Moving On

One of the things you have to do when you move house is inform every one that you're moving. It's easy to get out your Christmas card list, and tell those people. It's also easy to send an email to all the people you know letting them know what your new address is. But if you think the job is done then, wrong, you've actually only just started. You have to contact all the mailing lists you've managed to get yourself on in the past 10 years and get yourself removed. This is where it would have been so helpful not to have enjoyed catalogue shopping! Our mail is being redirected at the moment, so whenever we receive post from a British company we can no longer deal with (between most of them not posting to India, and the Indian postal service's ability to redistribute the stuff sent to me amongst themselves), we are trying to be "green" and let them know. Most companies run websites these days, and a quick click on the "contact us" button does the trick. Generally...

I tried to tell Ocado I had moved to India. Their website insisted I gave them my new postcode, and then told me I had entered an invalid postcode. It wasn't an invalid postcode, it just wasn't a British postcode. The website wouldn't let me update my address, because it wasn't a British address, nor would it let me unregister my account. So I had to write an email to customer services.

This is part of their reply:

Dear Mrs Dragicevich , Thank you for your recent e-mail. I can confirm that your market settings have been updated. This means that you will not receive any further communications from us, but can still choose to log on to the site in future, should you wish to recommence shopping with us. However, if you wish for the account to be removed, you can call us, and we will de-activate the account on our database, meaning that you will no longer be able to log on to that account. I do hope that this is of some assistance. If we can be of any further help, or you have any further comments or suggestions, then please contact us by e-mailing mailto:xxxxx@xxxxo.com, or by calling us on 0845 3991122 or 0845 6561234 (8am-11pm Mon to Sat, 12-8pm Sun), seven days a week. Yours sincerely, John XXXXX

They asked for further comments, so I gave them some.

Dear John,

As I was trying to tell you, I now live in India. I could be wrong, but I assume India isn't one of your home delivery areas. Therefore my need to recommence shopping with you will be limited. If I really have to call you to deactivate my account, please give me a phone number that will be free of charge to me, as I'm not inclined to pay international phone charges when I feel I've already done enough to inform you of the change. Since relocating two months ago I have removed myself from many databases, but none have made the job as difficult for me as yours has. It's really not very impressive.

Lana Dragicevich