As some of you will know, a fair portion of the work I do is in the Higher Education sector. I recently needed to buy a small amount of kit (just over a hundred quid). A quick search on the interweb showed that Expansys was going to be the cheapest supplier of said kit.

On checking our finance database, it turns out that the University has an account with Expansys. Yay! I call them up and say "Hi, here's our account number - I'd like to make an order please!". But what's this? Because I didn't open the original account - and I have no idea who did (let's see... 3500 employees. It could be someone from Finance itself, or someone from an individual department...) I can't place an order. Hum. Ok. Apparently we can't open a credit account with them because we've not got an order history (WTF? The University already has an account - you've just said that - but we can't open another because the University hasn't ordered from you before?). This strikes me as a bit chicken and egg, but anyway. Most suppliers fall over themselves to open an account for a University. My options, apparently, are pay for it myself and then claim it back (The University frowns on this as, I understand, the Tax man really doesn't like it), or get a pro-forma from them. Once this is paid, they'll ship the goods. I opt for the latter, since this is the only option open to me.

The pro-forma is paid on 15 May 2007 by BACS from our end. Now, I know BACS is slow, but it's absolutely 100% in their account on Monday. This we know. I ring them on Monday. "We've not received the payment". Fine - maybe it's taking a day to show on their end for some reason. I ring back Tuesday. "We've not received the payment". By this time, I'm starting to do my nut. It should not take 10 days to order a hundred quids worth of stuff. I give them all of the references from the BACS transfer - the bank for the University has spoken to the receiving bank and they've confirmed the money is there - but Expansys are saying it's not. They agree to get their finance department to look into it and contact me.

This morning - finally - an e-mail. They've received the money. Yay! But wait - there's more: "We expect the stock to arrive on an internal transfer in the next 3-5 days".

Expansys. Bunch of utter muppets. Keep well away from them if you want any chance of seeing your stuff within a reasonable time frame.