Roundup - brought to you by Monsanto, the people who also brought you Agent Orange.

As friends, family, my Probation Officer and psychiatrist all know I am inclined to engage in 'campaigns' arising from slights, real or imagined, by companies particularly banks and mobile phone companies.
My current campaign is with Homebase. Having read about the apparent dangers of glyphosphate, the main ingredient of Monsanto's Roundup, I checked the price of it on the Homebase web site for a blog entry. This set me wondering why they still sold it or at least why they didn't alert their customers to its possible dangers.
In fairness to Homebase they had previously banned some neonicitinoid 'bug killers' in 2013 so I thought they may be responsive to this.

Their web page for Roundup seemed to allow comments from customers so I tried to add a comment about the possible dangers of using it. I received a little pop up window saying my comment was being considered and if accepted would appear in three days.
3 days - nothing.
So I did it again.
3 days - nothing.

So I decided to take it further and Homebase, like other companies, invite customers to phone their help desk for assistance. However I'm sure everyone is aware of the problems of phoning a help desk:-
 - wait for ages listening to Green Sleeves, Enya or cheesy 80's disco.
 - speak to bored operative who have iniative and decision making abilities chemically supressed
- find you are speaking to the wrong person, or through to the wrong department.
 - Have anything you're been told contradicted or that be told there's no trace of any previous call
 - get cut off.

Email has the same problems but at least there's a record of the rubbish you are told.
So I contacted the helpdesk to be told:-

I am sorry to read that you are not very happy that are we still selling the above product due to this containing glyphosate.  I of course have no say as to whether the product is kept on sale, but I will feed this back to our buyers for this to be investigated further.

I replied

While I'm waiting for your buyers response, could you let me know on what basis Homebase decided not to publish my comments about Roundup. I assume you must have some rules as regards what is acceptable and what is not and I would like to know what they are.

Emails were exchanged and I was told:-

I am sorry to advise that you can only place a review on an item if you have received an e-mail asking you to do this.  If you did receive an e-mail to do the review then this will take a few weeks for it to show. I have e-mailed our buyers again for an explanation and will e-mail you once I have received their response. 

I resisted the temptation so say their systems shouldn't allow customers to write a review and have a reasonable expectation it would be published when they have not been been invited, that their site says a wait of 3 days not 'a few weeks' and where do they get people's email addresses from?
A few weeks later I was in Homebase and as usual handed a big wadge of paper. Thinking there may be an 'invite' I asked the cashier about it. She had never heard of it and she had worked there for a long time.

Time passed. Deadlines promised. Deadlines missed.

I idly wondered if they had any published corporate view on this sort of thing and found the sort of stuff David Brent would find embarrassing.

Our vision and values

What comes first at Homebase? That’s easy. The customer. Always. It’s one of our core values that we apply to everything we do. 

For 'customer' read 'customer's money'. The 'visions' for their staff are almost beyond parody.

As I was going nowhere their site invites people who want to complain to:-

Visit Customer Services
Call Customer Services on 0845 603 6677
Email Customer Services on enquiries@homebase.co.uk
Email Paul Loft (CEO) on mdcustomer.escalation@homebase.co.uk

1. No chance
2. Ha, bloody ha.
3. Done it.
4. OK then I'll have a go.

I'm sure you're aware that any phone call/letter/email to the MD of any company goes through numerous tiers of secretaries, Personal Adviser's, Assisistant secretaries,Personal Advisor's to the Assistant Secretary etc before it gets palmed off on some underling.
So my email was clearly addressed 'For the attention of Paul Loft'.
I did this because:-
 - I wanted to try and get the email to the right person.
 - I knew Paul Loft had left a year ago and I was curious to see if they would admit their web site doesn't know who their CEO is. [He was replaced by the wonderfully named Echo Lu].


Time passed. Deadlines promised. Deadlines missed.

Eventually I was told

I am sorry you haven't received a reply. One of my colleagues is currently investigating further with our directors office and will ask he chases a response when they are open next week and provides you with an update. Please accept our apologies for the delay in the resolution.

Time passed. Deadlines promised. Deadlines missed. then

Please accept my apologies, I have again chased our Directors office and asked they contact you as soon as possible

I'm still waiting.

of course have no say as to whether the product is kept on sale, but I will feed this back to our buyers for th

this containing glyphosate.  I of course have no say as to whether the product is kept on sale, but I will feed this back to our buyers for this to be investigated further.