Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Haggling Day

Quick post just to commemorate my haggling day -_-

I had to make phone calls to energy supplier companies today since my energy contracts are finishing soon. I spent 30 min on the phone, which was not too bad since i was calling 2 different companies, but most of the time I was put on hold. Origin was not too bad, their on hold messages were actually tips on how to save money on your energy bills i.e. turning off appliances rather than putting it on stand by. AGL was "One of our operators will be with you shortly" repeatedly with like 10 seconds gap in between. It was loud too. I had to turn my phone volume down a bit.

But at least my effort was rewarded!! After days researching and comparing gas and electricity rates of numerous companies including Integral, Dodo, AGL, Energy Australia, Origin, TRU, and something that I can't remember but has blue in their logo, spending my lunch breaks researching, late night bill analysing, I finally got the best deal out of AGL ^^ Well.. i hope so lol :P They offered me the highest discount, and I was already tired researching so yeah sign me up please lol :P But I still have 10 days cooling off period, so if you know anything cheaper than AGL, please do tell me, I'd very appreciate it :)

And then, my 3 bill last month was $71 -_- I'm on 29 cap, so seeing $71 was a surprise for me. I know you guys out there spend A LOT of money on mobile and $29 cap is not enough, but for me $29 is sometimes more than enough. I looked at the bill and found out that it was because i was over my data usage by 170 MB??????? What did I download??? I didn't download anything!! I downloaded manga yes, but only at home and I always use my wireless internet connection. Same thing with apps, I download most if not all my apps at home...there must be a mistake.. also, it was stated that I used up to 100 mb just on 17 Jun. THAT IS WEIRD :/ 1 day of 100 MB???

So I went to 3 store QVB after being convinced my colleague to complain. They say it can be sorted out in the store anyway, no need to call customer care and wait for a long time. But when I told the manager (I assumed he was the manager since he was the only one staying at the register for a long time staring at the monitor) about my issue, hm..
1. He didn't really pay attention or looked at my bills seriously.
2. He straight away say I can't check your usage here, we don't have the capability to check it in our system, so you better call 3 care and they can check it out for you.
3. He didn't ask if I knew the number.
4. He didn't seem he cared

I'm not too happy about him :/ I should have answered the poll thingy on the counter. It's okay if he can't check it, but his face and attitude didn't show me that he actually cared about what I was asking him. It was like "Well... I can't check it here, so just call customer care." that kind of attitude? *sigh

Oh well, at least my waiting time was less than 5 min. Last time I went to the store, I was standing there for 10 minutes before someone actually said hi to me. And 2 of the staffs were actually hanging around the counter chatting. Eh wait... it was the QVB store again... why did I go back there? Coz that's the closest one after I got off the bus.. right.... well obviously not because of their good service lol :p

And that was a quick post :P

Good night everyone! :)

JuJu Japanese Tavern - Not Coming Back -_-"

Had dinner at JuJu @kings cross last Friday night with my uni friends. I actually was worried since the day before. I had made a reservation for 8 people, however another friend joined in, so i wanted to add 1 more. When i was trying to find the phone number on eatability, i stumbled upon people's reviews on JuJu. They all said the same thing "this restaurant used to be very good few years back but now they're going downhill. Food is bad and the service is bad." What worried me was those reviews were written just in June or May this year. So they were recent reviews!

We arrived at 8 and asked for bills around 11. The food was great, just like how it used to be. All of us agreed their yukke is the best so far. Ox tongue and tuna salad were good too. Sukiyaki was a bit too sweet but still okay. HOWEVER, the food took SO LONG to come. We got water after the 2nd entree was served (after asking for it many many times!! I thought water should be the first thing seved, even BEFORE the menu -_-).

Sukiyaki arrived at our table after 9.30 and they gave excuses that bcoz the sukiyaki stove takes a lot of place on the table, they wanted to wait till we finish other dishes. Well, hellooooo how can we finish our meals if the rice haven't arrived yet?? My table was fine coz we got our rice, but my friends table didn't get any. They had to ask 3 times!! The rice finally came after more than 30 min after they enquired about it the first time -_- " if it was my table, i might have already complained about it 10 min after i asked the first time . Also, if they were waiting for us, cant they ask?? The dish served before sukiyaki WASN'T EVEN an entree!!!!! It was main meal!! We would still accept it if it was entree, but it was main meal! and they expected us to finish it first? What if that one is just for 1 of us, and they rest wanted sukiyaki? DO WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR OUR FRIEND TO FINISH DINNER THEN WE CAN EAT????? Goodness!! We didn't know they were waiting for us, none of the staff told us anything! It was more than half an hour after that last dish came, surely it was WAY too long and they should have told us or ASK when we ordered? Other restaurants ask how we want our meals to come -_-" We just ate slowly since we thought we were waiting for it! Also, u know sukiyaki has soup. They didn't give us ANY spoons. We had to ASK for them. My table got stainless stell spoons. The other table got chinese soup spoons. See how inconsistent they are?

Guess what was the only thing they gave us in reasonable time? The bill.

They weren't even that busy -_-" We looked around and we noticed that all tables only had 1 group of customers that night. The turnover wasn't there. And they could ran out of rice? *laughing* How embarassing if it was MY restaurant. Also, shouldn't they calculate?? When it's almost running out, COOK AGAIN for god's sake! MY rice cooker takes 30 min the most to cook rice, how come theirs took more than that???? Did they have to pick the rice, take the skin off, and finally cooked it? Geess!

I'm not planning to come back there unless i had to. And when I checked with my friends, they agreed. NOT coming back on our freewill. We'll only go if it isn't us who pick the place. As for me, only if it's not me who picks the place, and if I fail on CONVINCING my friends on what a horrible experience I had there.

Good night all!


PS: No photos, WAY too hungry -_-"

Thursday, August 11, 2011

HSBC Credit Card Cash Back

Just want to share with you guys about my experience with HSBC and how nice they are :)

Last year, I applied for HSBC credit card when they had the $50 cash back. Basically I had to spend $500 on my credit card for the first 3 months and I'll get $50 cash back. Around Feb this year, I realised that I haven't got the $50. So I called. They said it might take up to 6 months for the cash back, so please wait and call them again if I haven't got it 6 months after I joined.

Being a lazy girl, I just remembered about it around 1-2 months ago :P Soooo I called again, asking for it. The girl on the phone said she'll look into it and get back to me soon. And it was soon. Few hours after, she rang me back saying unfortunately that offer finished on 30 Sep 2010 while I applied on 1 Oct 2010. I was in the office and it would take time for me to find any evidence so I said okay, I don't have my letters with me here anyway. So pretty much whatever.

However, around last week, I remembered about it again and dug my mailbox and voila! I found the email I got when I applied for it, dated 27 Sep 2010 ^^ Yayyy this is the good thing of NEVER deleting my emails unless it's junk :p Sooooooo, since i'm tired of calling and explaining (I'm much better in writing), I wrote a message explaining everything including the call I did 1-2 months ago saying I applied on 1 Oct. And said I have the email with me and would like to send it to them, so please respond to the message. 1 day after I got a phone call acknowledging my request and the girl said she thinks I was right. If my credit card was approved on 1 Oct, meaning I applied BEFORE 1 Oct. So she wanted to submit this issue to Investigation Department. Guess what :) The day after she called again and said she just credited $50 into my card. Hoorayyyyyy ^^

I'm very happy with their call centre. The girls who dealt with me were very nice, including the one who was actually wrong. She was still nice and sounded genuinely very helpful. And they responded to me within 1 day of request. Very happy :)