A very loud silence - indeed too loud

I received the following letter in response to an item with the above heading carried on June 29:

We have been instructed to write to you on behalf of Messrs Muscat Universal Ltd operating the shop 'Babyline', situated in Hospital Street, Pietà (as Guardamangia does not exist any more, you may wish to note) and make reference to the contents of the article you chose to publish in your column.

As you certainly recall, the issue related to whether Mr Ivan Vella, your complainant, was to benefit from a 15% discount offered by our clients when one purchased old stock, considering that the items which Mr Vella actually purchased were part of a consignment which had just been received.

Our clients are indeed taken aback by the comments you single-handedly chose to publish, which comments are both incorrect and unfair as well as libellous in their part and as a result, our clients are, by the present reserving their right to take legal action against you and your publisher, for the slanderous comments you made.

It does appear that your assiduity in tackling customers' complaints is not the same when a settlement is reached. As a matter of fact, you may wish to know that Mr Vella has been granted a further discount by our clients, on a bona gratia basis, in order to retain the good client relationship that our clients have been renowned for throughout the years.

Your letter mentioned various correspondence from your part which, you allege, remained unanswered. These letters, which amount to nothing more a simple postcard-size cardboard fill-in-the-blanks note with no contact information on your part, save the P.O. Box address, cannot be ever considered as correspondence and referring to such letters as correspondence is misleading to all, including your readers.

On the other hand, it does appear that you chose not to refer to the correspondence which our client actually sent or copied to you. As a matter of fact, on January 28, a letter was sent to Mr Vella and copied to you, wherein a refund offer was granted.

This letter was also faxed to The Sunday Times that same day. No confirmation of receipt was received from you at any stage. On the other hand, the customer Ivan Vella did contact our clients a couple of days later, went to their offices in order to collect the refund and signed a note, on the same letter, stating that he had no further claims on the matter.

In May, our client received a "second reminder" (sic) from you, always by means of your postcard-size cardboard note, to which an e-mail was duly sent to you on May 12 informing you that a settlement had been reached.

As no further communication was ever received from you or Mr Vella, since the latter was fully aware that the issue had been settled, the above-mentioned article was indeed very unexpected and uncalled for.

Furthermore, such an article, considering its background as above described, leads one to query as to whether you had the decency of verifying the facts with your complainant prior to writing your article. This is being stated as, in the case in point, you were not acting on behalf of an unsatisfied client, as the issue had actually already been settled months before the article was published. This would inevitably mean that you were writing solely in your own personal capacity, thus exposing you to libel.

In view of the above, while reiterating that our client reserves the right to take legal action for slander against you and your publishers, you are being requested to publish both the contents of this letter as well as a public apology to make amends for the inconvenience and bad advertising which your uncalled for article brought about to our client. (Dr Francesco Depasquale)

It is sad, indeed tragic, to note Muscat's Universal Ltd's total reluctance to communicate with us despite having given them more than a fair opportunity to give us their side of the case. Obviously, had they informed us that the matter was resolved, I would not have single-handedly chosen to publish what Dr Depasquale considers incorrect and unfair comments. Indeed, it would have been downright stupid to do so.

I stress that I received no communication whatsoever from Muscat's Universal Ltd before going to print. This is exactly why, as correctly stated in Dr Depasquale's letter, they received no confirmation of receipt from us at any stage. In the end they chose to communicate with me through a lawyer after I published the case.

However, what makes it worse is that, in the absence of any valid arguments to justify his client's non-communicative stance, Dr Depasquale chose to adopt a condescending stance. Come on, this is not fair.

Regarding the condescendingly referred to "simple postcard-size cardboard fill-in-the-blanks, etc.", we have been using them for the last ten years with positive results. We receive between 30 to 70 letters a week (our record week's mail was over 80) and my Saturday assistant Claire wouldn't cope without these cards.

What readers see in the column is the "tip of the tip" of the iceberg. In well over 90 per cent of the cases referred to this column, unlike Muscat's Universal Ltd, suppliers/ traders duly reply to our "postcard-size cards" with their comments. Hence most cases, particularly resolved cases, are not published. Indeed Dr Depasquale's clients proved to be an exception to the rule by not replying.

The address on the cards, as appropriately used by Dr Depasquale, is the only address to which correspondence about cases involving complaints can be sent to. For as long as I have been compiling this column I never had a complaint about "no contact information on my part, save the P.O. Box address" on our cards. What other address does Dr Depasquale expect us to print? Indeed to what number did his clients allegedly fax a letter on January 28? Do they have proof that they did indeed send this fax? I never received this.

And to which e-mail address did they allegedly send me an e-mail on May 12? I never received this. Why didn't Muscat's Universal Ltd send these letters to the address printed on the cards just like Dr Depasquale did? If we were to give more than one address, it would generate confusion.

As has been clearly demonstrated in this case, it makes sense to have all mail centralised to one address. I dare say the address quoted in our cards satisfies traders/suppliers' need, out of sheer necessity, to communicate with me. Apart from the correspondence sent by Mr Vella, Dr Depasquale's letter (carried above) is the one and only communication we received from the suppliers/traders' side and that is because it was the only correctly addressed letter.

In this case, over six months, we sent Dr Depasquale's clients six cards asking for their comments, thus giving them more than a fair opportunity to give us their side of the case, albeit to no avail. These were sent on December 3, 2002; January 14, February 4; March 25, and on May 6, all to no avail.

However, on a positive note, for what it's worth, we have confirmation from Dr Depasquale (as seen in his letter) that his clients did receive the said cards. Over and above these cards, on January 27, Mr Vella sent Muscat's Universal Ltd and us a copy of his original November 24, 2002, letter as another reminder, still to no avail. As stated above, this was chased by three cards from us, to no avail.

Generally, regarding verification of the facts with a particular focus on whether cases are resolved or not, I have learned from experience that it is only fair to verify the facts with the complained about trader or supplier. I never feature any complaint case without having first given the suppliers or traders more than a fair opportunity to give me their side of the case, which is exactly what I did in this case. Moreover, as can be seen, it is also stipulated in this column's terms and conditions that "complainants are kindly requested to inform me if the complaint is positively resolved".

Unfortunately, however, many complainants do not bother to inform us when their case is resolved. In full awareness that in many cases this is a thankless task, all we expect from complainants is to inform us if and when their cases are resolved. In this case, Mr Vella did not bother to inform us that the matter was resolved and this is why, to be fair, we sent Dr Depasquale's clients all those requests for their comments.

Obviously, it was in their interest to inform us that the case was resolved. However, for some reason, they chose not to. All they had to do was to write to me at the address, clearly printed on the cards as follows: "The Customer Service Column, The Sunday Times, PO Box 328, Valletta CMR 01, Malta" just like Dr Depasquale did.

Ironically, Dr Depasquale's comments regarding the "correspondence" constitute one hell of a Freudian slip on his part. As the old saying goes, "it takes two to tango", but in this case it was all one-sided because the only efforts made to communicate were on our part. Yes, the heading was very appropriate, "A very loud silence, indeed too loud", from Muscat's Universal Ltd.

Finally, in response to Dr Depasquale's parting shot, I am well aware of his clients' right to take legal action and I am perfectly comfortable with that. I do not owe Muscat's Universal Ltd an apology nor will I demand an apology from them for ignoring all our repeated requests for their comments. An apology is only valid when it is genuinely forthcoming. However I am pleased to note that the case has been resolved to the customer's satisfaction. That is all we expect to be informed about.

Editor's note: Last Thursday Dr Depasquale sent us copies of the letters which, as Mr Muscat Inglott explained, we had not received prior to the article featured on June 29.