During buying this new house of mine, I’ve had to chase and fight people to do the simplest things – even things they’ve promised to do that aren’t even difficult, no wonder the economy is in the toilet.

Barclays Bank – shredded my company accounts instead of copying them, took 6 weeks to organise a mortgage, lied repeatedly about ringing me back or escalating issues and even about faxing my offer to the solicitor “as we speak”;

UPS – forgot to put my passport/driving license on the truck, so 24 hour delivery became 48+, their website reports every issue as a possible exception/delay and you get nonsensical emails from them with the sender/receiver reversed, good thing I hadn’t booked a flight. I’d better get my 50ukp back;

Barratt Homes – don’t even manage to give me a floorplan, eventually sent me a brochure which doesn’t include my house, never sent me a Home Information Pack;

BT – somehow manage to order two phonelines and ADSL packages, so I cancel one and then they inform me that the remaining order isn’t even correct – no fixed IP for a start. I bet on moving-in day I’ll find they’ve cancelled everything and not even sent the router out, but still billed me twice anyway;

Equifax – pluck out of the air that they can’t find company accounts filed in the last two years, despite Companies House’s website correctly reporting May 2009 as last filing date;

Barclays Insurance – tell me that I can put my building insurance on hold and when I go to un-hold it they tell me that I’ll have to apply again – oh and online not over the phone;

eBuyer – well this hasn’t quite gone wrong yet, but I’m sure it will as they told me it can be delivered on moving-in day but seem to have given me free delivery, which is the “some random time within 5 working days” option, not the “tomorrow by 1pm” option.