUR goof, I am being told to go to the end of the line and wait my turn. Again!
All I can say is that it's a hell of a way to do business and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
Unhappily Yours,
Jeff Smith There was no immediate response to this letter, but as I later discovered, that was only because I had sent it to the New York address that I had found on the Internet. Mr. Somers and his cohorts were actually in Denver and it was to his Denver post office box address that I sent the next letter, which tells the next chapter in the story... August 14, 2001
Daniel E Somers
President and CEO
AT&T Broadband and Internet Services
P.O. Box 5630
Denver. CO 80217-5630
Dear Mr. Somers,
I know you haven't been wondering what's been happening since I last wrote but I'm going to tell you anyway, so that when the legend is being told to your grandchildren, you can be the one to do it and give it that old AT&T rah rah spirit - or is that spin? I do get the words mixed up sometimes.
Anyway, when we last left the saga of Jeff and the bad guys of AT&T Broadband, a non working drill had postponed my joining your always on, super fast Internet service until August 28. That was the last thing that one of your henchman told me on our original installation date of July 21 and another of your merry band also told me that I would receive a call within 72 hours to discuss the problem.
Well sir, there was no call of any kind in 72 hours, or 96 hours or 120 hours or.... well I'm sure you get the drift. Maybe it was just a whim. Maybe a premonition. But after a few days of non communication, a little voice told me that maybe I should call one of your 800 numbers to see if there was anyone out there. I sometimes get the impression that AT&T Broadband has 18 humanoid employees and 362,000 pre-recorded 'phone messages.
But I digress. I called one of the numbers and spoke to one of the eighteen and discovered - surprise, surprise, that I wasn't scheduled for installation on August 28 or any other date. Imagine what would have happened if I'd actually waited until the 28th and then waited and waited on that day for someone to show up? No, better not. It's too horrible to contemplate. Anyway, the humanoid told me that there was an opening on August 10 and would I accept that. Was she kidding? Is the pope a catholic?
In the intervening period I received a telephonic acknowledgment of my original communication to you from one "Kate" in my general area, who actually has a telephone number at which SHE, personally, can be reached if she happens to be at her desk. And if not, no phone hell here. Just a polite message from Kate saying she's on the phone or away from her desk. And sometimes, she actually answers. Live from AT&T Broadband!!
Kate apologized for all of the inconvenience - a mild word but I'll go along with it - and offered three months of free service. And when your installer showed up way outside of the "window" on August 10, Kate added a fourth free month. Such overwhelming riches. Would that the story could end here with me finding this pot of gold and everyone living happily ever after. But no. This is the saga of Jeff and the AT&T Broadband Bad Guys, the story you'll be telling your grandchildren.
The scene shifts. It is now August 12. The standard installation was completed on the 10th. It wasn't hooked up to a computer on that date but your installer checked the connection and all was AOK. On the 12th, my guru is in my home completing the set up. A puzzled look crosses his furrowed brow. Something is wrong. He is a guru first class but not infallible. Maybe he made a mistake. He goes through everything again. He tries different things. After 4 hours, we call one of the 800 numbers and get a recorded message that there is trouble in three states, including Illinois. So maybe that's the problem??
Just to be sure, we hang on and finally get to talk to one of your eighteen humanoids. I sure hope you're paying these people a handsome buck for the hours they have to work to support those 362,000 pre-recorded messages. We explain our problem to this humanoid, who tells us that the reason we can't connect is that we aren't in (or is it on) the system. How could this be? But indeed, it do be.
Your system shows a serial number for our modem, that just the other day I discovered, matches the serial number on the box in which our modem came. A shame really, but the serial number on the modem itself just didn't match the one on the box. Totally different. Could have been in a foreign language for all the good it did getting it hooked into your system. And I feel empathy for whoever got the box with OUR modem's serial number and the modem with the serial number on OUR box!!! It's like the O.B. nurse handing a new mother a baby with the right tag but the wrong genealogy. Anyway, we were told it would be fixed. It might take a day or two. Maybe three or four. We wait as I write, still not connected to the always on, faster than a speeding bullet AT&T Broadband Internet connection.
I can't imagine that the story ends here, but I also can't imagine what happens next. Maybe that will be grist for the next chapter in this saga. All I can say for now is that Mack Sennett would have been proud of the men, women and recorded messages of today's AT&T Broadband and Internet Services.
Unhappily Yours,
Jeff Smith There was a period of calm after this letter was mailed when everything seemed normal, but in truth, this was when it all began to go downhill on a slippery slope that seemed to have no bottom....
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FUN AND GAMES WITH THE LITERARY GUILD
November 1988 to May 1989 Random House Inc/Doubleday Beware the Literary Guild my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch! If Lewis Carroll hadn't died in 1898, the second verse of his famed Jabberwocky poem might well have been written this way. In fact, he might have called it LITERGUILDAWOCKY. In 1988, my wife was a member of the Literary Guild and in 1989 we were locked in the jaws that bite, the claws that catch, and it took some literary battling to get free. Here's what happened. I don't know how it is today, but in those days, apart from offering book selections, the Literary Guild also had occasional "special merchandise" offers with prices that sometimes looked attractive. We responded to one such offer for a five piece luggage set priced at $59.86, payable in three installments, which we thought was one heck of a deal. Until it arrived that is and we could see the reason for the price. $59.86 was all that it was worth - maybe not even that. It was not the kind of luggage that we would ever consider using and we shipped it back immediately, saying no thanks. We got what we presumed to be an acknowledgment of the returned merchandise - a post card which read as follows:
Dear Mrs. Smith:
Thank you for your inquiry.
You will be glad to know that we have taken care of your request.
Please allow time for any necessary actions to be applied to your account.
Your patience and the opportunity to be of service are appreciated.
Sincerely,
Jennifer McHugh
I'm not sure why an item of returned merchandise would be referred to as an "inquiry" but we figured that this was just their own internal language. Behemoths often have ways of referring to things in a different language from the members of the great unwashed.. But then bills began to arrive. Even though we figured that they were the result of an internal mix up that might right itself without any assistance on our part, after a while, we thought we had better respond - just in case. We had dealt with Behemoths in the past.
(undated)
Dear Literary Guild;
This is getting silly.
The merchandise represented by "past due" installments was inferior and was returned to you within a day or so of receipt.
We assume that your acknowledgment of "your inquiry" (copy enclosed) was in response to this return, though how a company with "literary" in its name can equate "inquiry" with a return is beyond me.
"Debbie-My Life" was paid for 12/27/88. I can't help it if you take forever to deposit a check.
"Of Tears and Triumphs," written by my old friends, Bud and Georgia Photopolos, was paid January 9, 1989.
Please get your act together and stop sending us these silly notices or you'll lose a subscriber. As it is, many of your prices are easily beaten at discount chains, so it wouldn't take much for us to tell you goodbye
.The Smiths
P.S. A class act would list an 800 number to call!!!
In a rational world, you would think that our letter would elicit a polite response and an apology. Instead, it stirred the wrath of the Behemoth and brought the following;
February 1, 1989
Dear Mr. Smith:
As of the above date, your account shows a past due balance.
Please review the statement below. Should you have any questions about this bill, we would like to hear from you. You may write to the above address or call our Customer Service Center at 516-294-4000 between 7.30 a.m. and 9.00 p.m. Eastern time.
If the statement is accurate, we will expect to receive your payment within 10 days. Otherwise, a late fee of $2.00 will be charged to your account. Please remember that our policy requires payment upon receipt of your order.
If you recently mailed your payment, thank you. We value your membership.
Respectfully,
Ruth Shaw
Membership Secretary
And at the bottom of the letter was listed two books that we had bought and two "past due" installments for the inferior luggage that we had returned. Don't you just love the way they write these kinds of letters? "You lousy, dead beat bum. Pay up or we'll come to your house and kidnap your first born. But if you've already paid, thanks a heap. We really think you're great." Well, we didn't like being called lousy deadbeats and we responded to Ms. Shaw as follows;
February 14, 1989
Ruth Shaw
Membership Secretary
The Literary Guild
01 Franklin Avenue
Garden City, NY 11530
Re A/C #55 121 513570
Dear Ms. Shaw:
Read this very carefully.
The above listed account, in the name of Mrs. Sharon Smith is hereby canceled. Any future mail from your organization will be thrown away unopened. The reason for our cancellation is explained by the enclosed.We no longer wish to be irritated by your internal inefficiencies.
Jeff Smith
Do you think that put an end to this mess? Huh!! Instead, the Literary Guild took a leaf from MY literary book and sent the following.
IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLY
February 28. 1989
Dear Mrs. Smith:
We have not received a response to our first letter concerning your past due balance. Consequently, a $2.00 late fee charge has been added to your bill. Should you have any questions regarding your bill, please contact us at the above address or call our Customer Service Center at 516-294-4000 between 7.30 a.m. and 9.00 p.m. Eastern Time.
If your payment was recently sent, please disregard this notice. Otherwise, mail your payment today.
Respectfully,
Paul Hagen
Credit Manager
Note that apart from stealing my line about reading carefully, Mr. Hagen did not say that he valued my membership, even though he seemed to be respectful with his signature. I concluded that responding to his letter would most likely produce the same result as previous attempts of clarification - more letters from different departments of the Literary Guild, probably with increasing harshness of tone. I decided it was time to refer the issue to a higher authority and after a few inquiring phone calls, got the name of the PRESIDENT of the whole ball of Literary Guild wax and penned the following:
March 7, 1989
James R. McLaughlin.
Doubleday & Company
501 Franklin
Garden City, NY 11530
Dear Mr. McLaughlin;
Re: a.c # 55 121 513570
I have been given to understand that you are of the humanoid persuasion, in contrast to the malfunctioning computers that are running the Book-of-the-Month division of your company.
As you can see from the enclosed, some of these malfunctioning machines have adopted human names - Jennifer McHugh, Ruth Shaw and Paul Hagen to name just three - and have conspired to use the mails to exceedingly annoy, a crime punishable in most states by permanent unplugging.
It has now cost me at least a couple of bucks to return the "special order" merchandise - 75 cents to send you three letters, the cost of a phone call to Garden City to get your name - and far too much of my valuable time, all because your computers have loose chips. And now there's a hint that a record is being created that is damaging to our credit history.
Please have some human attend to this. I'm not even amused at the Hagen computer's attempt at humor, acknowledging that I have canceled the account while compounding the reason for the cancellation. Indeed, I am getting angry and as Bill Bixby used to say before he changed into a green monster, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
Cordially - at least for now,
Jeff Smith
That did it, right? I'd get a personal call from Mr. McLaughlin, a heartfelt apology and a package of six free books in the very next mail. In your dreams, unwashed reader. We're talking serious BEHEMOTH here.......
SERIOUSLY PAST DUE
March 30, 1989
Dear Mrs. Smith:
This is our third letter to you concerning your long overdue account.
We have tried to extend every courtesy and consideration to help you settle this debt. We must continue to assume that this debt is accurate and ask for your immediate payment.
If we do not receive your payment, stronger action will be taken which will affect your credit rating with a national credit reporting agency.
If payment has recently been sent, thank you.
Otherwise, send it today!
Paul Hagen
Credit Manager
I figured O.K. Every time I write a letter to the Literary Guild trying to straighten things out, it gets worse. It's like I say I enjoy listening to the baseball scores. They say green bananas are better at this time of the year. That's about the way it was. Trying to be logical with the Literary Guild was like passing through the looking glass. I was Alice, Paul Hagen was the Jubjub Bird and James McLaughlin was the Frumious Bandersnatch. There was only one thing left to do so I did it. I did nothing!! And sure enough, a whole month passed and not a word. My new found strategy seemed to be working. But then......
CREDIT INDEX THE NATIONAL COMPUTER CREDIT FILE
May 1,1989
Sharon Smith
We have received notice from your creditor that your payment is long overdue. Unless you take action now to settle your account, information concerning this delinquency will be included in our national delinquent debtor file. Information from this file will be reported to any one of the credit granting firms using our service should they order a credit report on you.
The record of your delinquency will remain in our system for at least five years unless this debt is paid. Your credit file will show that you did not settle your $59.86 DEBT WITH THE LITERARY GUILD.
Enclose this letter, with payment in full today! Use the envelope provided. If the information stated is inaccurate, contact either your creditor or us, using this form for comments. Your creditor must notify us of any change in the status of your credit record. We strive to maintain accurate credit files and most valuable asset...your credit rating.
Sincerely Yours
Consumer Services Credit Index
After receiving that letter, I had to do some more detective work. I couldn't believe that these letters, demands and threats would continue to arrive after I'd written and explained everything so clearly to the PRESIDENT of the Literary Guild's parent company himself. Unless....himself WASN'T himself!! Could I have been given a bum steer? (I kind of thought I had a touch of food poisoning after my last detecting foray). So.....
May 9, 1989
Mr. Robert Riger
President
Doubleday & Company
501 Franklin Avenue
Garden City, NY 11530
Dear Mr. Riger:
I have just had a conversation with someone in your personnel department who assures me that you are the president of Doubleday .
I'm not sure I can believe anything I hear from your company, because a month or so ago, one of your hirelings was assuring me that James McLaughlin was your president. But if the current information is true, you've got big problems. Your Literary Guild Computers have developed a serious disease. They are running the company as they see fit and have cut off ALL communication between your human employees and the general public.
The enclosed materials should be self explanatory. I have numbered them sequentially to make it even easier to understand. I should send you a bill for shipping costs, phone calls, postage, time wasted and sheer aggravation. I will settle for an apology from you and from the National Computer Credit File.
Cordially,
Jeff Smith
CC: Paul Hagen Credit Index
I put that letter in the mail and then sat down to wait for what I was pretty sure would be a continuation of the nasty letters demanding money and threatening to destroy my credit rating. But this time I was wrong. My letter was read by human eyes and, wonder of wonders, UNDERSTOOD, as demonstrated below:
MEMBER SERVICE CENTER
May 22,1989
Dear Mr. Smith:
Re: Mrs Sharon Smith
XXXXXX XXXXXX
LITERARY GUILD ACCOUNT # 55 121 513570
Your recent letter to Mr. Robert Riger has been referred to my attention. Thank you for writing.
I can appreciate both your anger and frustration at receiving billing statements for merchandise that has been returned. It is regrettable that this matter was not resolved much earlier, and we are sorry that you have had to contact us more than once concerning it.
The outstanding charge, $59.86, reflected a September 22, 1988 purchase of a FIVE-PIECE SET OF SASSON LUGGAGE. This merchandise cost $57.86; in time a $2.00 late fee was assessed, and the total balance due became $59.86.You wrote that the LUGGAGE had been returned. We, apparently, had no record of ever receiving it. The billing, therefore, continued.
You have my complete assurance that this charge has now been removed. Your account has been canceled and is now clear of all outstanding charges. Additionally, I have written to the Credit Index to remove your name, if listed, from their files. A copy of this letter is enclosed for your review. You may be assured that your credit rating is completely clear insofar as The Literary Guild is concerned.
We will be happy to reimburse you for all telephone calls and postage fees that you have incurred in trying to resolve this issue. I am enclosing a reply envelope addressed to a member of my staff, Mrs. Caterino. Just send us copies of your phone bills and an approximate sum for postage, and we'll refund this amount to you.
We regret that you were given some incorrect information about our Company recently. Our current President is Mr. Robert Riger, who joined us May 1st.
Mr. Smith, I can understand your disappointment with The Literary Guild. I fully agree that this matter should have been resolved much earlier, and I understand your strong feelings about cancellation of this membership. Our goal is to always please our members, both with goods and services. I regret that we fell short of the mark! We do offer a toll-free assistance number to our members. The number is 800-645-6140, and our lines are operational from 7:30 am to 9:00 pm Eastern Time. Any time that you have a concern or need assistance, please feel free to contact us.
We hope you will reconsider your decision as we would welcome the opportunity to serve you again.
Sincerely,
Russell Sacco
Manager,Membership Services
THE LITERARY GUILD
cc: Mr. Robert Riger
I swear that I've reproduced Mr. Sacco's letter exactly as written, punctuation, capitalization and syntax all as received. After all, the guy was finally getting the BEHEMOTH off my back. Why would I want him to look bad? He had already sent a copy to his new boss which I took to be a sign, either of great bravery or total idiocy. Then again, maybe English wasn't Robert Riger's native tongue...
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posted by JJ at
HERZOPOLY
September 1974 to January, 1975
THE HERTZ CORPORATION/ AMERICAN EXPRESS/ DINERS CLUBIt was back in the nineteen seventies when I first began to collect and catalogue my own records of battles with behemoths. I had had earlier run ins with large corporations and with various branches of government, but it was an experience in 1974 that started me down the road that ultimately led to the collection in this book, a collection of stories and correspondence that I believe can be considered as a new and serious literary genre. This next BATTLE was actually more fun than a battle and because of that I decided to incorporate the back and forth correspondence with the involved company into what I thought was a pretty humorous article in which I attributed all of the problems to a mythical disease. I actually made one attempt to get the piece published but it was rejected and I gave up. After all, back then the purpose of the battle wasn't to create something for publication and I was in no mood to get a series of rejection letters after enjoying the triumph of beating the Hertz corporation to its knees - or would that be tires?? But I guess I have the last laugh. This is my book and I can publish anything I like So there!!! All of the correspondence from this particular behemoth is reproduced exactly as received, so if you notice strange syntax and spelling, strange punctuation and dates with the DAY before the MONTH, that's the way the letters came. I call this adventure....... CONFESSIONS OF A HERTZOPHOBIACI don't usually pay a great deal of attention to the business section of my newspaper, but back in the early seventies, there was a period of time when it got more of my attention than almost any other section. That was because I was looking for news about Allegis Corporation - the old United Airlines. Allegis had a new management team and there had been a lot of talk about breaking up the company and selling off some of its divisions. One of those divisions was HERTZ and I figured if Hertz could get some new owners, maybe they could find a cure for HERTZOPHOBIA. (HZP) For those of you not up on the medical literature, HERTZOPHOBIA is a rare allergic disorder that afflicts a handful of people - maybe one thousandth of one percent of the world's population. Because so few people catch it, it's one of those orphan diseases. The drug companies couldn't care less about finding a miracle pill - not when the world market is probably less than a thousand pills a year. Likewise, you'll never see Jerry Lewis doing a telethon for HERTZOPHOBIA - which may be the only GOOD thing you can say about the disease. Not much is known about the etiology of HZP, but it's believed to be caused by the hiccup of the Japanese Microchip (CHIPUS SAYONARUS) and exposure comes through the use of any credit card to rent a Hertz car anywhere in the world. The symptoms vary from patient to patient and can include such things as whispers in the back of the head, itchy fingers and raised neck hackles. Some victims have one or more of these particular symptoms. Some have none. But all victims suffer from two major symptoms. One is the receipt of strange letters from the Hertz corporation following the rental of a Hertz car. A lot of healthy people also get this symptom but are protected by their natural immunity to CHIPUS SAYONARUS). (If they weren't, we'd be in the throes of a world wide epidemic . Jerry Lewis would be conducting telethons and Nancy Reagan would be appearing in "just say no to Hertz" commercials). But it's the second major symptom that truly marks a victim of HERTZOPHOBIA - the irresistible compulsion to SEND letters TO Hertz. Once this symptom is first experienced, the disease is confirmed. It can be controlled by avoiding CHIPUS SAYONARUS and this can be accomplished merely by staying away from Hertz offices. But true victims CAN'T stay away indefinitely, and for them, HERTZOPHOBIA is a lifetime disease. From everything I know about the subject, I have a classic case. A few years ago, I was on vacation in England. I'd had a check up just before I left, so I knew I was susceptible to something called CHIPUS SAYONARUS, but I really didn't understand it and by the time my plane landed at Heathrow airport, I'd completely forgotten about it. My brother was living in the lovely old city of Bristol at that time and I was visiting with him when I hit upon the idea of doing some solo touring. After all, Bristol is just a few miles from southern Wales, and no more than a stone's throw from the ancient Roman town of Bath, a MUST for any visit to the west of England. Without giving as much as a second thought to the potential dangers of driving on the wrong side of the road or trying to figure out the PURPOSE of roundabouts, I wandered into the local Hertz office and picked up what they had available - a little stick shift with five or six on the floor. To this day I can't remember how many gears that monster had. I DO remember, in horrifying detail, the nightmare of driving the little beast from the Hertz office to my brother's house - a distance of maybe three miles. I don't think I ever got it out of second gear - but it's hard to tell because I was never able to figure out which gear was which. I know I spent about half the time on the wrong (right) side of the road and was responsible for at least a dozen near crashes and probably one or two mini strokes. At any rate, about thirty seconds after arriving at my brother's house, I was on the 'phone to Hertz, telling them they could pick up their blankety blank car and dump it in the English channel as far as I was concerned. I must say it gladdened my heart when a female Hertz operative arrived with an automatic shift replacement, shaking all over and pale as an English ghost. (The operative, not the car). Apparently, her only driving experience has been with a stick shift and even though she was accustomed to driving on the wrong side of the road, the experience of hitting the brake and flipping on the turn signal every time she felt the need to change gear, had totally unnerved her. At the time, I thought that her consternation was no more than an appropriate quid pro quo for what Hertz had inflicted upon me and I was smiling by the time she pulled away in the multiple geared monster. The rest of my vacation was uneventful. With the unfathomable gears out of the way, it took only a couple of hours to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road and after a couple of days I even began to enjoy it. Little did I know that somewhere, CHIPUS SAYONARUS had already hiccuped. About a week after I got back home, I received an invoice from Hertz of Bristol, England in the amount of 46 pounds and 55 pence. Since I'd charged the car rental to Diners Club, I assumed it was some sort of confirmation of the charge amount - a friendly, typically English gesture - so I threw it away. Looking back, I know my doctor had told me about the onset of HZP, but at the time, I didn't recognize the invoice as anything but an invoice. If I'd known it was an early symptom, I would have sought immediate therapy. I was none the wiser a month or so later when I received more mail from Hertz of England. This time, it was from Hertz Customer Accounts and read as follows:,
Dear Sir:
This letter is to let you know that your account is overdue - payment was due within ten days of the invoice date.
You have therefore exceeded our terms of credit and we must now insist on immediate payment
If you have not made payment because you have queries concerning this account, please telephone our Customer Accountants who will answer them. The number is 01-672-0011.Payments received after the date of this reminder are not taken into account, therefore if a remittance has been forwarded please accept our thanks
Yours faithfully,
HERTZ RENT A CAR
Customer Accounts Department
Still not recognizing the onset of a serious disease, I immediately penned a reply:
Dear Customer Accounts:
Re the attached reminder of a "past due" rental bill, this was charged to my Diner's Club card as the rental agreement, also attached, clearly shows.
Please adjust your records.
Cordially,
By the end of the month, Hertz wrote again:
Dear Sir:
Thank you for your note which we received recently
.Your account was not originally billed to Diners due to an error in this office, arrangements are now being made to do this. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.
The charges are as follows:
· 4 days at 5.25 21.00
· 240 miles at 0.05 12.00
· Collision damage waver 4.00
· VAT 10% of 37.00 3.70
· Personal and baggage insurance 2.00
· Petrol 3.85
· Total 46.55
Yours Faithfully
HERTZ RENT A CAR
A. Humberstone
International Department
Naturally, I thought that was the end of it. My reading habits were more inclined to Esquire than to the Journal of Hertzophobic Diseases, so I really didn't know what was happening. I was still relatively unconcerned when the next letter arrived, although a small voice was beginning to whisper somewhere in the back of my head. (In early research on HZP, this was often cited as the earliest known symptom of the disease). This one was from Hertz Central Billing and had a certain note of familiarity to it. It puzzled me for a while, but then I realized what it was. All of the letters were coming from different departments at the same floor of the same building - a place called Lyon Tower in London. This letter read as follows:
Dear Sir:
Re: Rental Agreement 4461939
Please find attached the above rental agreement, which you requested to be billed to your American Express account.( Author's note: This was another unrecognized symptom. The substitution of American express for Diners Club raised hackles on the back of my neck, very close to the spot where I was hearing whispers).
Unfortunately, the account number quoted is incorrect, therefore, we would appreciate it if you would pay this invoice direct to our company.
Please accept our apologies for the delay in billing this invoice and for any inconvenience that you have been caused.
Yours Faithfully,
HERTZ RENT A CAR
C. Ferry
CENTRAL BILLING
I had to see my doctor around the time the CENTRAL BILLING letter arrived, so I told him what had been going on. He ran a couple of quick tests and then broke the news that I had a definite case of HZP, but it was still in an early stage. He told me to try to stay away from typewriters. (This was years before I had a personal computer). Anyway, I tried hard, but it didn't work. I was able to exercise SOME measure of control though. I started several letters to CENTRAL BILLING but was able to stop before the end of the second paragraph. My wife has great instincts and she kept insisting that this was a very good sign....that if I worked at it, I could beat this thing. She urged me to take it one day at a time...to try stopping in the MIDDLE of the second paragraph... then at the end of paragraph one and so on. By the end of the month, I had gone four days without much more than Dear Central Billing and I was beginning to feel pretty confident. Then NOTICE OF INTENTcame from LEGAL MANAGER. Experts in the HZP syndrome believe that there is a stage in the disease where the patient is, so to speak, on the cusp. Basically, it is at the point I had already reached - a four day period with no more than a salutation in response to a provocative stimulus. It is possible, they say, to BEAT the disease at this point, even in the face of additional stimuli... unless.. and this was my downfall, the stimuli are written in RED. (As I said, my wife has great instincts but she's no medical expert). If the stimuli are written in RED, you are, to use the technical term, a goner. NOTICE OF INTENT was not just in RED. It was in BLOOD RED, and read (no pun intended) as follows:
Dear Sir:
Your account has been passed to my Department for legal action against you in view of your failure to respond to previous reminders sent to you.
Since you are in breach of contract I must consider the issue of a summons against you through the appropriate Court for the full amount shown. I will however not instruct the Court for a further seven days to enable you to settle the account within this period.
If you are the holder of a Hertz Credit Card this will be cancelled and your privileges withdrawn.
Yours Faithfully,
HERTZ RENT A CAR
Legal Manager
It was only in later years that I was able to understand the nature of my reaction to this particular stimulus. The letter was not only written in RED but was totally without commas and dotted with random capitalization. Stronger men than I have been broken by such an onslaught. In the annals of HZP literature, there is a case history of a near presidential candidate who became involved in a Visa/Master Card/Hertz of Washington DC triangle. Just days before he planned to announce, he received, in a single mail delivery, THREE RED letters. Within a week he had resigned from the Senate, rather than face impeachment charges for improper use of a government word processor. In three months, he had divorced his wife, sold his home, and moved from Georgetown to a beach hut in San Diego. When his funds finally ran out, he took to mugging old age pensioners to feed his three ream and two ribbon a day habit, and at last report was serving ninety days for assaulting a Xerox machine in a Post Office lobby. I was luckier, but my wife tells me she had to use a twelve inch screwdriver and a pint of paint thinner to remove my fingers from the keys of my IBM Selectric. By that time, I had already written the following in quadruplicate:
Dear Ferry, Humberstone, Customer Accounts and Legal Manager:
I suppose you're wondering why I called this meeting.
The fact is that I have heard, on very good authority, that jolly old England is about to declare bankruptcy. Something to do with horribly fouled up management I believe. Well, being an anglophile from way back, I just can't allow this to happen. So, despite the expense of postage, Xerox copies and the use of my valuable time, I'm going to show you how a little get together like this can help straighten out the most complex problems. You can then pass the technique along to your fellow countrymen, and before long, if they apply these principles faithfully, you should be out of the woods. Who knows - with perseverance, you may one day regain your former glory and be able to sit on your porches drinking warm beer and contemplating the rising and setting of the sun on all your far flung points of influence around the world.
So students... let us begin.
Once upon a time - last summer in fact - I arrived in the mother country for a pleasant three week vacation. (It really was quite enjoyable despite the spine chilling experience of eating at restaurants THAT DID NOT SERVE TEA!! Can you imagine that??) Anyhow, in the course of my travels, I happened upon the sleepy little town of Bristol. Actually, I didn't "happen" on it at all. My brother lives there and naturally, I came to visit. Fortunately, my brother has his own car - or he might be writing this letter.
But I digress. In the course of my stay, I decided that I would like to have my own transportation. Naturally, I decided to turn to Hertz. After all, the name is even becoming known over here in the colonies. So, after consulting the trusty Bristol telephone directory, I appeared in person at the local Hertz office and told the nice people there of my needs. Well, just as quickly as you can recite Harold Wilson's Swiss Bank Account number, they had the answer. A neat little job with two wheels in the front and an equal number in the back.
Then... and read carefully now, this is the critical point.. they filled out a rental contract (exhibit 1) and asked for a credit card. I've never been one of those pushy Americans you know, so I gave them the old World War 11 G.I. act. I held out a handful of cards and asked them to make their own selection. I must say I was not unpleased when they selected Diners Club. It is, after all, an old established firm.
Everything seemed to be going well until several weeks after my return home. (In the interim, I had cited the swift efficiency of this transaction to many of my pessimistic friends who were convinced that England was finished as an economic power. How could that be, I asked them, with such sterling organizations as Hertz U.K. at the heart of the old country's economy? And of course, they had no answer). But then, oh horror of horrors, the mail began to arrive. First, exhibit 11 from old Customer Accounts. I thought perhaps that old C.A. was a disgruntled Conservative voter who was trying to throw a few spokes into your smoothly turning wheel, so I penned a polite reply, and sure enough, I got this nice response (exhibit 111) from old Alison Humberstone... (nice to hear from you Alison - how's the family??)... and my mind was at rest.
But then the Chicago Bears lost two games in a row and I knew things were going to get worse. (That's a football team. American football. A most uncivilized game).I was right of course. A few days ago, I got Mrs. Ferry's note, exhibit 1V. What puzzles me is that Mrs. Ferry and dear old Alison are both on the same floor there at Lyon Tower. Don't you two speak to each other - or is it that you have different social backgrounds? By golly, during the great war, members of the peerage used to drink tea with the local greengrocers and publicans when they were all huddled together in the same shelter. Come on people. Try to get that spirit back.
Anyway, after Mrs. Ferry's letter, the Bears lost two more games.. (they are having an AWFUL season) and so I wasn't surprised to hear from Legal Manager,( exhibit V).Well, that's my story friends. Now let's all try for a happy ending. (Pay attention now. This is my contribution to your climb back to your former glory).
The secret is COMMUNICATION. Maybe, as I mentioned above, your respective upbringings prevent you from doing this, but under the freedoms provided by our constitution, I am not so inhibited. So... Ferry, meet Humberstone. Humberstone, meet Customer Accounts. Customer Accounts, I'd like you to know Legal Manager. Legal Manager, may I present Ferry, Humberstone and Customer Accounts. Well, I'm sure you get the idea.
(Good Lord, I'm beginning to see double. Please turn to page three immediately. Let me see.. are there two Ferrystones and one Custom Humber or two Legals and a double scotch?)Whew!! That's better. I was getting dizzy.
Well friends, I do hope this solves the problem - and perhaps marks the beginning of a lasting friendship between the four of you.
I'm sure the folks at Diners will be happy to pay this bill as we had originally arranged back there in the Bristol summer. You must remember though - Diners and American Express are RIVAL companies. It's good of you to try to save me money Mrs. Ferry, but I use both companies and I wouldn't want either one to get mad at me.
Well, I really must close now. I do hope this won't put an end to our new found friendship. Please write whenever you get a moment. If you have any recent snapshots, I'd love to get them.
Fondly
Jeff SmithJS:s
ENCLOSURES Exhibits 1,11,111,1V & V
CC: Avis International
David Frost
The entire family ofDick Burton's ex wives and lovers
My suffering brother Two months passed. The Maple trees outside my house laid a carpet of golden leaves on the front lawn and flecks of snow heralded the coming of winter and another year... and of course, more mail from Hertz.
Dear Mr. Smith:
Re: Invoice No. 4461939
Thank you for your letter of November 20, which brightened our normal boring day. The above account has now finally been billed to your Diners Club account.
Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience you have been caused concerning the delay.
Yours Sincerely,
HERTZ RENT A CARL.
J. Rose (Mrs.)
CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS
I have an accountant who tells me that it is best to save copies of Federal tax returns for at least three years. I had been thinking of reducing my collection of credit cards and Diners Club was scheduled to go. But I used the Federal standards as a guide line and hung onto it for MORE than three years, hoping against hope that Hertz U.K. and 46.55 (pounds) would show up. It never did. And the letters from Hertz stopped coming I stayed away from Hertz offices after that. My doctor said that until a vaccine for HZP is found, abstinence is the only thing that will work. But you know how it is. You abstain long enough and you get disgustingly healthy - so much so that you forget what it is you're abstaining for. And you get careless..... About a month ago, I had to spend a few days in a small Kansas town. To get there, I flew to Kansas City, unthinkingly rented a car from Hertz and drove 250 miles. It was a pleasant trip, but a few days after I got home, I noticed the unmistakable symptoms of increased anxiety, raised hackles on the back of my neck, whispers in the back of my head and itchy fingers. I readily attributed it to the fact that I had recently rented a Hertz car and had charged it to my American Express card, but I could recall neither a hitch nor a glitch in the transaction and told myself that the uneasy feeling would pass. When it didn't, I bit the bullet and dug out my copy of the rental contract. I think I knew I would find something, but I needed absolute confirmation. And there it was. A charge of some $36 had NOT been added to the total. Now I owed Hertz $36 by way of American Express and 46.55 English pounds by way of Diners Club and/or American Express. I've been sitting at the typewriter trying to fight this thing. My wife keeps telling me that there may be an announcement from Allegis any day now. She's pleading with me to at least wait for the American Express bill to arrive before writing to Kansas City. Poor woman. She's forgotten LEGAL MANAGER'S RED LETTER. There is no cure. To heck with Allegis. To heck with Kansas City
Dear Customer Accounts:
You'll never guess what's been happening to me since I was last in England.....
My brother thought a better name for this experience was HERTZOPOLY.. a non registered trade name that can only be played by Jeff Smith, his older brother, the Hertz Corporation and either Diners Club or American Express. (Since neither Smith brother currently use the game's original credit card companies, Visa and Master Card may be substituted). The game has only two rules. 1. A credit card foul up must be instigated by a Hertz office somewhere in the U.K. or somewhere in Kansas 2. The foul up must remain forever unresolved. Any method of play is allowed. It is strictly up to the players. In the above example, the method chosen is the exchange of meaningless correspondence
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posted by JJ at
ABOUT THE AUTHORActually, it would be more accurate to describe me as a budding author because although I've done some writing, this is my first attempt to put together a "real" book In the past however, I've been a television producer and director, a producer, writer and distributor of numerous nationally syndicated radio programs, a producer and distributor of medical news and educational programs on audio cassette, a host/writer/producer of slide films, and a writer, producer and narrator of children's coloring books and tapes. I am acknowledged to be the originator of widely distributed medical audio tape programs sponsored by pharmaceutical commercial messages. (Source: Medical Marketing and Media, January, 1974). Here are a few of my career highlights. I created and produced, for and in association with the American Medical Association, the first general news publication for physicians on audio cassette, which included advertising commercials. From 1970 to 1985, in association with the American Osteopathic Association, I produced, hosted and distributed a monthly medical educational program on audio cassette for all osteopathic physician members of the association, sponsored by numerous pharmaceutical companies. In association with Modern Medicine Publications, I devised, produced and hosted MEDICAL MONITOR, the first subscription medical abstract service on audio cassette. In radio, I created and/or produced and/or syndicated such programs as Robert St. John Reports (featuring Robert St. John), The Washington Report (featuring Senator Thomas Dodd and Rep. Walter Judd), The Last Angry Man (featuring NBC newsman Richard Applegate), and I was both host, producer and writer of Family Facts and Figures and a daily history feature, Moment of Destiny. I also was the creator, producer and co-writer of ACCENT, a nationally syndicated radio news feature service, featuring Quincy Howe, Edgar Ancel Mowrer, Henry Cassidy, John Lewis, Robert St. John and other noted newsmen of the sixties and seventies and I even did a short stint as a radio talk show host in the sixties on a suburban Chicago station. Unfortunately it was one that almost no one could hear!!!! Amomg other audio/visual products that I've either created or been a part of, I'm proud to have been the author/narrator of the children's coloring book/tape series, EDUCATIONAL ADVENTURES, which did well in the eighties and early nineties in national retail outlets and major catalogues. I'm not sure of all the places where they may be available now. There were a couple of web sites that were selling the entire series when I first put this site together, but they have since disappeared. There are some others such as this one and this one and this one but they each offer only a single issue of my many titles - but at least this last shows my name but only as the narrrator leaving out my role as writer and produceer of the entire series. If I find any that still feature the entire series, I'll provide the links here. I started out many years ago in television working alongside the likes of Bob Newhart and director Bill Friedkin but they went on to REAL careers while somehow, as you can tell, I went astray. At the moment, I'm well into social security age, SORT of retired, and trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. HOME
posted by JJ at
WHERE’S GEORGE WASHINGTON WHEN YOU NEED HIM?THE BRITISH ARMY I think it would be fair to refer to my childhood as strange or unusual. Actually, those a very mild term to describe some of the things that happened to me while I was trying to grow up, but there’s no need to recount them here. The specific details aren’t relevant to the subject matter of this book, except for one. In 1944 I was living in England and in December of that year, two months shy of my sixteenth birthday, I joined the British Army, originally as a "boy soldier," signing up for a 12 year hitch. Again, I won’t go into the details of why and how this came about, but I will tell you that it was a terrible mistake that I worked hard to rectify, and after three years and seventy seven days , I was successful. I got out! Then, 44 years later, I began to think about that experience and almost on a whim, wrote the following letter; Rt. Honorable Archibald Hamilton, M.P.,
Minister of State for the Armed Forces
Main Building, Whitehall
London S.W.1. A 2HB
England May 19, 1992
Sir:
From December 11, 1944 to February 25, 1948, I served in the Regular British Army, receiving an honorable discharge under Para 390 (XV1) KR’s 40, ceasing to fulfill army physical requirements.
I would appreciate knowing if there were any post service benefits of any kind to which I may have been and may still be entitled.
Cordially,
Jeff SmithI didn’t hold out too much hope for any kind of positive reply. Still, I think my heart quickened a little a few weeks later as I opened a letter from MINISTRY OF DEFENCE,
Empress State Building, London SW6 11R. Dear Mr. Smith:
Thank you for your letter of 19 May, which has been forwarded to this office for reply.
Under the Regulations in force at the time you were medically discharged from HM Forces a soldier was required to complete at least 12 years reckonable service for pension purposes from age 18 to qualify for an invaliding pension.
Unfortunately, you have insufficient service to satisfy this requirement and consequently you have no entitlement to such an award from Defence funds.
However, the Department of Social Security (DSS) administer a War Pensions Scheme for ex-service personnel who suffer from a disability which is either attributable to, or aggravated by military service. If you would like to make a claim for an award, I would advise you to contact the following address:
DSS
War Pensions
North Fylde Central Office
Norcross
Blackpool
FY5 3TA
I enclose a guide to war pensions and allowances which I hope you find of assistance.
Although you have no entitlement to a pension from Defence funds you should have received a War Gratuity in respect to your war-time service. The normal method of payment for War Gratuities was into a Post Office Saving Bank account opened specifically for the purpose. If you would like to follow the matter up you should contact the National Savings Bank, with details of your service ie Rank, Regt number, etc at the following address:-
The National Savings Bank
Boydstone Road
Cowglen
Glasgow G58 1SB
I hope this information is of assistance.
Yours Sincerely,
M.T. ArcherA couple of explanations before I go on. First about my army discharge. The discharge papers say "ceasing to fulfill army physical requirements." The truth is that I was befriended by a military doctor who sympathized with my dread of the years of service that loomed before me, and he wrote a report recommending that I be released from my twelve year obligation based upon my mental health. It was highly appreciated at the time but three years later it almost came back to haunt me. I was moving permanently from England to the United States when my discharge papers surfaced and I had to prove to U.S. authorities that I wasn’t nuts. Somehow I managed to convince them and here I am, 50 years later. The second item that needs to be clarified here is that all of the letters from British authorities are reproduced exactly as they were written, so if you find yourself wincing at the strange grammar, punctuation and spelling, it’s all the fault of the British military. Still, the reference to a possible Savings Account in my name somewhere intrigued me. After all, 44 years had passed and even if the original deposit was minuscule, with compound interest… well who knows what fortune might await??…. So: The National Savings Bank
Boydstone Road
Cowglen
Glasgow G58 1SB
Scotland June 25, 1992
Gentlemen:
Enclosed is a copy of a letter from the Ministry of Defence responding to an inquiry from me regarding benefits that might have been available to me at the time of my discharge from the Regular Army on February 25, 1948.
Also enclosed are Xerox copies of pages from my Certificate of Service.
At the time of my discharge, I was not aware of any War Gratuity to which I may have been entitled and certainly I was not informed of any Post Office Savings Bank account opened in my name.
If the Ministry of Defence is correct , such an account should exist in my name, with details as follows:
Name: Jeff Smith Service #: xxxxxxxx Rank: Pte. Service Dates: December 11, 1944 to February 25, 1948. Corps: R.A.O.C.
I would appreciate learning of the status of such an account if you are able to find it, and if not, please tell me how to go about availing myself of this benefit to which I have apparently been entitled for the last 44 years!
Cordially,
Jeff SmithAnd back came a response from NATIONAL SAVINGS in far off Glasgow, Scotland. 4 August 1992
Dear Mr. Smith
Thank you for your recent letter regarding War Gratuities.
The circumstances of payment was that those who left the Army between 8 May 1945 and 31 December 1947 normally had monies due to them in respect of War Gratuities or Post Office War Credits paid in a Post Office Savings Bank Account paid specifically for this purpose.
Those who continued to serve after 31 December 1947 would have had all such sums due paid through their Army pay accounts.
I hope you find this information useful.
Yours Sincerely
J OswaldAgain a reminder that these letters are reproduced exactly as originally written. I am not responsible for the fact that there is no punctuation in this letter other than four periods - one at the end of each paragraph!! And note that both M T Archer and J Oswald are "yours sincerely." Was a pattern beginning to emerge at such an early stage of a behemoth battle??? I decided to tackle them both at the same time, thinking that maybe the best strategy would be an attack on all fronts. After all, my opponent was the army and the initial skirmishes sure looked like the opening shots in a war. So… J. Oswald
National Savings Bank
Glasgow G58 1SB
Scotland Your ref: 43RMI/553/92
August 12, 1992
Dear Mr. Oswald:
I hope the salutation is correct. "J" is not particularly indicative of gender.
I thank you for your letter of August 4, 1992, though I find the information you supplied more frustrating than useful, as my letter to the Ministry of Defence (copy enclosed) indicates.
I think I may well have been "on the cusp" with respect to my date of service termination and may never have received any war gratuity. On the other hand, the amount may have been so small, I may have received it as part of my army pay without realizing it.
The army pay records should tell the story.
Meanwhile, while your letter implies that no National Savings account exists in my name, you did not say that one was not found. Was it looked for? Would an account that has been inactive for 44 years still exist? What is the National Savings policy regarding inactive accounts?
Perhaps you could answer these questions while I pursue the uncovering of this mystery with the defence department.
Cordially,
Jeff Smith
CC: M.T. ArcherAnd on the same date…. M.T. Archer
Room 838
Ministry of Defence
Empress State Building
London SW6 1TR 8 August 12, 1992
Dear Mr. Archer:
Enclosed is a copy of a letter received from the National Savings Bank in response to my inquiry about a war gratuity you described to me in your letter of June 12, 1992, and my response to National Savings.
Also enclosed is a copy of my discharge certificate which may have some relevance in this matter,
National Savings did not say that I do not have an account in my name - only that war gratuities were paid through army pay accounts for people who served after December 31, 1947.
My official end of service was February 25, 1948, but I was actually released from service long before this date - very likely in calendar year 1947. Even my discharge certificate was signed on January 2, 1948.
Frankly, I do not recall receiving any "war gratuities" in the way of regular army pay. Indeed, I may not have received any monies from the army in 1948. My final payments may well have been in 1947.
I think the only way to resolve this is to request a copy of my pay records for the appropriate period, say for the month of December, 1947 and any pay records that may exist for any subsequent period of time. I would also like to know what the formula was for calculating such gratuities - that is, what would my gratuity have been for my rank and service dates?
For your information, the details of my service were as follows: Rank - Private; Service Number xxxxxxxx; Corps - R.A.O.C ; Service Dates - December 11, 1944 to February 25, 1948.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Cordially,
Jeff Smith
CC: J. Oswald
National Savings BankIt took two months for the National Savings Bank to send me the expected disappointing four line response, again without any punctuation other than paragraph ending periods!! 12th October 1992
Dear Mr. Smith
Thank you for your letter of 12 August 1992.
Despite further extensive searches no account in your name can be found.
I am sorry I am unable to help you.
Yours Sincerely
J OswaldOn the other hand, the Ministry of Defence responded in six days… 18 August 1992
Dear Mr. Smith,
Thank you for your recent letter concerning your war gratuity.
Unfortunately at this late stage we are unable to validate your claim. In accordance with normal practice your pay documents were destroyed 7 years after the end of your service. There is, therefore, no way of checking what pay or gratuity you were entitled to and what you actually received. I can assure you, however, that before they were destroyed your records would have been carefully checked for any outstanding credits or debits.
I am sorry to send such a disappointing reply.
Yours Sincerely,
J. A. Kimsey (Miss)At least Miss Kinsey used a few commas, though all in the wrong places. Actually, the signature was an unreadable scrawl, but at the top of the letter was typed "from Miss J A Kinsey, Adjutant General Secretariat 2." And while I have great respect for the gentle sex, the letter from this lady made me mad and I replied accordingly: Miss J.A. Kinsey
Adjutant General Secretariat 2
Ministry of Defence
Empress State Building
London SW6 1TR
England
Dear Miss Kinsey:
Your letter of August 14 was indeed a disappointing reply to my pursuit of an elusive 44 or 45 year old war gratuity.
I am very disturbed at the assertion that you are unable to validate my claim because the records no longer exist - and bemused by your assurance would have been "very carefully checked for any outstanding credits or debits" before being destroyed.
Seven years after the end of 1947, when you say my pay records were destroyed, I was living in the U.S. No army authority could possibly have known where I was and thus could not have informed me of any credit due. If an outstanding credit HAD been found, or a record found of a payment to the National Savings Bank, what would have happened to it? Would another record have been made? Would that record also no longer exist?
To recap, I returned to England from Hamburg on December 3, 1947, having already been granted a medical discharge. Although my records show an official "end of service" date of February 25, 1948, I was released to civilian life shortly after returning to England, and while I may have been paid for army service through February 25, 1948, I am almost certain that pay would have been issued to me before January 1, 1948, even though the date on my discharge certificate is shown as January 2, 1948.
According to the National Savings Bank, any war gratuities due a serviceman who was discharged through December 31, 1947 would have been paid into a savings bank account. For discharges after that date, war gratuities would have been paid through the normal pay process - presumably as part of pay received after January 1, 1948. I certainly wasn’t handed a savings bank account book - and as I’ve stated in previous correspondence, I don’t recall receiving anything resembling a special gratuity, and I don’t recall receiving any army pay at all in 1948.
Let me try to explain why I am pursuing this with such persistence and why I am writing yet another letter to the Defence Ministry despite your letter saying nothing can be done.
When I inquired earlier this year about possible benefits arising from my army service, it was almost on a whim. However, I became quite angry when I learned that apart from being entitled to war gratuities which may or may not have been paid into a bank account on my behalf, I could have applied for some sort of medical pension or lump sum benefit at the time of my discharge. I was a disturbed and homeless young man when the army was through with me. I could have used some help. It did not occur to me for a moment in 1947 to ASK if there were any post service benefits to which I might have been entitled, and as I’ve already pointed out, no army official ever volunteered such information. Despite your assurance that the army would have "carefully checked for anything that may have been due me," the fact that I am only NOW learning of benefits that might have been due me 44 years ago, leads me to a somewhat different conclusion. Frankly, I conclude that not providing me with information about potential benefits at the time of my discharge was at best an act of gross negligence, and now citing the passage of time and the absence of records as a reason for not being able to do anything about one of those benefits that may never have been received by me, compounds the negligence.
I have now applied to the Department of Social Security for a possible medical pension or lump sum payment based on my army acquired or aggravated medical condition, though I don’t hold out much hope for a positive response. If pay records are gone, I doubt that medical records would still exist. How convenient for the Ministry of Defence. How inconvenient for me.
But I don’t plan to give up just yet. We have advocacy groups in the United States that work on behalf of ex-servicemen. May I ask if such groups exist in the U.K. or if there are any avenues of appeal open to me that you are aware of regarding the possible non-payment of war gratuities due? For example, can an appeal be made to someone up the ladder at the Ministry of Defence - or perhaps to an M.P?
I look forward to receiving a reply to this question. In the meantime, I will continue to pursue this matter in any other way that I can.
Cordially,
Jeff Smith Maybe my plea wasn’t very subtle, but still I thought it might strike a sympathetic cord somewhere and maybe someone at that oddly spelled ministry would take pity on me and authorize some kind of token payment, and I would have been happy. It was more a matter of principle than money. I just wanted someone to say - you know, you’re right. Maybe we goofed and you should have been fully informed and maybe we owe you a buck or two and how about we send you X dollars and we’ll call it even. In your dreams Smith J (army spelling). This wasn’t just Behemoth. This was the British military. The British GOVERNMENT for heaven’s sakes. Can you get more bureaucratic than that? 12 October, 1992
Dear Mr. Smith:
Thank you for your letter of 28 August in reply to Miss Kinney’s letter of 18 August.
Firstly I should explain that your service records still exist. The records that have been destroyed are your pay records, which contained the information which we would require to validate your claim. I am sure that you will appreciate that without this documentary evidence there is nothing that we can do to prove your claim that you did not receive your War Gratuity.
You claim that you were unaware of any post-service benefits that you may have been entitled to in 1947. All these benefits were given wide publicity at the time. It might reasonably be expected, therefore, that you would have seen some of the information regarding your entitlement. For this reason, I cannot accept your statement that the Army somehow acted in a "grossly negligent" manner in not informing you of your rights. The information was available to you.
You might consider contacting the Royal British Legion for advice, but I should say that you are now in possession of all the facts concerning our inability to process your claim, and an approach through the RBL will only result in the same answer, that we no longer have the information to deal with your claim.
I hope this letter clarifies the position for you.
Your Sincerely.
J C KiteBy the time I finished reading this last letter, I had reached a few conclusions about the Ministry of "Defence." Everyone there except Miss Kinsey was gender neutral. These people were trained to sign their names with initials only, leaving the poor recipients to guess whether the writer was male, female or something in between. There also seemed to be a single person at the Ministry whose job it was to type all outgoing letters and who had almost no familiarity with the English language and absolutely no knowledge of the rules of punctuation. Depending on what the weather was on a particular day, or perhaps what the typist had for breakfast, outgoing letters would contain more or less numbers of commas, periods, quotation marks and other items of punctuation, but whatever the number they would always be randomly scattered throughout the narrative. And I also became fully aware that I wasn’t going to win any argument with this particular behemoth. But still, I couldn’t let that last letter go unanswered, could I??? October 20, 1992
Dear J.C. Kite:
I cannot say that I am surprised at the content of your letter of October 12.
It certainly clarifies the obvious. You are the bureaucracy. You deny that my claim has any validity. You make it very clear that there is no appeal. Case closed.
Nonetheless, I am compelled to make further comment in response to the illogic of your conclusions. I assert very strongly that I did not receive any such thing as a wart gratuity but I am willing to abide by whatever documentary evidence exists. (See my letter to M.T. Archer dated August 12, 1992). You say that you cannot validate this claim without documentary evidence and you’ve destroyed the only evidence that ever existed and so there is nothing you can do. My goodness J.C. Kite. What if other branches of government conducted themselves in this way? I might not even be able to prove my birth! Sorry Mr. Smith. All those records were destroyed in 1935. Therefore we cannot validate your assertion that you are alive.
You go on to say that the army wasn’t grossly negligent because there was publicity about war gratuities and notices in post offices. PUBLICITY??? Is that how people were supposed to know about service benefits due them in 1947 and 1948? Following that line of logic, I could give money to a beggar in the street and then be arrested for aiding and abetting a criminal because his picture is on a "wanted" poster in the post office, or the story of his crimes had been reported in the papers.
When and how is the official notification of such benefits conveyed to one about to leave the service? In what chapter and verse in published army literature is the method of notification described? Where are copies of the document or documents that were used to advice servicemen and ex-servicemen of these benefits?
I have a brother who is five years my senior who still lives in England and who served in world war two in Europe and the far east. He was discharged after the war - certainly WAY before the end of 1947. He received NO war gratuities that he can recall. He has never HEARD of war gratuities. And he’s in touch. He’s been going up to London for an ex-servicemen’s parade for 46 years.
As a matter of curiosity, I will explore this wide publicity that you say existed in 1947. I presume it was also well publicized in Germany, which is where I was stationed at the time. Perhaps I will ask one of England’s inquiring newspapers about such publicity and also what they think of this whole affair. Obviously I won’t contact the Royal British Legion. You’ve already told me what answer you would give to them.
I may never be able to get any war gratuities from my former country, but perhaps I can stir up some interest in shining the light of publicity on the way the Ministry of Defence handles the records of those who served their country and how it conveyed information to them, about benefits to which they may have been entitled.
Cordially,
Jeff SmithI really wasn’t expecting a reply, but it came anyway, confirming other conclusions that I had reached by this point in the exchange of correspondence. The people at the Ministry of Defence had no sense of humor and they were heartless bastards to boot! 30 October 1992
Dear Mr. Smith:
Thank you for your further letter concerning your claim that you did not receive a war gratuity payment for your service during World War 2.
War Gratuity payments were authorized by a Royal Warrant which was published under the reference Army Order 2/1946 (30/General A/156). This Warrant would have been available to all members of the Army.
As has been explained to you on previous occasions your discharge date meant you did not have to apply for your gratuity. It would have been paid to you automatically along with your Army pay at the time of your discharge.
With regards to your comments concerning the handling of your pay documents, I should explain that Army pay records are dealt with in exactly the same way as all other forms of financial records. There is no legal requirement for records of this type to be held for more than seven years, as after the expiry of this period all claims become null and void. This is not only true for the Armed Services, but is equally true of all financial transactions.
I have to tell you that there is nothing further that I can usefully say on the subject.
Yours Sincerely,So polite, these English. Even while telling me to get lost, they kept on insisting that they were my "sincerely." It was obvious that J.C. Kite and his ilk had nothing to do with actual military operations or World War 11 could have had a totally different outcome. On the other hand, he would probably be considered an inspirational genius by today’s Enrons and Arthur Andersons. To all intents and purposes, the Kite person’s last letter brought this particular losing Behemoth Battle to an end. Still.. I was curious about one thing…. December 22, 1982
Dear J.C:
Actually, despite the closing line of your October 30, 1992 letter, there is something that you may be able to "usefully say" with regard to my lost war gratuity payment.
Obviously my last army pay was for several weeks of service, and if there was an amount included that was a war gratuity, it may not have been large enough to be noticed. I would certainly have noticed and remembered anything substantial.
Therefore, as I continued to work on this mystery, it would be useful for me to know what the amount of the gratuity would have been, given my time of service and my rank, all of which information you have in previous correspondence.
Please excuse the informal salutation. J.C. really doesn’t convey much about gender.
Cordially,I figured as long as J.C. Kite and his colleagues wanted to be "sincere" in signing their letters, I could remain "cordial." But I never heard back from the Kite person, despite a follow up letter in April, 1993. I did carry on correspondence though, moving from agency to agency until I finally quit in May, 1994. There were a lot more letters, but I’m adding only one that sums up the sadly comical conclusion of this sorry affair. It is from the ARMY PENSIONS OFFICE Room 4198 Kentigern House 65 Brown Street Glasgow G2 8EX 14 April 1994
Dear Mr. Smith:
Thank you for your letter dated 24 February relating to a claim for a war gratuity.
Your original correspondence was forwarded to me from DSS to try and answer your claim for a gratuity although I have little to add which will be of any help to you.
Firstly I must point out that this office is not resourced to carry out searches into records of service to try to establish whether or not a payment is to be made. Our function is to assess pensions and gratuities on the basis of paperwork forwarded from the Manning and Records offices.
I did however do some research on your case and managed to obtain your service details from our repository at Hayes. There is very little additional information in your file other than you were discharged under Para 390(xvi) of the King’s Regulations 1940. On reading the relevant Para in relation to your case, you would have been eligible for the sum of œ1 (to be paid into your pay account) on the day you were discharged from hospital.
The article also stated that the payment of œ1 would only be made once any debits on the pay account had been cleared.
Your total service was 3 years 77 days of which only 364 days were reckonable toward pension (as you were under 18). At that time anyone medically discharged could claim pension if they had 5 years reckonable service. Unfortunately you would not have qualified.
I have been unable to find any regulation which states you are due a gratuity for your length of service although again anyone with 5 years reckonable service could qualify.
I apologize for the disappointing reply and can only confirm that I can be of no further assistance to you.
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. H Dimmer
For Officer in ChargeSo after all this time, here was someone, not only revealing her sex but telling me how much I WOULD have received for my war gratuity - a grand total of one pound sterling, provided of course that I didn’t owe the army that much or more. I’m not sure how much faith could be put in the accuracy of Mrs. Dimmer’s information because I was never able to find out if paragraph 390 of Kings Regulations actually had anything to do with war gratuities. It might have been some other kind of bonus payment, because she also said that there was no way I could ever get any kind of army pension, and some time later I was granted a token UK army disability pension which I receive to this very day. But even if she was confused about which regulation applied to war gratuities, the one pound mentioned by her probably wasn’t far off the mark because my pay scale at the time of my discharge could be counted in pennies!!! So assuming the amount was correct and assuming it was deposited in a post office account somewhere and left untouched for 44 years, here’s what would have happened. The pound in 1948 had a fixed dollar exchange rate of $4.30. Assuming an average of 7% interest compounded for 44 years, my lost fortune, had I been able to collect it, would have been $84!!!! But it was still worth the battle. If you don’t throw down the gauntlet to Behemoths, they win by default and if we let that happen we might as well follow the advice on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack which you can find posted on many a wall around the world. And that of course is to PUT YOUR HEAD BETWEEN YOUR LEGS AND KISS YOUR ASS GOODBYE. HOME
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