Greyhound - having a laugh?

Gotham Knight

I'm sure I'm not the only Greyhound customer that feels insulted by the outrageous statements in the letter announcing their latest price changes.

The letter tells me I am a "valued customer" whose business they "never take for granted". It goes on to describe their new price plans with bold-type phrases such as "Great news!", "It's hugely attractive" and "Better still".

'Great' I thought, a drop in cost, but no, on reading further I discover that the plan they recommend to "best suit my requirements" involves an increase of 73% on the amounts I paid last year.

They've removed the pay by weight option so we now have to hoard our waste for longer to get best value from each lift. Of course they will still send their trucks round on the usual schedule... crazy! I'm sure there must be households out there who generate much most waste than I do and they will be better off with a fixed annual fee, but what about smaller households who are being screwed here? Surely pay by weight is the fairest way to charge?

Whilst the increased charges and elimination of the most cost-effective option are annoying in themselves what really irks me is the grossly insulting letter which tries to tell me that I am better off now, when the opposite is plainly true. I genuinely cannot work out whether they are stupid enough to believe what they write or whether they are taking the p*ss.

I can see why local councils outsourced this, as the charges have clearly been uneconomic for some time and now they have a private company to take all the flak and keep putting up costs.

How much more of this do we have to take?

slimjimmc

Gotham Knight wrote: »

How much more of this do we have to take?

Meh, the bulk of the country hasn't seen council collections and has been suffering this for decades. Negotiate a better deal or change provider if that's possible.

Truman Burbank

Gotham Knight wrote: »

I'm sure I'm not the only Greyhound customer that feels insulted by the outrageous statements in the letter announcing their latest price changes.

The letter tells me I am a "valued customer" whose business they "never take for granted". It goes on to describe their new price plans with bold-type phrases such as "Great news!", "It's hugely attractive" and "Better still".

'Great' I thought, a drop in cost, but no, on reading further I discover that the plan they recommend to "best suit my requirements" involves an increase of 73% on the amounts I paid last year.

They've removed the pay by weight option so we now have to hoard our waste for longer to get best value from each lift. Of course they will still send their trucks round on the usual schedule... crazy! I'm sure there must be households out there who generate much most waste than I do and they will be better off with a fixed annual fee, but what about smaller households who are being screwed here? Surely pay by weight is the fairest way to charge?

Whilst the increased charges and elimination of the most cost-effective option are annoying in themselves what really irks me is the grossly insulting letter which tries to tell me that I am better off now, when the opposite is plainly true. I genuinely cannot work out whether they are stupid enough to believe what they write or whether they are taking the p*ss.

I can see why local councils outsourced this, as the charges have clearly been uneconomic for some time and now they have a private company to take all the flak and keep putting up costs.

How much more of this do we have to take?

You are absolutely correct in your summation of this unbelievably juvenile letter. The prices have gone up significantly - will get back when I get the percentage, think around 40% at a glance. You would probably have gotten a hundred replies on AH. For those who know in this forum, is a company allowed to do this? "We believe that the plan we selected is the best one for you insofar as it best meets your requirements both in terms of value for money and the number of bin lifts". This is false.

07734

Truman Burbank wrote: »

You are absolutely correct in your summation of this unbelievably juvenile letter. The prices have gone up significantly - will get back when I get the percentage, think around 40% at a glance. You would probably have gotten a hundred replies on AH. For those who know in this forum, is a company allowed to do this? "We believe that the plan we selected is the best one for you insofar as it best meets your requirements both in terms of value for money and the number of bin lifts". This is false.

Same here. In my case, the "plan" they put me on was the most expensive of the 3 available given my usage. Chancers!!

Still, they can charge what they want, it's up to me to price around, and move if necessary. There was a long and very detailed thread in here a while back going through all the providers, comparing prices/service. Can't find it now, but it was a great read.

Truman Burbank

07734 wrote: »

Same here. In my case, the "plan" they put me on was the most expensive of the 3 available given my usage. Chancers!!

Still, they can charge what they want, it's up to me to price around, and move if necessary. There was a long and very detailed thread in here a while back going through all the providers, comparing prices/service. Can't find it now, but it was a great read.

Same here, the most expensive of the 3 plans. Of the 2 providers for our area, am happy with Greyhound on service, and price is comparable (if you pick yourself). My question again thou - let's say a Vodafone bill-pay contract was due for renewal on October 1st, could Vodafone automatically switch a customer over to Vodafone's most expensive plan and then write to said customer saying it was the best suited plan for that customer in terms of price and usage (i.e. lie)?

How many customers does Greyhound have and how many will twig it?

blueturnip

We are the same. They put us on plan 1. We were on the middle one, we don't generate too much rubbish so the bins only go out once a month.

Will have to ring and get them to put us back.

Cheek!!

mhtc

Truman Burbank wrote: »

Same here, the most expensive of the 3 plans. Of the 2 providers for our area, am happy with Greyhound on service, and price is comparable (if you pick yourself). My question again thou - let's say a Vodafone bill-pay contract was due for renewal on October 1st, could Vodafone automatically switch a customer over to Vodafone's most expensive plan and then write to said customer saying it was the best suited plan for that customer in terms of price and usage (i.e. lie)?

How many customers does Greyhound have and how many will twig it?

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. The letter is blatantly misleading, surely breaking some code of advertising or whatever? They put us on Plan 1 also, by far the most expensive of the 3. Talking about ~70% of an increase. The "best" option would still be ~35% of an increase.

That's on top of last years increase which has worked out to be +50%! Thorntons it is then.