[Fmpro] Complaints

[leshurdle]

 From the UK.... does this sound familiar?


COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE

If a member of the PRS has a complaint, it is alleged that they can  
use the
"Complaints Procedure" and this will enable the member to have their
complaint "considered".

What happens, in reality, is that there is no "procedure" (as the  
term is
understood) at all. The word "procedure" implies a set, rigid PROCESS  
with
pro forma formats for documents and a manual of rules about how to  
deal with
the complaint; I am sure we all know what we THINK we mean by the word
"Procedure".

However, the actual facts are that they simply ask you to write your
complaint in a letter and address it to the "Director Of  
Membership" (There
is no such post as "The Director Of Membership" any longer...they have
several people who fit this description nowadays, all attached to  
different
departments.

What happens is that the Members Queries or Services Dept reads the  
letter
of complaint and then passes it on to the Director of the department to
which the complaint refers.

Naturally, the Director of the Department that is being complained  
about is
going to say "I have a dedicated team of professionals who work very  
hard in
trying circumstances to give Members the very best service  
that....blah blah
blah......I therefore do not feel that this complaint can be  
upheld" (No-one
wants their Dept complained about, for obvious reasons.)

The Member then receives a letter saying thank you for your complaint  
which
has been fully investigated by the relevant department and we find  
that this
Complaint cannot be upheld.

The alleged "Procedure" (printed in a leaflet dated 1997 or  
thereabouts) now
makes reference to the "Appeals Board" to which a member can take the
rejected complaint, but ONLY if the complaint falls into certain  
categories.

There are only about four categories and NOBODY's complaint has ever  
fallen
into ANY of them.

I can't remember the exact description of the categories offhand, but  
they
are something like

You may have your complaint reconsidered by the Appeals Panel if

1.	A Member of Staff has acted in a rude or unprofessional way
2.	The PRS has not followed its own rules
3.	A Rule of the PRS is prejudicial against the membership or section
of 	the Membership
4	It has been proven that a member of staff is deliberately trying to
steal your money (or something very similar to this wording, I can't
remember exactly)

Whatever your complaint is, e.g. "I didn't get paid enough for my  
plays on
Radio blah blah", if you think about it, it is never going to fall  
into ANY
of those categories. Take the above example:

There is NEVER a complaint on Category 1...if a staff member is rude  
to you
on the phone they will just deny it and they MUST have all letters  
checked
before they send them; so forget that!

If you try and use Category 2, they say There IS no "rule" about  
whatever it
is you are complaining about. We are just obliged to use our best  
endeavours
and that is what we have done.

If you try and use Category 3, they just say "Oh no it's not  
prejudicial; we
treat everybody the same" (which is true, technically)
And so on and so forth.

Just look at the statistics; the Appeals Panel has NEVER met IN THE LAST
FOUR YEARS! (Confirmed by Guy Fletcher) so what is the point of it?  
How much
has it cost, to date? They mention that its free service that doesn't  
cost
anything, but I don't think I believe them.

I had a complaint about Cross Collateralisation and, when they naturally
rejected it, I said that I wasn't satisfied and wanted to go to the  
Appeals
Panel.

They phoned me up and said "You don't want to go to the Appeals  
Panel, come
in and see us and let's discuss what your problem is"

So my legal rep and I went up for the meeting and they said "Look we  
work
very hard for you and here is a chart showing you how much we do on your
behalf...we bend over backwards for you, think yourself lucky! what  
do you
want to complain about?"

We said "We want to complain about Cross Collateralisation and the  
fact that
there is NO real complaints procedure and that the Appeals Panel is a  
phoney
sham" (or words to that effect)

They said "Well to be honest we sort of agree with you, its not a  
very good
system but lets think about it for a while and we'll get back to you.  
Oh, by
the way Cross Collateralisation is allowed in our rules so you can't  
appeal
against that!"

I then received a copy of the same chart in the post and a letter  
that said
in effect "We are glad that your complaint has been dealt with now.  
If you
have anything else, please don't hesitate to call us"