these people deserve awards for this.

Here we reproduce a complaint letter sent to Sir Richard Branson, which is currently being emailed globally and is considered by many to be one of the world's funniest passenger complaint letters.

Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:


I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:


I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.

I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:


Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:


It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:


I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:


Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:


Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.

*********************

Paul Charles, Virgin’s Director of Corporate Communications, confirmed that Sir Richard Branson had telephoned the author of the letter and had thanked him for his “constructive if tongue-in-cheek” email. Mr Charles said that Virgin was sorry the passenger had not liked the in-flight meals which he said was “award-winning food which is very popular on our Indian routes.”

Below is a copy of a letter that won a competition in UK as complaint letter of the year...
The British do have a way with words.... A real-life customer complaint
letter sent to NTL (to their complaints dept....)

Dear Cretins,

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for
your 3-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, and telephone. During this
three-month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had
not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity
of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details,
so that you can either pursue your professional perogative, and seek to
rectify these difficulties - or more likely (I suspect) so that you can
have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working
day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office:
My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my
spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your
technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57
minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more
annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful
website....HOW?

I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes
- an activity at which you are no-doubt both familiar and highly adept.
The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later,
although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools -
such as a drill-bit, and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem
had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over 4 weeks my modem
arrived... six weeks after I had requested it, and begun to pay for it.
I estimate your internet server's downtime is roughly 35%... hours
between about 6pm -midnight, Mon-Fri, and most of the weekend. I am
still waiting for my telephone connection. I have made 9 calls on my
mobile to your no-help line, and have been unhelpfully transferred to a
variety of disinterested individuals, who are it seems also highly
skilled bollock jugglers.

I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone
will call me back); that no telephone line is available (and someone
will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows
whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off);
that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an
answer machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be
transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating
Scottish robot woman...and several other variations on this theme.
Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a
thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore, and also another one of
those crucially important testicle-moments to attend to. Frankly I don't
care, it's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustration's
in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me,
therefore, if I continue.
I thought BT were shit, that they had attained the holy piss-pot of godawful
customer relations, that no-one, anywhere, ever, could be more
disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to
their customers. That's why I chose NTL, and because, well, there isn't
anyone else is there? How surprised I therefore was, when I discovered
to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless
shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of
distended rectum incompetents of the highest order.

British Telecom - wankers though they are - shine like brilliant beacons
of success, in the filthy puss-filled mire of your seemingly limitless
inadequacy. Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and
foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that
you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for
the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to
deliver - any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and
disbelief quickly be replaced by derision, and even perhaps bemused
rage. I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my
cats litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for
both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not
become desiccated during transit - they were satisfyingly moist at the
time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did
not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them
the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL, and its worthless
employees.

Have a nice day - may it be the last in you miserable short life, you
irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of *****.
John

The following complaint letter to Continental Airlines kvetching about being seated next to the lavatory can only be described as "epic." You can practically smell those yucky blue toilet chemicals that are supposed to make bathroom stench go away but instead intensify the stink. Complete with drawings and writing that Dostoevsky would have tipped his hat to, this letter is also freaking hilarious.

very creative and a well thought out complaint letter.
i wish i was this creative with my complaints which is just limited to raising my voice and pouting.

The fact that is was a Neon should have tipped this guy off.

SCOTT CLIFTON FURROW

DaimlerChrysler
Customer Relations Department
1000 Chrysler Drive
Auburn Hills, Michigan 48326-2766

Dear Chrysler:

I own a new Plymouth Neon. Actually, most of it is new. In five years, I’ve had to replace most of the car because of faulty parts and second-rate engineering and inferior workmanship. Am I exaggerating? I wish I were. The fact is that I’ve had several mechanics and dealers literally laugh at me for buying this Neon. “You should have bought Japanese!” they say. I don’t think that’s funny. Do you think its funny? I don’t think its funny. Mechanics are generally not funny people.

In 1999 alone I spent over $2000 trying to fix stupid problems on this car, not including some expenses that you paid for! This is a typical year. Only one towing this year, which is an improvement over past years. However, I’m happy to report that I still have the original air bags in the dash and steering wheel! Since my car is in the shop much of the time, there’s less of a chance I’ll get into an accident. So, you’ve at least built a safe vehicle. Bravo!

There isn’t much on this car that hasn’t failed yet. It’s quite remarkable. The only thing that works well is the “check engine” light. It’s on most of the time: bright, yellow and warm. It lights up the whole cabin at night, advertising to passengers what a fine machine I drive.

Actually, I’m so accustomed to the “check engine” light, it’s kinda spooky whenever its not on – I must be a little afraid of the dark. Incidentally, the cabin is even darker than usual now since the dome light is fly-by-night, and the lights in the dashboard flicker and don’t work half the time. Oh, the bulbs aren’t out; I’ve checked that. But, if I give the dashboard a good thump, sometimes I can get the lights to come back on. It makes me feel like the Fonz!

All this being said, the car does look nice on the outside. Very shiny, a rich blue color. That’s because all of the original paint peeled right off the car. Lucky for me, all the paint peeled off while one of your wayward dealers was washing it. “I’ve never seen one this bad, usually there are signs of bad paint, but yours lost all of its paint at the same time” he said. Thanks, I like being unique!

I had two weeks left on some paint warranty as it turned out, so you repainted the whole car. Thanks! It only cost me some dubious $200.00 deductible – one of the many amounts I’ve paid that I feel Chrysler should have paid. I don’t think defective paint should cost me anything. That’s crummy customer service. How long have you been painting cars anyway? Seems like paint is something you should have down by now.

Lots of other peculiar things have gone wrong with the car. The reservoir that holds excess coolant developed a hole and drained itself, causing my car to overheat in a seedy neighborhood. That was a neat experience. Naturally, the Chrysler mechanic told me he’d never seen that happen before in a car that wasn’t in an accident. That part took several days to get since no one keeps them in stock, so I was told. Also, its wasn’t covered by any warranty since its never supposed to need replacing. I got to pay for that one too! My car has lots of firsts; your research and development department should give me a grant.

Glue oozes out of the rear window on hot days. It’s very hard to clean that sludge off the side of the car. I’ve heard different cockamamie stories from you why this happens; I don’t buy any of them. I don’t think you really know why this happens. I’ve noticed this problem on many early model Neons. I would think you’ve been putting rear windows in cars almost as long as you’ve painted them. I guess it takes a while to get that down though. I am expecting the rear window to fly out eventually. For this reason, I don’t drive behind other Neons.

The trunk latch mechanism at the driver’s seat broke, the turn signals stick, the trunk won’t stay open on its own most of the time, among other kooky things. Thinking these are only small, insignificant defects? Au contraire, mes amis! They just exemplify the lousy construction of this vehicle, which has resulted in thousands of dollars in major repairs, both to you and to me. Pardon my French.

This year, I blew a head gasket. That only cost me $1300. The mechanic told me it’s a common problem with Neons. In fact, I have a friend who had the same problem with her Neon a couple months after mine. It’s important to have common bonds with other people. Thanks! By the way, this mechanic suggested I should inquire to see if I could recover my expenses from Chrysler for that, since it is the result of a defective engine. Should I look into that on my own or can you help me there?

I’ve replaced 4 batteries already in 5 years. Once, you folks told me you found defective wiring that caused batteries to die too soon. You replaced the wiring. But since then, I’ve replaced two batteries on my own. I’ve replaced the battery cables too. This is bad. With the Franklin era electrical design of my Neon, I’m concerned I may have a major electrical failure soon, perhaps a fire.

My dad had a car explode one night on its own due to defective wiring (unfortunately for my argument here, it was not a Chrysler product. But I bet you wondered for a second, huh?). I don’t want the car to explode while I’m in it. Frankly, I do want it to explode when no one is in the car or within 100 yards of it. Then I might get enough insurance money to buy a second-hand Schwinn.

I’ve had four major brake jobs on this car. Most of the original brake system components have been replaced by Midas at substantial cost to yours truly. I have the Midas extended warranty on the right front wheel, because for some unexplained reason, that side wears out completely every year or so. I don’t drive like a loon. I do all the necessary maintenance on my car. The Midas guy blames Chrysler and so do I.

I’ve replaced the starter, oxygen sensors, and some other major components. Did I mention the car has been towed 7 times? Can you imagine how inconvenient that has been for me? I have nothing against tow-truck drivers; they are usually better conversationalists than cab drivers, so the many rides I’ve had from them have at least been affable. But I want to drive my own car places. It’s a special privilege I think I deserve.

Perhaps you could pay me for some positive advertising. I did buy the extended warranty on this car, which in fact did pay for most of the major repairs in the first 4 years I owned it, before the dreaded 70,001st mile. I am the poster boy for extended warranties! The warranty more than paid for itself on my behalf. Nevertheless, the warranty didn’t cover some things it should have, like an $80.00 towing bill because the problem turned out to be a dead battery – a battery that Chrysler replaced only a few months before and supposedly fixed the problem which had caused its premature demise (see the above section on faulty wiring and Benjamin Franklin).

One of your way too busy regional folks declined my request for a refund of that amount, reminding me that towing is not covered by the warranty for dead batteries. Since by this point, the car breaking down was not unusual and I was very familiar with your roadside assistance program, and because I knew the problem was (and is) more than just a dead battery, I wisely in my view took the car in to be fixed. The dealership and your regional guy didn’t seem to find it odd that batteries keep dying and treated my like I was out of line to ask for a refund. So I tried to complain to you directly. I never did hear back from you on a letter I sent regarding this situation. I didn’t follow up because you obviously don’t care to keep me as a customer anyway, or you are too busy dealing with all the other Neon owners’ troubles to get back to me.

I’d like to sell the car, but I can’t because I can only drive it about 30 miles before something else goes wrong. (This has been my recent experience as the car has been in and out of the shop over the last few weeks. They can’t even find what’s causing the problem this time.) Plus, if I sold it, I’d probably get shot by the guy I sell it to after he walks 30 miles back to my house. Can’t be too careful these days you know. I’ve wanted to sell it for almost 3 years now, but the value of the car was dropping faster than I could pay it off. Now it’s paid off, but not worth as much as the computer I’m typing this letter on.

So I could drone on for a while on this car. As you can tell, this car has not been friendly to me. I have been shown no courtesy from Chrysler so, at this point, there is no need for me to ever test-drive a Chrysler again. And I’ll make sure that no one I know does either. Everyone I know sees me driving borrowed cars all the time, and they know why, so they are already unlikely to buy a Chrysler.

I want to get rid of this car. Will you buy it back? This car has given me nothing but problems. It has cost me thousands of dollars, in repairs and rental cars and time. It has been in the shop for months cumulatively. Hardly something to be expected from a good car company such as yours.

If you buy it back for a generous price, I would seriously consider trading it for a used Honda off one of your lots if it’s a really, really good deal. What do you say? I’d have really good things to say about you in my really high profile public profession. It seems like you could do something here. Its annoying to me that if you add the money I paid for the Neon to the money I’ve spent fixing extraordinary repairs to the lemon, I could have bought a top of the line Honda Accord. That’s what I would have liked in the first place, but I couldn’t afford it, and I thought buying American was the right thing to do. With a Honda, mechanics wouldn’t be laughing at me because they wouldn’t be seeing me. That would be nice.

I look forward to your enthusiastic and prompt response. Since I didn’t get one last time from you ninnies, I’m also sending this letter to a few other people, just to see if they might care more. I’ve got nothing to lose and nothing better to do, since I don’t have a car to get out.

Sincerely,


Scott Furrow
Plymouth Neon Owner


CC: Martha Stewart
David Letterman
Al Gore
George W. Bush
Richard Simmons
Donald Trump
Lee Iacocca
A.J.Foyt
Prince Charles of Windsor
Regis Philbin
Pamela Anderson Lee
Bill Gates
Jay Leno
Florence Henderson
Robert J. Eaton
Better Business Bureau

You need creative drawings, like the airplane toilet guy.

that's some good stuff right there.

and now, the complete opposite of well written complaint letters, which are just as funny.

UK Council and housing association complaints

The following are real extracts from actual complaint letters sent to various councils and housing associations throughout the UK. What a literate bunch we -Brits truly are!

-I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt my knob off.

-I wish to complain that my father hurt his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole in his back passage, and their 18 year old son is continually banging his balls against my fence.

-I wish to report that tiles are missing from the outside toilet roof. I think it was bad wind the other night that blew them off.

-My lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand.

-I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the wall.

-Will you please send someone to mend the garden path. My wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant. We are getting married in September and we would like it in the garden before we move into the house.

-I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen.

-50% of the walls are damp, 50% have crumbling plaster and the rest are plain filthy.

-I am still having problems with smoke in my new drawers.

-The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.

-Will you please send a man to look at my water, it is a funny colour and not fit to drink.

-Our lavatory seat is broken in half and is now in three pieces.

-Would you please send a man to repair my spout. I am an old age pensioner and need it badly.

-I want to complain about the farmer across the road; every morning at 6am his cock wakes me up, and its now getting too much for me.

-The man next door has a large erection in the back garden, which is unsightly and dangerous.

-Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two children and would like a third so please send someone round to do something about it.

-I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do something about the noise made by the man I have on top of me every night.

-Please send a man with the right tool to finish the job and satisfy my wife.

-I have had the clerk of the works down on the floor six times but I still have no satisfaction.

-This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broken and we can’t get BBC2.

-My bush is really overgrown round the front and my back passage has fungus growing in it,

-… and he’s got this huge tool that vibrates the whole house and I just can't take it anymore.

-... that is his excuse for dogs mess that I find hard to swallow.

This is some entertaining thread! The first one was my fav.