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Alpha characters

(14 Posts)
petra Mon 18-May-15 17:37:53

I've been trying to fill in a complaint form on line.
They keep telling me that my address must be in alpha character.
I've read all the blurb online, and still none the wiser.
I've written the address as you normally would with upper and lower case.
........................................................................ all lower case.
........................................................................all capitals.
No joy. Help.

Elegran Mon 18-May-15 17:45:54

I have looked up "alpha characters" and the definition seems to be "Alpha characters, more often called alphanumeric, are designed for computers and are comprised of the 26 alphabetic characters and the 10 Arabic numerals." so I don't know why what you have tried doesn't work.

If everyone hits the same problem, there won't be many complaints getting through - which they will probably interpret as meaning that no-one has any complaints!

Can you phone them? Preferably free!

Ana Mon 18-May-15 17:48:46

Is there a number in your address? If so, try writing it using letters.

Although that would be daft, because of course there's the postcode...confused

pompa Mon 18-May-15 17:49:57

Yes usually means no \/?[]{}!"£$%^&*()_+ etc

durhamjen Mon 18-May-15 17:50:14

Does it mean without spaces?

durhamjen Mon 18-May-15 17:50:31

Or without commas?

petra Mon 18-May-15 18:43:59

Thanks for replies. I'm on the same wavelength as, Elegran. No ones complaining!!!
I'm emailing them after making a phone call where someone told me that they would contact the branch manager to get him to give me a call, which didn't happen, hence the email.

Mishap Mon 18-May-15 18:50:57

You might like to send an email indicating that you intend to go onto their twitter and facebook pages and say that it is impossible to make a complaint. I am told that this is a very effective boot up the nethers these days.

petra Mon 18-May-15 18:55:22

Not on twitter, but have posted on Facebook.

Mishap Mon 18-May-15 19:03:50

...anf you need to tell them that is what you have done.

petra Mon 18-May-15 20:05:09

Amazing. They have replied to me on Facebook. Perhaps that's the only way that they know how to communicate now.

Anne58 Mon 18-May-15 20:11:36

In my experience it seems to work every time! Contacting/complaining via their own website, and only they see it, but put a comment on their Facebook page...........grin

shysal Tue 19-May-15 17:02:19

The same has happened to me, and I found that I had to leave out the punctuation, such as the comma after the house number.

pompa Tue 19-May-15 17:08:30

This is an example of poor programming, it is easy for the programmer to strip out punctuation marks before processing an address.