Fees, fees, fees

Excuse the rant today, but I've just been looking at bank fees and medical aid costs, and it's ****ing ridiculous.

My bank used to give cheque books free; now I have to pay R17.50. I also have to pay a 'monthly management fee' of R17.50 - just for the privilege of letting them keep my money. If you want to query a debit order after 40 days (which is quite possible, since you only get a statement every 30 days), you have to pay them R125 for the privilege of saying that someone took money out of your account when they shouldn't have! Withdrawals, or using your debit card at a shop, costs R3.10 + 0.6% of the amount of cash you're using, up to a maximum of R14. Same goes for debit orders, too. That's just insane, and I get so angry but there's nothing we can do. And banks overseas prove that it is possible for banks to make money without all these fees - my banking in the UK was 100% free: no cash withdrawal fees, no debit order fees, no debit card fees, no monthly fees, no annual card fees. So why do we just sit here and get ripped off?!

Medical Aids are the next issue. Gone are the days when medical aids actually acted as medical aids, in that they would pay your doctor's bills, and everyone paid into a fund which paid for everyone's claims. It's moved more to a model where you paid a monthly amount for potential hospital cover (which hopefully you'll never use), and the day to day expenses (dentists, doctors) you pay for yourself. But the amount that you're having to pay for this hospital insurance (because that's what it is, even if they don't call it that is insanely expensive and an absolute rip-off. The plan I used to be on before I left for the UK is now R745 per month - and I get absolutely *nothing* from that, unless I'm unlucky enough to need hospitalization. Luckily my salary can cover that without a problem, but what about normal average income earners? And why should I have to pay such a huge amount every single month? Because medical aids now exist for the benefit of their shareholders, and not their members. Same goes for the banks.

And to add insult to injury, try getting details of bank fees from the bank site; or get the details (limits and sublimits) for the medical aid options. Not so easy. Lots of blurb, but very little detail. Take my money if you have to, but don't try to distract me with blurb! If I have to pay the money, I damn well want to know what I'm paying, what I'm paying it for, and what I'm getting for it.

Allfreight: A Review

Here's a quick review of Allfreight International (allfreight.co.uk).

In summary, they're okay as far as they go, but that's not very far. Their best point is that they're cheap; far cheaper than anyone else that I looked at. The two worst points are that their website is mostly incorrect; and that they don't manage the process past the point that they put it on the ship.

Starting at the beginning: they were pretty helpful with inquiries that I had, and their website was very informative. You can order box delivery and collection online, which is great.

Their website is often incorrect, though. The site says you can pay via bank transfer, but in reality you don't have that option (neither for the deposit for the boxes nor for the actual shipping).

The site says that you can check on the site the morning of the box delivery/collection to see whether it's morning or afternoon; in reality, they send you an sms the day before to remind you, and you have to phone them in the morning to find out which 4 hour slot your delivery/collection will be in. On the good side, they do seem to be fairly accurate, and when they're delayed they do let you know.

The boxes were delivered fine, and you get bubblewrap with them; you're supposed to get packing tape as well, but somehow I didn't get any.

Boxes are only collected from the ground floor; again, the website says that the driver will phone you about 20 minutes before he arrives so that you have time to take boxes down; in reality, I had about 1 minute warning. Luckily I had space in the entry hall and had taken the boxes down early.

The website was never updated with the correct invoice details, however. They say you can track your shipment online, but you can't. I received an email saying that my boxes had been shipped, and only a week or so later was the website updated to reflect this. The email gave me the vessel details, and the details of the local agent - although the website said that they are their own agents in SA. The email said the vessel sailed on the 23rd and was due on the 9th; and that the local agent would contact me one week prior to the vessel's arrival. This was the last I heard from Allfreight. (Incidentally, the same email was sen to all Allfreight customers who had boxes on that ship, and all the email addresses were visible to all recipients - which is very bad business practice).

Nobody contacted me. After the 9th, when the ship was due, I mailed Allfreight to ask what to do. They just sent me the local agent's phone number; they didn't seem to care that I hadn't heard from the agent. I asked for an email address or a Cape Town number (rather than a Joburg number); they replied saying that they don't have an email address, and that the number they sent was a Cape Town number (which it clearly wasn't: +27 11 is not Cape Town).

So I did some investigation, and found that that vessel only arrived in Cape Town on the 12th. Eventually I managed to find a local number for the local agents, and gave them a call. Unbelievably, my boxes were in a container that contained mostly boxes headed for Joburg, and so even though the ship called at Cape Town, my boxes are going to sail on to Port Elizabeth, clear customs there, then be sent by road up to Joburg. They will then be sent from Joburg back down to Cape Town - and the entire process will take another 2 weeks! But no-one from Allfreight or the local agents bothered to tell me this - even though Allfreight claim that they manage the process from the time you order boxes till the time they arrive at your door. And how I'm supposed to sign customs forms when my boxes are in PE rather than Cape Town, I don't know - I guess they'll want to fax them to me and have me sign and then fax them back, which is awkward anyway but more so since I don't have a fax machine (and I'm sure most people don't).

So my boxes will take about 3 weeks more than Allfreight indicated, and Allfreight are not interested in finding out any information about my shipment.

I just hope my boxes arrive in good condition, and without too much more delay. But I do get annoyed when the website promises things that the company just doesn't deliver on (although they do get the basics done, to be fair). And while they're cheap, I do still expect decent customer service; especially when they say that they don't consider themselves to be cheap, they just consider everyone else as expensive - that certainly shows that they don't think of themselves as a budget solution which doesn't require decent customer service.