NEVER SHOP AT NIKE STORE ON LINE
Letter from one of our readers:
I have worked in customer service for over 12 years of my life.
I new I had seen it all but its different working in customer service than being a customer that requires service.
My experience at the NIKE store on line gave me a new meaning of customer service.
At my former employers we were always told to go above and beyond to help the customer and as well make sure we rectify a situation especially if we can see that it is our fault.
Obviously NIKE does not operate on the same code of ethics.
Its bad enough that this is the same company that was underpaying overseas employees that were children
but to also give bad customer service after rebuilding your name is really not the smartest thing to do.
My experience with NIKE has been the worst experience involving customer service in my life.
I went to NIKE's website NIKE.COM and ordered a pair of shoes as a gift for a close friend of mine but I put in the wrong size.
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SAME SEX MARRIAGE FIGURES RELEASED
Since same-sex marriages were legalised in July 2005, 188 gay couples have tied the knot in Malaga province, according to Justice Ministry figures released by Malaga's Gay and Lesbian Collective. There were more gay marriages in Malaga capital, followed by Torremolinos, Marbella and Velez-Malaga. For some reason, all the same-sex marriages in Coin were between women, while the ones in Fuengirola were all men.
EXILES DESCENDANTS OFFERED PASSPORTS
The government announced last week that descendants of Spaniards who left the country for fear of political persecution between 1936 and 1955 will now be able to apply for nationality before 2011. The decision will affect an estimated 500,000 children and grandchildren seeking to return. That number is believed to include 300,000 people in Argentina alone. The measure is part of Historical Memory law passed last year that aims to compensate and rehabilitate victims of the 1936-1939 Civil War. Elderly former members of the International Brigades, the collection of anti-fascists who travelled to Spain to fight Gen Franco's forces, will also be eligible for citizenship under the new law, without giving up their original nationality as was required in the past.
BOYS GAMBLING RUINS FAMILY
A 16-year-old boy from Granada has ruined his family by running up a €48,000 debt on his parents' credit cards playing at a virtual casino on the internet. A spokesman for the Spanish Federation of Rehabilitated Gamblers, FEJAR, said such incidents are common because the virtual casinos cannot see or check the age of the players. He said it was getting so common as to be ruining some people's lives forever. He said the latest figures showed that the amount gambled on the internet in Spain is up five-fold since 1997, and could reach €5 billion. He said FEJAR estimates that some five percent of the Spanish population could have a problem with gambling. The spokesman also warned about the amounts now being spent by some children on their mobile phones, especially if they have access to the Internet, with bills of €300 or €400 a month not uncommon. He said some children already suffering from deformed hands from sending so many text messages.
LESBIAN GETS PATERNITY LEAVE
A Madrid court has granted paternity leave of 13 days to a lesbian after Social Security had told the woman she was not eligible. Carmen Diaz married her wife in 2006 who gave birth in February 2007 to a son, who she adopted. The Workers Commissions union said that when she applied for paternity leave, the Social Security Authority had made extra demands which were never made when men claimed, A union spokesman said it regretted what he called "these situations of discrimination", and considered the court's decision an important one because it would encourage gay and lesbian couples to apply for the paternity leave which they were entitled to.
JOBLESS FIGURES STILL RISING
According to the National Employment Institute (INEM), more than 4,579 people in Malaga province lost their jobs during the month of September, the highest figure registered for that month since INEM records began in 1996. Just over 30,000 people have lost their jobs since last November, bringing the total number of unemployed to 115,895. The worst hit sectors are services - that is, hotel and restaurant workers - which accounts for just over 56% of the unemployed, and construction, which accounts for just over 25%.
SELF EMPLOYED ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE
More than 300 self-employed people a day have stopped making their Social Security payments in the past five months, according to ATA, the national federation that represents them. An ATA spokesman said self-employed people were particularly hard hit by the current economic crisis because of a drop in sales and an increase in losses. Added to that, they cannot obtain loans to keep their businesses afloat from banks which are loathe to lend money in the current economic crisis. The spokesman said "worse was to come".
HAVE FUN LEARNING WITH U3A
Retirement beginning to bore you? Liven up you life by going back to school at the U3A - University for the Third Age - in Fuengirola. Registration is now open at the Ark Christian Fellowship Hall, Las Rampas, from 11 am to 1 pm, on September 30th and October 2nd and 3rd. You can also register on Enrolment Day on October 6th. Courses range from Scrabble, Poetry, Health and Your Body, Computer Improvers Workshop, Spanish for Beginners, Patchwork, and Golden Age of Spain, just a few of the 40 courses on offer. One novelty this year is a series of talks on the Spanish Civil War, to be given by Muriel Pilkington from the Town Crier. Membership of the U3A costs 25 pounds and entitles members to participate in as many groups as they wish. More details are available on U3A's website: www.u3acostadelsol.org.
THE ODYSSEY SAGA CONTINUES
The El País newspaper has reported that thousands of people descended from the owners of the cargo of gold and silver coins which are now in the hands of the US company Odyssey Marine Exploration can claim their share of the wealth. The coins come from a shipwreck which Odyssey lifted from the seabed early last year. Odyssey claims the ship was lying in international waters "somewhere in the Atlantic" and that the booty belongs to the company while the Spanish government claims the ship is Nuestra Señora de Las Mercedes, a warship which was sunk by the British in 1804 off the Cadiz coast, and that the booty therefore belongs to Spain . The newspaper sent a reporter to the Archivo de Indias in Sevilla, which contains thousands of documents dating back to colonial times, to get to the bottom of the matter. He discovered that the larger part of the coins, 697,621 pesos, belonged to 130 Spanish merchants and that only 253,606 pesos belonged to the Crown, according to first hand accounts of the ship's last fatal journey. By law, the merchants' direct descendants can now claim their share. The case was complicated a few weeks ago when Peru claimed that the coins were minted from silver and gold mined there and form part of that country's patrimony. The Peruvian government has said it will make a formal claim to the booty if this turns out to be the case. Will the Brits now put in a claim for "spoils of war"? The saga continues.
ALL CRASH VICTIMS IDENTIFIED
By the end of last week, the government's fears that it would not be possible to identify all the victims of the Spaniar crash proved to be unfounded. By Saturday, all 154 bodies had been identified and were being escorted by grieving families to their places of origin for burials that were attended by hundreds of people. The Spainair flight from Madrid to the Canary Islands crashed shortly after take-off on August 20th. Only 18 of 172 passengers and crew survived the accident. One of the air hostesses who survived told investigators a passenger who was a pilot remarked as the plane went down the runway that there was something wrong. The MD82 plane veered into a dry river bed just after take-off from Madrid's Barajas airport. It then broke up and burst into flames, setting light to surrounding vegetation. Experts had to use DNA analysis, fingerprints and dental information to identify some of the badly burned bodies. Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said last week that was the main reason why the identification process was taking longer than expected. Reporting to Parliament last Thursday, Development Minister Magdalena Alvarez said Spanair had considered switching the aircraft at the last minute after the flight had been delayed for about an hour because of a problem with an air temperature gauge. She said Spanair "told the airport control centre that it had decided to continue with the plane, which is the one that crashed". A Spanair spokesman said the company had at no time considered changing planes but had merely told the control centre that another plane was available if necessary. According to the newspaper El Pais, sources close to the inquiry have said the plane may have lacked sufficient engine power during take-off. The paper reported that video footage showed the plane travelled much further along the runway than normal before getting airborne. The government has promised a full investigation into the crash, which is the country's worst air accident in 25 years.