Mo Better Blues

Mo Better Blues is, of course, a film starring Denzel Washington, about a Blues musician.  It has naff all to do with the contents of this post, but you know me dear readers and my love of a punning headline. 

This post is actually about...well, I'm not going to tell you because the topic is so dry, you will navigate away from the page in a heartbeat.

I was inspired to write it because of my experiences and those of a lady whose name I have forgotten.  I heard about her story on the BBC Breakfast News programme this week.  This is what happened.

Florence (for want of a better name) had been a long-time and loyal customer of Nat West Bank (henceforth to be known as Nat Worst Bank).  She had bought her insurance from them every year, happily renewing her policies, innocently assuming that her loyalty was being rewarded by the offer of the best prices.  This year she was charged around £1000 for her house insurance.  She happily paid up.  Then she got talking to one of her neighbours who was astonished and told her that she too was with Nat Worst Bank, lived in a house identical to Flo's and had paid the princely sum of £300 for her insurance.

Aghast, Florence phoned Nat Worst.  And what was the outcome?  Did they say "Hands up!  You've rumbled us - it's a fair cop!"  Did they feck.  They lived up to their well-deserved reputation as grasping, manipulative, avaricious b'stards and told her to naff off.  It wasn't until Flo approached BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme which took up cudgels on her behalf that they grudgingly offered her the same deal as her neighbour.  To her credit, Flo told them what they could do with their offer and, via a price comparison website, sourced the right product for £200.

Hearing this, I decided to shop around for my pet insurance this year (having lazily let Mr Tesco renew without caring last year).  Lo and behold, I found a product half the price of the Tesco offer.  So I rang them to cancel.  I got put through to a call centre and a charming young man called Mo.  This filled me with a warm fuzzy feeling because it always brings to mind Mo Farrah, Olympic Wunderkind.

You paid HOW much?

So I told Mo that I wished to cancel my insurance policy and he affected mortification, distress and borderline hysteria before offering me about 10 million Clubcard (Loyalty) points, a price reduction of approximately a third and various other goodies.  This annoys the life out of me. If you can do it for me now, why not previously? You grasping, manipulative, avaricious b'stards.

Mo was vaguely apologetic but clearly sensed that he had lost the sale, so babbled a bit about calling the bank to cancel the direct debit and hung up.

Which of course, left me with Mo Better Blues.