More positively concluded cases - August 5, 2007

Further to the references made on July 22 and July 29 regarding featuring positively concluded cases, I had some positive feedback. I was asked to feature more resolved cases. After all, on reflection, the traders concerned deserve recognition. Therefore, here follow two more positively concluded cases:

J.F. Motors

This case dates back to February. Many letters were exchanged but what really matters is the following concluding letter sent by a satisfied customer:-

Kindly refer to my letter dated June 25. Following that letter, I received an acknowledgement dated June 27 and a copy of a letter from John P. Farrugia (general manager, J.F. Motors) dated May 31. In this letter, Mr Farrugia claimed that his company is more than willing to settle the issue in question by offering me the service parts equivalent in value to the part being claimed, that is Lm72.

As you know, Mr Farrugia had already made this offer to me in a previous letter dated March 26. However, at the time I had decided to refuse this offer since I did not need any car-parts or servicing material. When I received the second copy of the letter, in which Mr Farrugia again showed willingness to settle this issue, I decided there and then to take him up on his offer. I immediately contacted him and told him that I accepted his offer. A few days later I went to the company's spare parts department and collected some servicing material equivalent in value to the part that was being claimed.

Had I received Mr Farrugia's letter dated May 31 earlier, this issue would have been resolved a lot sooner. But as the saying goes, all's well that ends well. So, in keeping with your request, I wish to thank Mr Farrugia for honouring my claim in a gentlemanly manner. But most of all I wish to thank you for your co-operation in this matter and the sterling service you are giving to aggrieved customers in general. (Peter Farrugia)

On my part, I thank Mr Farrugia, general manager J.F. Motors Ltd, for his co-operation.

Melita Cable

Here follows Melita Cable's reply to Mr Mario Gatt's complaint:

We are in receipt of your letter addressed to Adrian Muscat Inglott and copied to us dated July 17. We are aware of the difficulties many customers are encountering when trying to get through to our offices and we can fully understand the frustration, to say the very least. We are working on installing a new telephone system that will take a larger volume of calls; thus the problem will ease in the next couple of weeks. We have many incoming calls because all customers who need either technical assistance, billing queries or general enquires need to spend quite some time talking to our staff, so of course this does jam the other calls trying to come through, especially at peak hours.

Under my instructions my personal assistant, Roberta Tabone, contacted you this morning to convey our sincere apologies in the mix-up of the installation date we gave you which, of course, added insult to injury.

We are grateful that you have accepted our apologies and we really hope that you will never encounter any further problems with Melita Cable. We value your custom and want you to be a satisfied customer. Please feel free to call me directly on my mobile (number given) should you require any further assistance if you do not manage to get through to our office over the next couple of weeks.

Once again we would like to apologise for the inconvenience this has caused. Thanking you for your kind attention. (Philip Micallef, chief executive officer, Melita Cable, plc)

Here follows another former complainant expressing his satisfaction:

Kindly refer to my letter of July 17.

Mr Philip Micallef (CEO, Melita Cable) for and on behalf of Melita Cable, has accepted and admitted the shortcomings that I pointed out, and promised that the difficulties encountered to get through on their telephone lines will be shortly rectified. Apologies for the mix-up of the installations dates came also through Roberta Tabone, his personal assistant.

The professional customer orientation of the above was enough for me to accept their apologies. You have been one of the pioneers in educating and establishing a code of ethics between the consumer and the provider. May I take this opportunity to thank you for all you have done. (Mario Gatt)

I add my compliments to Mr Micallef and his personal assistant Ms Tabone on their customer orientation. Moreover, I thank Mr Farrugia and Mr Gatt for their comments in my regard.

Generally, in such cases, the respective consumers end up with a better impression of the respective suppliers/traders involved than they would have had if there were no problems in the first place.