Questions that consumers frequently ask of The Complaining Cow

Are you a professional complainer?

That one really pees me off. It isn’t my job. Pees me off when you hear the term professional burglar too. It’s not their job is it? It’s their criminal activity! Not that I align complaining with criminal activity! Far from it. I’m just showing the ridiculous use of the term.

Oxford English dictionary definition of the word “professional”.

“Relating to or belonging to a profession.” Complaining is not a profession

“Worthy of or appropriate to a professional person; competent, skilful, or assured. “Professional expertise”. I’m pretty adept at drinking tea, eating biscuits, chocolate and cake and drinking wine in vast volumes. I don’t make my living like that either. Sadly.

“Engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation rather than as an amateur.” I sell my expertise (and opinion!) in consumer rights. I don’t make money from complaining, I get what I am owed for one reason or another. Yes I might get goodwill gestures on top of what I am legally entitled to but that’s often in recognition of time spent so I aint in profit!

I complain when my consumer rights have been broken, plain and simple. If I have been wronged and I am entitled to redress I will go and get it thank you very much. That isn’t professional or serial. It’s sensible.

Do you enjoy complaining?

Ha! Well that’s a funny one. Actually not really. You’ll probably be surprised to hear that I loathe complaining in person. Aside from the fact that you should always complain in writing so it is very rare that I do it in person. But say if I’m taking an item back or in a restaurant I actually don’t like complaining. I’m fine to start with but if it doesn’t get an apology and what I want straight away I do lose it too quickly! I’m loud anyway so I only have to go up one level and I’m shouting and once you’ve done that you’re on a sticky wicket for being effective.

As for writing. Hmmm. Well sometimes it’s fun, like if it is Tesco or picking on VM on social media. But generally it does take time so that just annoys me. Mind you, I tell ‘em!

Why are you still with Virgin Media?

A very very good question! Simply because I’ve been with them forever and so my email address goes back to days before several takeovers, so who knows how many sites I have that email address with. I really should start to change everything over to a gmail account which would mean that I can regularly switch. So that would be my advice to you, don’t have an email address associated with your provider and look to switch regularly. But that said, the thought of switching a telecom provider on a regular basis fills me with dread. I switch energy every year and it’s painless. I think we all know that with telecoms it just wouldn’t be! Also I’m not sure that any one provider is any better than another.

If you have any problems with your telecom provider see All you need to know about complaining to telecom providers

See the About page for more about Helen Dewdney, The Complaining Cow.