Rob's Blog

Glentrek are my new favourite company, Visit East Perthshire are not

October 7, 2009 | 5:09 pm

A couple of weeks ago we got a card through the door saying I had got a letter with insufficient postage, and needed to pay 30p plus a £1 handling fee. Not knowing who it was from I paid the money in case it was important.

The next day the letter was delivered, and I was disappointed to discover it was some junk mail from “Visit East Perthshire” (I think they got my address when we visited the Outdoor Show). They had simply not put a stamp on it!

Obviously I wasn’t pleased so I decided to ask the senders of the letter to reimburse me the £1.30 that Royal Mail had charged, and I also added the same £1 handling charge, making a total of £2.30.

I found the Visit East Perthshire website address on the junk mail, and went to the contact page and sent an email to the email address I found there. A couple of hours later I received an automated response:

Your message was rejected by [172.16.16.192] for the following reason:
5.4.6 Hop count exceeded – possible mail loop

Please reply to Postmaster@tala2.visitscotland.com
if you feel this message to be in error.

So I emailed the postmaster to ask for the correct email address. All I got from there was an automated reply telling me the postmaster was on holiday!

So, I took another look at the junk mail, and discovered an email address for a company called Glentrek. I forwarded my initial email to them, and very quickly received this response:

Hi Rob

How very annoying for you, my apologies on their behalf. I’d be mad too!

I think I’m one of a few businesses that were advertised on that mail out from Visit East Perthshire but will send the money on to you.

Kind regards

Janey

A few days later I got an envelope through the mail with £2.30 cash enclosed:

£2.30 As Promised from Glentrek

And the best bit is that it isn’t a cheque, so I don’t even have to go to the bank!

So, I’m very happy with Glentrek. If you ever want

Mountain Bike Hire
Guided Biking
Guided Hill Walks
Walking/cycling Holidays
Corporate Group Activity Days
Bag Transfer

in the Angus Glens, I would recommend them as decent people (although obviously haven’t used their services!)

However, if you ever want to visit East Perthshire, I would suggest you avoid the tourist board at all costs, as they don’t have up to date contact details, and are generally useless at admin!

Footnote: Any SEO geeks out there will notice I’ve “nofollow”ed the Visit East Perthshire links – we can’t have them gaining pagerank from being rubbish!

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