Author Language English Publication date 27th October 2014 | Country United Kingdom Genre Reference
Consumer | |
The Complaining Cow is a blog site founded by Helen Dewdney, a consumer rights activist who believes in complaining effectively and is author of How To Complain: The Essential Consumer Guide to Refunds, Redress and Results! Reviews for the book include those from Paul Lewis, Ann Robinson Director of Consumer Policy at uSwitch, James Walker, resolver.co.uk and Marcus Williamson journalist and editor of the consumer information site ceoemail.com. The book is the first one to provide readers with information, tips, contacts, templates and advice on complaining including the latest consumer laws for a number of years.
Contents
In 2012 Dewdney started the blog The Complaining Cow telling stories of gaining refunds and redress from companies. The site provides tips and advice on how to complain about faulty goods and poor service. She also has a YouTube channel showing some of her media appearances as well as her own videos including meetings with MP Iain Duncan Smith.
Dewdney's MP is Iain Duncan Smith. Early in 2014 she took her complaining effectively to him regarding his understanding of food banks and ATOS, recording the meeting. She went back a second time to discuss the cost of living and the bedroom tax.
Career
Dewdney is a freelance children's services consultant having previously worked in the not for profit sector as a nursery nurse, manager at the National Association of Toy and Leisure Libraries, play service manager at Thurrock Council and Children's Fund programme manager (a Government funded early intervention and prevention programme for 5 - 13 year olds) and play lead for Essex County Council where she led on commissioning over 120 early intervention and prevention projects across Essex. In 2006 she commissioned and led the largest play consultation in the UK with 12,000 5 – 13 yr olds taking part in innovative drama and art based workshops as the key method of enabling participation. This supported all 12 districts to apply for and secure the funding from Big Lottery Children's Play. After taking a career break to start a family when the programme finished, she took on freelance work, providing consultancy on setting up a charity to re-engage young people through training and educational opportunities, writing funding bids, undertaking research and providing business development for a variety of organisations.
Legal action
Dewdney has no legal training but is not afraid to take on large companies and has been through the Small Claim Court process, and won, 3 times. The first time she took an employer to court and won. She was employed as a sales representative and after a couple of months decided it wasn't for her and left the day before pay day. According to the employment contract, she would receive the basic salary but not the commission, because one company had not paid the company she did not receive commission from all of the other sales. Using the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 she took the company to court and won. The company did not pay, so she sent in the bailiffs and was paid that day including the bailiffs fee.
The second time she was the defendant. A maintenance company had repaired her front door that had been kicked in. Dewdney didn't pay for the repair under the Supply of Goods and Service Act 1982 and she won again as the work was not of satisfactory quality. In 2013 she took Tesco to court using the Sale and Supply of Goods Act 1994. Tesco did not refund money when Dewdney had to use a credit card instead of Clubcard vouchers due to a website fault.
Campaigning
Dewdney works with other organisations in raising profile of consumer rights, such as working with Citizens Advice Bureau and providing a series of videos. She chaired the Disability Rights UK conference in November 2015 and will be a speaker at the Retail Week conference, March 2017.
Ombudsman Omnishambles report
Dewdey is the co-author of the report Ombudsman Omnishambles - Serious unresolved issues affecting the operation of the ombudsman ADR system in the UK, published in June 2016, which exposed serious failings in ombudsman approval and oversight.
Media
Dewdney has appeared in various media as a consumer campaigner, having gained recognition for her knowhow and approach appearing on BBC Breakfast, Rip-Off Britain and ITN News She appears on national, regional and local radio stations. and has featured in various national, regional and local press such as The Observer, The Times, the Cambridge News and others.
Dewdney regularly contributes to various blogs, newspapers and magazines with tips on how to complain such as in The Evening Standard and she writes a column in The What's Good To Do quarterly magazine.
Legal Case
Dewdney won her case regarding Tesco not honouring a refund when she couldn't use clubcard vouchers online. Dewdney's first post on her blog was complaining about Tesco and has regularly posted about poor service including posts about insects in rice and her opinions on Tesco CEO Philip Clarke. When the new Tesco CEO Dave Lewis was announced, she wrote to him and he asked to meet her. She has sold 100 of her books to his most senior staff. She met him and the senior staff to discuss complaints.
Fake Farms
Dewdney continues to challenge Tesco, particularly on the issue of "fake farms". and in September 2016 interviewed Tesco UK CEO, Matt Davies CEO and Dave Lewis Group CEO about this and other subjects.