Act Now!

Oh no! A brown envelope with important documents enclosed, is it from the Inland Revenue? The DVLA? Or are they putting my poll tax up to £900 per month so they can afford a bit of tarmac to fill the twenty six million holes I seem to find on every car journey?

It's full of bamboozling words and concerns, it's starts with a worrying 'Doesn't time fly?', a quick scan revealed phrases like 'A small price to pay' and 'We save you hassle'. 'Minor hiccup or major mishap' leaps out at you followed by 'you can stop worrying'

See what I mean? I'm really worried now, calamity! mishaps! accident! What do I have to lose?

Well actually quite a lot, for the letter is nothing more than a scare mongering attempt to get you to take out extended warranty on an electrical product. Basically it's telling me my world will end if my iPad stopped working and for a nominal annual fee of £95 I can have piece of mind.

Hang on, let me get that right, for £95 A third of the cost of a new one you guarantee to sort it out if I break it?

Well, no not really, we won't touch it with a barge pole if it shows signs of wear (!?!), cosmetic damage, misuse (oh, I'm sorry, I thought my iPad was one of them new fangled hover boards we were promised all those years ago, I didn't realise you couldn't stand on it), inoperability caused by other people, damage due to weather conditions, repairs that aren't approved and theft or any other loss other than repair or replacement (!?!)

Anything else you need to tell me in your agreement?

Ahh, we'll there is one other thing...

What's that?

It's only a small thing...

Ok, tell me then.

We will not be responsible for any failure to carry out our obligations under this contract and...

Yes...

And furthermore you must do all you reasonably can to keep our costs of providing our service as low as possible and allow us into your home or office at all reasonable times.

Ahh.

You are joking of course? No? So basically you want me to buy into a stupid extended warranty for a third of the price of a new item, for that I get a replacement should I have a mishap as long as it fits your terms of mishap and I should not really put you out if I need your services and finally I need to mail you my house keys so you can come and go as you please as long as its at a reasonable time. Oh, and I nearly forgot you are also going to pass my details on to other service providers unless I take the time to write a letter outlining my disapproval of you doing so and send it to your head office.

No go ahead I'm feeling rather rakish today, here's my £95 good fellow go and have a ball, meanwhile I will be ever so careful with my iPad as I do not wish to put you out in any way whatsoever. If I did have a mishap, perish the thought, I will pay your bus fare and buy you dinner to save on your costs, if you have to come a long way I have a spare room you could use completely free. Sign me up for the extra mailings too, my last penis enlarger broke so I could do with a torrent of unsolicited mail into my inbox and to clutter up my hallway. Of course I completely understand if you tell me to flick off, after all it's in your agreement.

As you may have gathered it went in the bin.

Maybe a little bit of TV, after all what could possibly be annoying about a cooking program like Mastercheffy?

Well, remember the bit where they get to work in a 'real' kitchen with 'real' customers so Joe Public straight off the street gets to put them under pressure?

Only it doesn't happen like that, a quick glimpse of the menu using the nifty freeze frame button last night revealed a special sitting that had to be booked at the restaurant where a 'BBC Cookery Series' was going to be filmed. Disappointing really, everyone knew they were being filmed and numbers were known beforehand, still at least it didn't come with extended warranty.

Or in the case of my Internet provider no Facebook. This has been like this for a year now, I type in Facebook and I get 'Oh, I'm sorry you thicky that Facebooky thing you asked me to find doesn't exist in my world go and buy yourself an extended warranty and I may fix it'.

Ahh, that's better at least one thing made me chuckle this morning when a nifty take away menu fluttered to to floor.