How I got O2 The Works broadband free for a year

Two things happened recently: fibre optic broadband (40mbps) became available in Winchester and we came to the end of our 12 month contract with BT for line rental. I looked into BT's Infinity fibre service, but at £18 a month + £10 BT line rental (and it has to be BT line rental) and combined with an 18 month contract, I've decided to wait.

Given that the European Commission has said that BT have to provide the same access for third-parties to their fibre network as they currently do for their copper network, I'm crossing my fingers that within 18 months providers other than BT will be offering fibre. Whether or not 18 months will be enough time for contract terms/prices to become more attractive? I'm not sure, particularly given that BT are being allowed to retain price control.

With that decision taken, I thought I'd have a go at lowering my monthly cost for line rental and broadband. MoneySavingExpert recommend Primus Telecom, but it I'm honest, their 90s website put me right off. Then I remembered that O2 do fixed line rental now, and my experience of their broadband has been positive enough for me to trust them with the line rental.

I phoned up and explained to the advisor that I'd like to add their basic home phone (line rental only) service for £7.50 a month and also asked if I could renew my broadband at the same time (we were 11 months in). I also told her that I had a loyalty discount on the broadband, and that my ideal case was to renew the broadband whilst retaining the discount and also add the line rental. At this point she popped me on hold as she needed to consult retentions to find out how to handle the loyalty discount.

When she came back, she said that if I was prepared to sign up for 12 months of line rental at £7.50 a month, she could give me 12 months of broadband free of charge. I really wasn't expecting this and after a a quick pinch make sure I wasn't dreaming, I agreed. The agent said she'd need to transfer me through to retentions to sort out the broadband first and then she would call be back to finalise the line rental. When I got through to retentions, they explained that I could indeed have 12 months of broadband for free, but that as they no longer offer the same terms as I was on, I'd have to change my package. She went on to tell me that she'd move me onto their highest package "The Works" (netting me a static IP), that my bill will say -£21 a month and that she'd post out a new wireless N router to me immediately.

With that call finished, I waited for the call back from the first agent, which duly arrived and I went through all the contractual terms and acceptance. Once that was completed and the verbal ink was dry, I mentioned to the agent how much better this call had gone than I was expecting. She told me that she didn't even know 12 months free broadband was possible and that I was now paying less than her staff rate for my service!

The switch-over of the line from BT to O2 happened today and I have to say it was seamless, I didn't even notice any downtime. We've had some intermittent issues when there has been heavy rain, but after a visit from the OpenReach engineer who discovered a fault and switched us onto the spare core between our house and the cabinet, it's been rock solid and in fact our speed has increased with a current sync or 9629kbps down and 1265kbps up. Not bad for a total cost of £7.50 a month.

It's a long way to Taipei

We've made it to Taipei! We're here visiting May's brother Jack and his girlfriend Lisa who are here teaching English as a foreign language at the Hess schools.

We had planned to visit Taipei for 6 nights, then Japan for 10 before returning home via Singapore for 3 nights to visit May's friend Jenny, her husband Raj and their new baby in Singapore. Due to the recent earthquake, we've canceled the Japan leg of the trip entirely and spent a stressful two weeks replanning a way to fill our spare 10 days. We finally settled on Thailand and will be spending 3 nights at the Conrad in Bangkok before flying to Koh Samui to the Bo Phut Resort & Spa for 6 days of relaxation.

We flew Heathrow to Taipei via Singapore (5 hour layover) on Singapore Airlines. I've just started to find flying novel again since switching jobs and putting an end to my business travel, so a ride on an A380 was pretty cool. After some deft online checking in, we ended up in the economy section of the upper deck, with us in a pair of seats and May's mum Judith across the aisle.

The A380 was impressively massive and the Singapore Airlines fit out delivers a very impressive economy flight. The seat pitch is long, meaning plenty of legroom and the cabin feels spacious rather than packed. Whoever designed this plane actually thought through the details of passenger comfort, and as we all know it's the little things that make the biggest difference. Examples are a screen that pivots out enough that even a lanky body like me can see it when the person in front is fully reclined and extendible foot rests. In flight entertainment is also excellent with over 14o films on demand, plus TV shows (around 6 consecutive episodes of each) and lots of music. Further, there's a USB socket to you can connect up your own equipment to either charge or view media on screen. The service is also excellent, very attentive with plenty of snacks and drinks - you can even ask for a Singapore Sling and get free playing cards. You even get real cutlery. In short, flying economy with Singapore is like flying premium economy with everyone else; would use again with preference.

The only flies in our delicious Singapore Air ointment were called Bob and Vanessa. They were sat in the seats in front of us, and in meeting they each found a kindred spirit, much to their delight and our chagrin. At the first drinks service, Vanessa ordered a beer and Bob a red wine, and from here on in, things went downhill. As each drink was finished, the call light went on and another was ordered. Initially May and I chuckled at their poor quality flirting and chucklesome cheap chat ("can't wait to have a ciggie", "let's write a thank you note to the hostess" etc), but as all the lights were switched off for our simulated night and their volume continually increased the novelty quickly wore off.

It was all a bit too much for Judith, who had a quiet word with the staff who then spoke to the delightful pair. Much hilarity ensued along with a lengthy discussion led by Vanessa who wanted to "find our who grassed me up" she'd "rather have been told to my face, rather than snitched on". With the noise continuing, Judith sensibly asked to be moved downstairs.

After tolerating 8 hours of non-stop drinking and high volume, I felt I had to intervene when Vanessa had turned her headphones up to maximum volume and started singing along with D.I.S.C.O. by Ottowan and gyrating her rotund frame in her seat in what I assume was her approximation of dancing.

"Would you mind turning your headphones down and not singing please? I'd like to get some sleep" I said, adding "I heard you say earlier you'd rather be told to your face rather than complained about". The music was turned down, and the singing stopped (for a bit), but rather than peace and quiet, there was a continual discussion about keeping the noise down and a lot of sssshhhhing. The only time we had any respite was after breakfast when the pair fell asleep, including Bob doing bizarre musical snoring. I guess the limit when flying is nine and a half hours of solid drinking and then breakfast will definitely send you to sleep.

I think the situation was poorly handled by Singapore Air as despite the obvious intoxication of the pair, they kept on serving them drinks. We assumed that there would be a limit, but the staff were overly polite and failed to take appropriate action, resulting in a detrimental effect for the surrounding passengers. Although getting no sleep was a pain, I consoled myself with two facts: 1) I'm neither Bob or Vanessa. 2) I bet they had stinking hangovers that even their much awaited ciggie wouldn't abate.

A note on complaining,

I've recently resolved a little issue that I had with NatWest bank, so I thought I'd tell you about it. Before I get started, this is more a post about the art of complaining and how much I love to complain than about NatWest being terrible. Mistakes happen, so this is more about how to deal with them than anything else.

Back in February, May and I were in the final stages of purchasing our first house and I needed to withdraw money from my ISAs to pay the deposit and legal fees. After popping into branch, I learned that I could only make withdrawals from my online e-ISA free of charge into a NatWest branch-based account. As I don't bank with NatWest, the only other account I held was an online e-Savings account. Unfortunately this wasn't suitable to withdraw the money into.

Finding the situation incredulous, I had a good few phone calls, web chats and some more branch visits to try and get clued up. Alas, everyone I spoke to gave me a different story about what was and wasn't possible. I was left with the impression that branch and online at Natwest are totally separate entities and that neither understand the other.

I decided to go with the suggestion from in branch and pay £23 to make a CHAPs transfer from my e-ISA to an external account. Having to pay to get access to my own money was pretty annoying, but given the situation I signed the paperwork and went on my way. The next morning, I got a phone call to tell me that CHAPs from an e-ISA to an external account was totally impossible (contrary to the previous days solid assurances), but that if I gave my verbal approval, they would fast-track me a branch-based account into which they could withdraw the e-ISA and then perform the CHAPs to my external account. I agreed and first thing the next day I checked my online statement to check everything had gone correctly.

At first glance, everything looked fine, but when I looked closer I noticed that the newly created savings account had £X (where X is many thousands of pounds) in it, and that my e-ISA had been debited £2X. That's right, the did what they told me was impossible and did the CHAPs direct from my e-ISA and ALSO transferred the amount out of my e-ISA into the new (and totally unnecessary) branch-based First Reserve account.

Brilliant work NatWest, I've been sheltering that money from tax in an ISA for nine years and you just withdrew £X for no reason and essentially without my permission. Understandably, I was pretty annoyed to discover this and headed down to the branch to get things sorted, reclaim my CHAPs fee (CHAPs is guaranteed within 24 hours, they didn't deliver) and open a formal complaint.

Below is my correspondence with NatWest:

"Dear [redacted],

Thank you for you letter dated 1st March 2010, your reference 12687022. I am still dissatisfied with NatWest as you have merely repaired the damage you caused, rather than offering any form of compensation for my wasted time and anguish.

As I explained to your staff, the withdrawal from my ISA was to complete my first house purchase. As I'm sure you appreciate, buying your first property is a very significant and stressful time, and to be let down by NatWest at such a critical moment is simply unacceptable. You made getting at my money quickly impossible, and everyone I dealt with (branch staff, numerous phone agents, web chat) provided a different answer about what was/wasn't possible given my combination of accounts. You seemed unable to understand your own products and I was the one left inconvenienced and unnecessarily stressed by your internal deficiencies. I got the impression from this experience that there is a gulf between your on-line and branch operations and in comparison with other retail banks I've dealt with, NatWest feels about 10 years behind what's current in terms of both on-line presence and customer service.

Although you have made good the £X you transferred out of my ISA account without authorisation and refunded my CHAPs payment fee (you were unable to comply with your own contract of same day transfer), I regard this as the bare minimum of your duty to me. I suggest £200 as an adequate amount of compensation commensurate with my time and anguish associated with this regrettable event. If you are unable to offer suitable compensation I shall proceed as advised by your complaints process by first contacting the Customer Relations Manager and then the Financial Ombudsman. I look forward to your prompt response.

Kind Regards

Tim Poultney"

"To: Customer Relations

Dear Sir/Madam,

I write to you in accordance with the Natwest customer complaints procedure. Enclosed you will find a copy of my letter to [redacted] at your White City branch and also her response. For completeness, I have included a prior letter from , which I received shortly after the incident I am complaining about.

Please can you read both my letter to and their response dated 19th May. In my letter, I summarise my complaint and then request financial compensation from you in respect of time wasted and anguish suffered as a result of your banks incompetence. I am sure you place a high value on your customers happiness and satisfaction with you, and also on your reputation, so I anticipate a positive response from you. I'm not sure how I can be any clearer about what I expect from you than I was in my letter to dated 10th May; the response asking me to provide "the copy of your bills" suggest to me that they either didn't read my letter, didn't comprehend it, or lack sufficient power to act upon it.

To that end, can you respond to me directly and resolve this issue. In addition, can you share with me what steps you will be taking to ensure this type of situation does not happen again. If I am not satisfied with your response, I shall continue to follow your complaints process and will contact the Financial Ombudsman. I anticipate your prompt response.

Kind Regards,

Tim Poultney"

So eventually they refunded the £23 and provided £200 for my inconvenience after three letters.

Summary: Complaining is good. Despite the eventual outcome, I won't be banking with NatWest again. All my accounts there are now closed.

Malmaison Oxford

This week, I went to May's graduation ceremony from her postgraduate diploma in Software Engineering at Oxford University. To mark the occasion we stayed in the Malmaison hotel in the centre of Oxford. We'd stayed there once before back in 2006, just after it opened, but I'd forgotten just how jaw-droppingly incredible it is. Set within the grounds of Oxford Castle, the building is Victorian and was one of Her Majesty's prisons up until 1996. The Malmaison overhaul of the prison was part of the overall redevelopment of the Oxford Castle site that was funded by a lottery grant in 2006.

The conversion of the hotel is truly amazing, as my pictures below hopefully attest:

The main hall, hotel rooms are within the converted cells.

The ex-visitors hall champagne bar (panorama made with the excellent autostitch)

Wandering around, I just kept thinking how happy the architect must have been with landing the project. Perhaps even more so when the regeneration of Oxford Castle won the 2007 Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Project of the Year award.

On our visit in 2006, we stayed in a room in what used to be the prison warden's quarters. It was very nice, but this time we thought we'd go all out and get the deluxe room in the prison hall itself. Our room was originally 3 cells (holding a total of 9-12 inmates!) with 2 cells used to create the bedroom and 1 for the ensuite bathroom which included a rolltop bath and 2 person shower. The "cell" doors are original, as are the tiny, high up windows. The room was very comfortable, if not bordering on luxurious and thankfully the terrible mobile phone signal resulting from being boxed in was compensated by free wi-fi. We ate in the brasserie on the 2009 offer and as they were quite full and we were a party of 5, they put us into one of the private dining rooms.

If you're in the area, I'd highly recommend at least a visit to look around, if not an overnight stay. If you do go, be sure to head for the basement where there are 2 original cells to peruse. To give you an idea of price, we paid £119 for our room.

Hertz are idiots

Last September, May and I went to the Connect music festival on the banks of Loch Fyne in Scotland (see my Flickr set). We hired a car with Hertz (IBM discount) which we picked up in Glasgow, and then dropped off in Edinburgh. Everything with the hire went very smoothly, or so we thought until last December.

When we received this:

(click for big)

As you can see, the letter is with respect to a penalty charge notice from the 31st of August, issued at Queens Gate. Now, we didn't remember getting a parking ticket so after racking our brains a bit and consulting May's diary to see where we'd been on the 31st, I called Hertz to request a copy of the original PCN and also called my credit card company to dispute the payment. This was on the 9th of December and they promised to send me a copy within 10 days.

Here's what they sent me on the 23rd - see if you can spot the problem:

(click for big)

Did you spot it? If not check this one and compare it with the PCN above:

(click for big)

For extra LOLs, remember that I said I rented the car in Glasgow, and dropped it off in Edinburgh, then take a look at the issuing council for the PCN. Commando lol!

With this evidence in hand I called Hertz back on the 23rd December and spoke to a nice chap called David and offered him the opportunity to provide me with a full refund before I instructed my credit card company to reclaim the unlawful charge. After he'd spent a few minutes with the documents, he came to the same conclusion that I had and exclaimed "that's absolutely ridiculous" before proceeding to issue a full refund. Good man. 

Hotel du Vin, Winchester

Yesterday, for May's birthday, we went to the Hotel du Vin in Winchester for dinner, taking advantage of their ridiculously good value "This 2009, think 2000 and wine" deal. The deal is on until the end of March at all Hotel du Vin, and offers 2 courses, a bottle of wine and coffee for 2 people for a jaw droppingly cheap £29. Hotel du Vin is owned by Malmaison (if you haven't stayed in one, make the effort, they're truly great hotels) and it's worth noting that Mal are running the same great deal.

As an ex-fussy eater, I'm still not a massive fan of overly complicated food, or overly formal dining and I'd always had the impression that I wouldn't enjoy eating at the Hotel du Vin as it's something of a Winchester institution, in an historic building and with formal and slightly imposing decor. My mind was put at rest when I discovered that they were owned by Mal, and I have to say that based on our recent experience my fears were totally unfounded.

The service was impeccable and effortless, without being formal, intimidating or intrusive. When I "gracefully" dropped a spoon, someone was on hand in about 5 seconds to pick it up, closely followed by someone else with a new spoon for me on a tray. Obviously I dropped the spoon because I was testing them, not at all through mal-coordination. On the waitress’s advice, we had a main each and a starter and dessert to share. We ordered one side dish and stuck to the house wine, but the sommelier did successfully upsell us two glasses of champagne otherwise we'd have paid just a little over £30 for the whole lot. 

We had gnocchi with provencal sauce to start, then I had confit duck and May had lamb neck plus our side of green beans with pine nuts, and we finished with an excellent crème brulée. The food was consistently excellent and the overall experience comes with a high recommend, especially on the current £29 deal – book your local HdV now!  We particularly enjoyed checking out our fellow diners in the Winchester bistro, who were mostly a bit stuffy and occasionally lolarious irritating, although I think that’s probably just Winchester for you.

The only two things that could have been done better were: 1) on arrival, the girl on the front desk was on the phone and remained so for about 5 minutes while we waited and no other member of staff took care of us. 2) the bill could have been brought quicker, I much prefer the American style of bringing the bill early and saying “take as long as you want”.

Ker-ching! Or, personal injury claim finally gets closed

Please excuse the braggard nature of this post, but it's not often you get a cheque like this and I wanted to write it up for the record. Pretty much on the 2 year anniversary of my car crash in 2007, I've finally received the settlement payment for personal injury claim. Below is the cheque in all it's glory, 5 gs baby.

The money was awarded because the accident aggravated my existing RSI symptoms which had been settling nicely and resulted in a fair bit of pain and anguish. The accident happened here as I was driving home from work one night. The visibility from the side road is pretty awful, so when I saw a car stick it's nose out over the give way line, I took my foot off the accelerator but thought little of it. "Oh, he'll roll back"; they always roll back right? Not in this case unfortunately, the car started to pull out further and then froze, right in my path. Unfortunately there was a car on the other side of the road and insufficient stopping distance for me. My poor old Peugeot 306 got written off pwned. Well and truly.

Having never written a car off before, or filed a personal injury claim before, I didn't really know what to expect from the process and I must say that my insurer Admiral was excellent through out the whole process. They appointed Bott & Co solicitors to deal with my personal injury claim and the best way I can summarise my personal experience with them was that it took two years to conclude the case. I think that because my case was a little out of the ordinary (aggravation of pre-existing condition) that may have poured some treacle into the process. There were a number of mishaps with medical records not getting requested, not getting requested correctly, not being forwarded to specialists, not being kept up to date and I actually had to spend quite a lot of time pushing them along to get the whole thing resolved. I think my assigned solicitor phoned me twice, once to say hello and then a few weeks ago to make me the £ offer. The terse telephone style was well compensated by the 3.5 conifers worth of letters I had dispatched to me though.

Welcome to the Xbox Hospital

On the 30th of December, my barely used Microsoft Xbox 360 finally gave up the ghost and developed the "red ring of death" (RROD [ruh-rod]), or to use the Microsoft terminology "three lights flashing red on the Ring of Light". I'd just got back from being away for Christmas and I suspect it may have caught a cold. We turned the heating off while we were away, and returned home to find out flat had been replaced by an ice box and I can only assume that my 360 caught the sniffles. May had contracted the winter vomiting thing, so while she was in bed I figured I'd rinse through Gears of War 2. Unfortunately, this was not to be as my 360 started displaying psychedelic chequerboard patterns and freezing, before finally refusing to start at all and displaying the RROD.

After filling in Microsoft's online form, I got an email advising me that there are three methods for returning consoles (electronic label, paper label, pre-paid shipping box) and that I would be assigned one of the methods. A little later my electronic UPS label arrived by email so I packaged up my console and checked out where the nearest UPS depot was (Eastleigh: 7.2 miles). After ensuring May had adequate supplies, I dashed out to the UPS depot on New Years Eve, arriving about 40 minutes before they shut for the day. After ringing the buzzer, the chap who came to the door took one look at my parcel, and opened the door saying "Welcome the the Xbox Hospital". A bit of quizzing revealed that my delivery was his 10th of the day for New Years Eve, and also that he gets an average of 40-50 a week. Pretty staggering given that I was using one of three shipping methods.

My console arrived back today, 16 days later, seemingly repaired but running in hilarious 640x480 resolution. I was all ready to phone Microsoft and complain about the fact I'd been paying for Live while my console was away but not able to use it, but I have to confess I was quietly impressed to discover they'd pre-empted me by putting a 30 day Live card in the box with the return.

My unbelievable new O2 contract

Following on from my October post about checking my O2 bills, I've just negotiated a new 18 month contract.

I was waiting for O2 to release the Nokia E71 handset, so when my previous contract expired I moved onto Simplicity (600mins, 1000txts, unlimited data - £20p/m) to save a bit of cash before going back on contract when the E71 came out. Now, I think I first asked O2 about the E71 back in August last year, and since then the release date has been moving back by a week or so every time I've called up to check. That's been pretty frustrating, given that the handset has been available on T-Mobile, Three & Vodafone for all that time.

Just before Christmas, O2 did release the E71 - but only to their business customers. When I went through the business sales process, even after applying the maximum available discounts, they couldn't beat the standard T-Mobile price. I called the O2 Select line to ask when they'd be getting the handset on normal tariffs, and they were unable to offer any date at all. I vented my spleen somewhat at this point, and said that I was struggling to find reasons to stay with O2; poor communication, no ability to commit to provide the product I want, poor price flexibility etc, and that I was about ready to leave and go to T-Mobile.

Often the networks call your bluff at this point and give you your PAC code to leave and transfer your number, however thanks to a string of horribly expensive bills incurred whilst travelling on business (and thus paid by my expenses, not me), I seem to have made it into the "retain at all costs" bucket. Even so, I was surprised at the offer of 18 months on the lowest tariff (75mins, 200txts) for £0. Yes, that's right, and 18 month contract for NOTHING.

Of course, I had to push this further so this week I called back and asked them if they could still do the previous offer. Then I asked them if they could add unlimited data to it. The chap let slip at this point that he could ask the system what was possible, so I decided to go all out and give him my require minutes and texts and asked him to get me a suitable contract for free.

I have to say that he rose to the challenge as me offered 18 months of O2 Online 25 (200mins, 400txts - £25 p/m) plus unlimited data bolt-on (£7.50 p/m) plus international traveller service (cheaper roaming £2.99 p/m) for a truly astonishing £0 p/m for the first 15 months, and then £10 p/m for the final 3 months. As I'm a Select customer, I can upgrade after 15 months anyhow, so I'm basically getting my mobile phone service for free until April 2010. Thanks O2!

I don't get a new handset included, but I do still have the option to buy one handset for cost price during my contract, so the plan is that I'll buy the E71 when it finally releases for (hopefully!) around £180. That would make the total damage £11.50 a month for 18 months!

Vigilance and paperwork can be your friends

I'm near the end of my O2 contract and as usual I went through all my bills to see what my usage patterns have been like before starting the negotiation for a new tariff. Whilst totalling up, I noticed some strange discrepancies on my bills, such as my number of texts and minutes availble for the next month varying wildly. After calling the Select customer service team, it turned out that the last time I renegotiated my contract back in November 2007, none of it was applied correctly to my account. The result? Next month O2 will be refunding me £170. Yep, one hundred and seventy pounds.

Getting it sorted out is great, but the fact that it was wrong in the first place is a huge breach of trust. When I asked the agent for compensation, she said that the refund was the compensation. Nice try, but as I quickly pointed out, therefund is simply O2 delivering on their contractual agreement with me, which they've failed to do since last November. The agent wouldn't budge however, so it looks like I'll be writing in.

On finding god

He was lying on the floor, near to passport control in Prague Ruzyne International airport. Of course once I'd found him I had to pick him up to keep. Who knew he was laminated?

Seriously though I'm beginning to think that God may be the Hilton HHonours Gold VIP programme. On arrival at the Hilton Prague today I was told that VIP check in were waiting for me on the 8th floor. Once there I was offered a glass of champange as I checked in, and discovered that I get my breakfast in the "Executive lounge", also on the 8th floor. Seems I get some other perks like use of the executive lounge during the day including snacks, drinks and newspapers (as long as I'm "properly attired"), PC access, free meeting room booking, and in room stuff like evening turn down (alas I missed this as I was on the phone and the poor girl got terribly confused).

I've been most impressed by the personal touch when I went back up to the 8th floor reception to ask for a shaving kit (forgot my razor). When I said that I was in room 7057, he said "I know, Mr Poultney, I know.". Good skillz.

"Chat with an agent" == Poor time to value

After a surprisingly excellent run in with Dell's telephone support where my PC freezes were very quickly diagnosed and fixed, I thought I'd try their online chat support to see if they could make Sleep mode work for me in Vista. Here's the transcript:

10:31:58PM Session Started with Dell_Agent
10:32:24PM Dell_Agent: "Thank you for contacting Dell Hardware Warranty Chat Support! My name is Xxxxx. How may I help you?"
10:32:42PM Tim Poultney: "hello"
10:33:02PM Tim Poultney: "I'm trying to get Sleep mode on Vista working so that I can cut down my energy bills"
10:33:36PM Tim Poultney: "it seems to sleep, but won't resume"
10:34:02PM Tim Poultney: "when I try and resume, the keyboard lights come back on and the hard disc is making noise, but Windows never comes back"
10:34:16PM Dell_Agent: "Let me see if I have this right. I understand that you're system did not resume from safe mode. Is that correct?"
10:34:40PM Tim Poultney: "no"
10:34:54PM Tim Poultney: "unrelated to safe mode"
10:35:09PM Dell_Agent: "I am sorry about that what I mean is sleep mode."
10:35:21PM Dell_Agent: "Is that correct?"
10:36:35PM Tim Poultney: "yes"
10:36:52PM Dell_Agent: "Thank you for confirming that for me."
10:37:19PM Dell_Agent: "Thank you for bringing this matter to us. I am glad I am the one who received your request as I am going to do my best to assist you today."
10:37:30PM Dell_Agent: "Is this the first time you contacted us regarding this issue?"
10:38:28PM Tim Poultney: "yes"
10:39:27PM Dell_Agent: "May I have your express service code please?"
10:40:49PM Tim Poultney: "8XTXHXX"
10:41:33PM Dell_Agent: "Thank you. By the way that is your service tag but it will also work."
10:42:17PM Dell_Agent: "I am now pulling up your records, while I'm doing this for verification, what is the name of the person or organization that owns the computer?"
10:43:16PM Tim Poultney: "Tim Poultney"
10:44:14PM Dell_Agent: "Thank you for that information and I am pleases to meet you online. To ensure we are working with the correct system, are you chatting about the Vostro Desktop 400 listed on your account?"
10:45:31PM Tim Poultney: "yes"
10:45:41PM Dell_Agent: "And in addition, your warranty will expire on February 19, 2009."
10:46:42PM Dell_Agent: "Have you performed any troubleshooting steps on your own to fix this issue?"
10:46:54PM Tim Poultney: "yes"
10:47:02PM Tim Poultney: "I've checked Event Viewer"
10:47:19PM Dell_Agent: "Can you tell me what are the steps that you have done so far?"
10:47:24PM Dell_Agent: "I see."
10:47:36PM Tim Poultney: "and I've followed a Microsoft KB article about disabling USB mice waking up from sleep"
10:47:59PM Dell_Agent: "Is that all?"
10:48:10PM Dell_Agent: "Thank you for that information."
10:48:35PM Tim Poultney: "I also determined that the PC only has a problem with Sleep, rather than Away mode (ie. media sharing)"
10:48:49PM Tim Poultney: "but Away mode doesn't save much electricity :("
10:49:12PM Dell_Agent: "Okay, I understand. We may have to do some steps that will help us resolve the issue."
10:50:02PM Dell_Agent: "First, we will need to check the Power Management options from the Control Panel."
10:50:51PM Dell_Agent: "Please go to Control panel and look for Power Options."
10:51:12PM Tim Poultney: "I'm there"
10:51:17PM Dell_Agent: "Then double click on it."
10:51:21PM Tim Poultney: "have done"
10:51:34PM Tim Poultney: "setting is High Performance"
10:52:05PM Dell_Agent: "Once the Power Options Properties window appears, please go to the Power Schemes tab."
10:52:23PM Tim Poultney: "I don't see that"
10:52:27PM Tim Poultney: "I'm using the classic control panel"
10:53:16PM Dell_Agent: "Can you tell me what you see on your screen now?"
10:54:00PM Tim Poultney: "left pane, shows options of power related task. ie. "create a power plan""
10:54:13PM Tim Poultney: "right pane shows "Select a power plan" and then lists power plans"
10:54:47PM Dell_Agent: "One moment while I check on this for you."
10:56:00PM Tim Poultney: "ok, I have to stop soon as it's been 25 minutes"
10:59:00PM Dell_Agent: "I sincerely appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience caused. However, I will need 2 more minutes to look into this matter. Please bear with me."
11:00:08PM Dell_Agent: "Thanks for waiting. I do apologize if I took longer than expected."
11:02:22PM Dell_Agent: "You may see the option Power saver?"
11:02:27PM Dell_Agent: "Just click on it."
11:02:35PM Tim Poultney: "ok"
11:03:13PM Tim Poultney: "next?"
11:05:39PM Dell_Agent: "One moment while I further check on this for you."
11:05:56PM Tim Poultney: "ok, sorry, I don't have time for this"
11:06:13PM Tim Poultney: "it's not fast enough and I'm finding the time to value poor"
11:06:22PM Tim Poultney: "thank you for your time"
11:06:33PM Dell_Agent: "This will allow me to give the accurate steps for the operating system you are using."
11:06:43PM Dell_Agent: "I am really very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you."
11:07:20PM Session Ended

I found during the whole interaction that the agent was way too focused on following the script and didn't really seem to understand my problem or be doing anything other than cut&pasting from the internal troubleshooting tool.

That's 36 minutes of my life I'd like back please, Dell.