The London Bus Boycott
I'm having a customer service battle with both our horrible bank and Transport for London, which runs the Underground and the buses. To sum up, there has been a botched transaction of an automated payment that neither one wants to take responsibility for, despite hours on the phone and a few shouting matches with snarky, lazy customer service types. For this, neither one deserves my limited funds.
I think I've resolved that it will be more than worth it to sever our ties with the bank, but denying TFL my money will be a little bit more of a challenge. For obvious reasons, there's no real market alternatives, except for minicabs, black cabs, and overground rail. I'm already off the overpriced, overhyped bullies of the street they call the black cabs, which leaves minicabs and overground rail. But I have resolved to avoid using TFL services whenever possible, because they've made me angry. Today, I have to get up to our old neighborhood, and I've decided to ride my bike, despite the on-off rain. Rail would be an option if I wanted to walk some distance, but I think I'll just stick to the old pushbike.
We'll see how this goes.
I think I've resolved that it will be more than worth it to sever our ties with the bank, but denying TFL my money will be a little bit more of a challenge. For obvious reasons, there's no real market alternatives, except for minicabs, black cabs, and overground rail. I'm already off the overpriced, overhyped bullies of the street they call the black cabs, which leaves minicabs and overground rail. But I have resolved to avoid using TFL services whenever possible, because they've made me angry. Today, I have to get up to our old neighborhood, and I've decided to ride my bike, despite the on-off rain. Rail would be an option if I wanted to walk some distance, but I think I'll just stick to the old pushbike.
We'll see how this goes.
Labels: accommodation, British life, getting around, London life, the Tube, transit
posted by Smitty Werbenmanjensen at 12:23 PM
3 Comments:
You are certainly in a bind. The TFL pretty much has a monopoly on the transport systems of London. Let us know how the bicycling goes. The Other Person Who Lives Here and I have been discussing similar options to us - we have the automobile and airplanes and both are pricing themselves out of our budget - maybe we'll just stay home more!
Too bad we can't beam ourselves around like they did on Star Trek! Mr. W., how effective do you expect your one-man boycotts to be? Have you let them know you are boycotting them?
I actually got a legal mini cab the other day from one side of London to the other and it was really really cheap - if you manage to have a good amount of local numbers then I think it could be feasible.
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