There’s a great article today in The Guardian in which Lucy Siegle argues that fast fashion, which encourages consumers to buy more for less, is unsustainable for the environment, your closet, and – despite all logic – even your budget.

In 2008 the average amount we spent on clothing and footwear went down to a record low of £21.60 a week, representing 4.6% of our total weekly budget. It’s worth reiterating that we have been buying more and more clothes for less money, filling 40% of our wardrobes from value retailers using just 17% of our clothing budget. It might seem counterintuitive in these cash-strapped times, but the questions to ask are: is our budget big enough, and are we directing that money to the right places?

I would suggest that if you are on an average income, the answer on both counts is no. I would even dare to say that you should beef up your budget if at all possible, spending nearer to 6% of your total weekly income in a bid to secure a more socially just wardrobe with superior staying power.

Read the full article: Why fast fashion is slow death for the planet.

Actually, the title of the post is a little misleading because there’s an implication that there’s been top-notch customer service in the past that has somehow been lost over time. I’d hardly agree with that.

Yesterday, as with the end of every month, I logged into my Rogers Wireless account to pay my cell phone bill. I’ve had a data plan for my smart phone(s) for a couple of years now, and it had consistently been in the $70-$80 range. So, of course, I logged in to pay my bill, expecting to see the same amount. After all, I don’t use my 3G data nearly enough to go over the ridiculously low and over-priced 500MB data cap that my plan came with. In fact, I’ve always hovered around the 100MB data usage range because I’ve always been paranoid about reaching the 500MB limit. Needless to say, I was surprised to see that my bill for the month of March was $200 — all due to some inexplicable 2GB (gigabyte!!!) data usage. Apparently, my data usage for the month of April is similar (which would mean the two months would be at around $400). Insane, right?

Surprised, I called Rogers’ support from my wireless phone, only to strangely be connected first to their cable tv department. Not sure why, but that’s what happened. I was transferred to the wireless customer support department, who then transferred me to the wireless technical support department, then transferred again to the smartphone technical support department (why is this a different department?), then over to the billing department, and once more to some man in an unnamed department. I was on the phone for over an hour being passed around from person to person because there was not a single person who could explain to me where these charges were coming from and why I have to pay for these charges when my past wireless usage history clearly demonstrates this is not normal activity.

Imagine if the same thing happened with my Visa, with someone fraudulently using my credit card number and racking up charges on it? Would I have been passed around so many times? Would they have accused me of actually charging all these things to my card? Would they have neglected to offer any concrete solution to preventing this from happening? No. My card would have been cancelled immediately (and replaced with a new number) and the charges would have been disputed and reversed. So why wasn’t this the case with Rogers?

Oh yeah, because the people are Rogers (and Telus, Fido, Bell, etc…) are so far from customer-focused that they don’t give a shit — and why should they? After all, if all the major wireless service providers provide outrageous pricing and lack-luster customer “support”, there’s nothing to worry about, right?

(continue reading…)