The Garage 354

OPINION
GET A FREE TV
WHEN YOU BUY
ANY PIZZA
*Terms & conditions may apply.
*I hate reading that sentence, I feel it gives someone
the right to deliberately mislead.
By Onkar Chahal
Sounds good, right? But that only applies to pizza’s bought
on the fourth Sunday of every other month. On a full moon.
Of any odd numbered year. Delivery orders not included.
Neither is the power lead.
Sounded good, but when you delve further it’s not really that
good, is it?
I bought a car that needed two tyres so I called my local tyre
depot & made enquiries into price & availability. Bridgestone
were running an offer of an Amazon voucher for any pair bought.
I bought two tyres, gave my details & waited for the voucher.
Except there wasn’t one. Retail sales only & my invoice had a
business address. A bit of email back & forth with customer
services & I eventually received my voucher for £20. Bingo!
The point is this, why have T&C’s in the first place? Did I buy two
tyres? Yes. Here’s the voucher. Simple. In the reply I was told they
were excluding fleet sales & company car drivers from the offer.
But tyre’s sold are tyre’s sold, right?
Years ago I ran a summer offer for an air conditioning service
for £35. The check was quick, easy & providing it passed, the
refill was cheap as we were predominately recycling their old gas
anyway. The gas bottle was about £60 & I could get 12-15 jobs
from a tank. I didn’t feel the need for T&C’s and they were literally
queuing up outside.
Then the Big Japanese import came in, with its twin a/c system.
Great, there goes any profit from that job! The owner knew it had
a twin system & that he was saving money, that’s why he brought
it in to me clutching the voucher as if his life depended upon it!
There were two ways I could have handled this situation,
honour the offer or decline it, I decided to just get on with the
job. I pulled a load of gas out of his system, held the vac for 30
minutes & fired it back in, probably using no more of my gas than
a usual large saloon would have needed. Luckily the system was
in good working order & I didn’t need to fill it from empty, I rolled
the dice & it went my way. Customer was happy as he felt he beat
the system & I was happy as it didn’t cost me much more than a
regular job. The following day he brought his wife’s car in & sent
3 other customers to me over the next few days. My summer
promotion worked with no T&C’s, I made money & built my
customer base.
Whilst at university my daughter worked for a large fashion
chain during the summer & the store held a staff competition,
whoever opened the most credit accounts by the end of the
month won £100. She won, but when she asked for the money the
manager told her that she missed the target.
What target? Turns out he omitted to tell her to she had to
open more than 100 to get it. Hold the phones, first it was who
sold the most, now it’s a minimum number? That’s not cricket,
so the next month she sold……none. Couldn’t be bothered.
Disenchanted, disengaged, call it what you will. I still buy tyres,
just not Bridgestone. A bit harsh? Probably, but like I said I didn’t
appreciate having to email them.
For me,T&C’s just don’t work. Keep it simple. Keep it honest.
10 THE GARAGE
10 Opinion Onkar.indd 1 30/08/2023 15:01