"...You care about what makes them feel safe, not just what makes you feel good. Anyone can say I love you, but not everyone will pause before they do something that can hurt you."
- A wise person
"I think the highest form of love is consideration. Because if you really love someone, you consider them. You think before you speak, you move with the awareness of how your actions affect their peace..."
This is very widespread now. Something similar happened to me recently in Selfridges and guess the first email that came through, confirmation I'd been signed up to Selfridges Unlocked, not my receipt.
I just spent ยฃ61 in @NewLook and was told I had to give my email address to get a receipt. That is completely false and totally unlawful.
A receipt is a legal requirement when a customer asks for one and it cannot be made conditional on handing over personal data.
UK GDPR is very clear that consent has to be freely given and necessary for the service. An email is not needed to print a receipt.
What makes this worse is their target demographic is younger people who often do not know their rights.
The girls (all of them) behind the till lied straight to my face, then got shitty when I challenged them.
When she realised I was a nasty mean old bird, she finally printed mine, and everyone else in the queue suddenly asked for printed receipts too.
That tells you everything. Customers do not want this.
I will be reporting it, because this kind of data-grabbing is out of control and companies like New Look know exactly what they are doing. It is shocking behaviour.
O2 price rise feels like a mockery of Ofcomโs consumer protection!
O2 has announced that from April 2026, mobile customers will see their monthly bills rise by MORE THAN IT TOLD THEM, ยฃ30 a year โ up 40% from the ยฃ21.60 annual increase previously written into their contracts. Full help to beat it here, you need act quick... https://t.co/5D74balVcl
Here is my press statement on this debacle...
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This move feels to me a bit like it makes a mockery of @Ofcom's new 'pounds and pence' consumer protection regime, which came in at the start of this year. It was the regulator's solution to hideous above-inflation, mid-contract price hikes was that on sign-up firms should tell you in advance, in pounds and pence, the price hikes you'll face during the contract period.
Sky has side-stepped this from the start by saying it wouldn't tell customers of the rises before they sign up, but instead when it does annual price hikes it will allow them to leave penalty free.
Now O2 is also dancing away, increasing contracts by more than it said it would when people signed up. And while that means all its impacted mobile customers can leave penalty-free โ and many should โ we know few will. Most will likely just have to suck up a rise that was more than they were told when they signed up.
The worry is now O2 has opened the door to this behaviour other mobile firms will feel less worried about following suit. It's a great regret that when Ofcom consulted on these changes it didn't listen to the proposal I and others made to simply ban above-inflation, mid-contract price rises (or any mid-contract rises).
And it's worth noting the rises O2 had told customers of in advance were already usually far above inflation, but now will typically be at least 7% and up to 30%. And all this adds more inflationary pressure to the economy in its own right.