A Basic Guide To Complaining

It's the tops on milk bottles and the pull things on fruit juices that defeat me! I have to use pliers.

Yes - the threat might work, even if you have no intention of actually doing it...

No. Not everyone is on Twitter. But can be a good way to complain if you are.

Quite recently someone had some chicken from Ocado that smelt to high heaven when she opened it even though it was well within the use by date. She tweeted about it and very soon an Ocado manager tweeted her asking her to contact them so they could put it right.

Just saying. It can be a useful tool. Or even just threatening to put it online may well help.

I could not open a new bottle of Harpic this morning - asked OH and he had no luck either so had to go out to workshop and get some gripping tool to do it. I know they have to be childproof but they seem to be anyone proof! Wonder if they get many complaints.

We're not all on Twitter, jingl! Nor do some of us want to be...

Don't you just put it on Twitter these days? Naming and shaming the company?

And if you had any reason to have more problems than most - bad eyesight, arthritis, live alone, large hungry family, diabetic, then be sure to say so. don't suffer in silence. Most of their customers have some kind of individual problem, unlike the young/fit/free-spending people who designed and sell the product.

I was moved to write to Lipsyl to tell them that their lip salve was very good, but impossible to open if you have the least degree of arthritis in your fingers.

Before I even started opening the thing itself, I had to extract it from a strong cardboard backing with tough shrinkwrap over it - it would not press out at the line partly cut into the back. That took strong kitchen scissors to break open.

The tube itself was is enclosed in another shrinkwrap sleeve, with a dotted line around it on a level with the top of the cap, and in tiny letters it said "twist to open". I twisted it with all my strengthbut could not split the sleeve. It took a small sharp knife stabbed into it and worked underneath to start it off. On such a small thing, my other hand was dangerously near the blade on slippery plastic.

I wrote to them pointing out that a high percentage of their customers must be older ladies who would rather wear colourless lipsalve than lipstick, and were very likely to suffer from stiff fingers and lack of strength.

Two weeks later I received a letter from Lipsyl. Apparently no-one else had had any problems. They had, they said, been introducing new flavours to their range, and at the same time rethinking all their packaging. They were enclosing samples of the new flavours for me.

They smelt lovely - melon, pineapple, peppermint. However, I could not open them.

I remember only too well how not to do it. In the early years of our marriage I had taken a day off work (no pay) to stay in for Peter Jones to deliver a new duvet (I think) to our flat in London. It was a Monday and they had not been able to specify am or pm so there I waited until 5 to 6 in the evening when I lost patience and rang the store. After venting my spleen for about 10 minutes I paused for breath and a little voice replied"I am sorry, madam, but the store is closed on Mondays and you are talking to the night watchman"
Collapse of stout party - only aggravated by van drawing up outside before I had even finished my apologies with, of course, our delivery.