Rants

Look Out Al Capone, I’m Coming For Yer!

/ masher / 6 Comments

My daughter is currently in the process of buying her first house.

Now, unless they are particularly wealthy or well paid, it’s not easy for most youngsters to get on to the housing ladder, these days, so – as a doting parent – I want to help out, of course.

To that end, I have gifted her a sum of money to pay off her car loan and to put down a deposit.

As I say, the sort of thing that doting parents do, if they can.

I thought that doing such a thing would be simple: just transfer the money over. But no: I now have to prove that I am not money laundering!

Yes, you read that right: I now need to prove that I’m not a money launderer!

The only time I have ever laundered money, was that time I put my jeans in the wash and forgot that there was twenty quid in the pocket.

Anyway, to prove I’m not part of a major crime ring, I was asked by her mortgage provider to supply several month’s worth of bank statements to show that the money was in my account before I gifted it to my daughter.  This, I did and I thought that would be the end of it. But, no.  I have returned from holiday to find that I now need to prove that the statements that I sent off, are indeed mine.

So, I have been referred to a company that specialises in ID checks.  I have to provide them with ‘biometric data’ (a photo of me); scans of my passport, driving licence and utility bills (not so easy, since I went paperless several years ago). I also have to wet sign and scan in several documents stating that the money is my own and that it hasn’t come to me via any criminal means.

Jeez, all I wanted to do was help my little girl out.

Not Going Out

/ masher / 4 Comments

In a post, only a short while back, I mentioned how much we love going to the pictures, but also how I’ve noticed a gradual fall in attendance.

Well, we – as a family – have just contributed to that decline.

We have long been members of Cineworld’s Unlimited club, which – for a monthly sum – allowed us to visit our local cinema as many times as we wanted and, indeed, in the early days, we used to go on an almost weekly basis.

But now, as the kids have got older and their viewing tastes have changed, we found we weren’t going as often as we used to.  So long as we went at least twice a month though, our Unlimited membership was still worth the cost.

But, of course, that too has been steadily going up in price and when they announced another price hike last month, we decided that enough was enough and we cancelled our membership.

In my cancellation email, I explained how these continued price rises are making it hard for people to afford to go to the cinema nowadays and I suggested that a drop in price might actually increase cinema attendance… which would benefit all.

Sadly, I didn’t even get a reply.

Email Overload

/ masher / 4 Comments

You know when you order something from Amazon or eBay (and many other sellers, it has to be said), you generally receive an email confirming your order.

A while later you might get another email saying that your order has been dispatched.

And when you eventually receive your order, you might get a final email confirming that it has been delivered to you.

Well, a couple of weeks back, I ordered some items from AliExpress… because they are so bloody cheap compared to the UK.

I ordered four items. If you must know:  a pack of MOSFETs; An Arduino Uno board; some blue LEDs and a multi-ganged 12-way switch.

Once I had completed the order – four items but in one order, paid with one payment – I received a confirmation email.
For each item. So I received four emails.

This was followed a short while later with another email saying “Order ready to ship”. For each item.  So, another four emails.

An hour later, yet another email: “Order shipped”.
For each item.
Four more emails.

This was followed up the next day with another four emails: “Package in transit”.

A few days later, another four: “In your country/region”.

Then: “Cleared Customs”.

“Out for delivery”.

And then finally “Delivered”.

Except, it wasn’t the final one.  Another four arrived a couple of days later: “Awaiting confirmation”.  This means they are waiting for me to go on to the website and confirm that I have received my order.  So I did.

That then generated four more emails: “How did it go?”  Basically asking me to go online and review how well the ordering process worked.   All in all, I received 40 emails regarding the four items that I ordered.

I was tempted to actually do the review, complaining that they sent too many emails.

But I thought I might have to do it four times.

 

Parking Idiots

/ masher / 6 Comments

I do my grocery shopping as early as I can on a Saturday morning: 1. To make sure I get a parking space and 2. To get there before they sell out of toasted tea cakes.

On point 1: I always try to park considerately.  If I get out of the car and find that it isn’t square in the bay or the back end is hanging over the line, I’ll get back in the car and correct it. This makes it easier for those parking next to me and allows the maximum amount of room each side for people to open their car doors without hitting mine.

Sadly though, some people just don’t seem to care about such things and will just park their car at whatever jaunty angle takes the least amount of effort.  And, if their door hits the car next to them, so be it. Can’t be helped.

Which is why I found yet another dink in my door this week, when I cleaned the car.

I’ve tried parking away from everyone else abut this still happens.

People just seem to want to park next to me, for some reason.

When I went to the National Archives a few weeks back, I parked in a retail park just a few minutes walk away, as the parking was free for up to 4 hours.  Although there were plenty of spaces available, I parked right at the far end, well away from everyone else, in a row of bays that were completely empty.

When I returned about an hour or so later, I found that someone had parked right next to me – as can be seen in the picture above (my car is the blue one).

All those empty bays and he/she chooses to park as close as possible to me.

Maybe my car is just particularly attractive.

Recommendations

/ masher / 6 Comments

A couple of days ago, I moved some money out of one of my savings accounts and into my current account.

As both accounts are with the same bank, this was a very quick and easy thing to do, taking less than two minutes from start to finish. An ‘everyday’ transaction, I would imagine.

So, I was surprised when yesterday, I got an email from the bank, asking me to take part in a survey regarding my recent transaction.  As I had nothing better to do for five minutes, I clicked on the link and was taken to a page which asked all the usual stuff: Male/Female/Other; Age, etc.  And then it asked me to rate on a scale of 1 to 10, how easy it was to make the transaction.

I gave it a 9 (I’m like Craig Revel Horwood when it comes to giving out 10’s).

The next question caused me to just give up on the survey and close it:  Based On Your Recent Money Transfer, How Likely Are You To Recommend Us To Friends And Family?

WTF?

I cannot imagine a single scenario, where a friend – or family member – tells me about a problem they had transferring some money at their bank and I say to them “Oh, you should try HSBC… they’re very good at transferring money between their internal accounts. I scored them 9 out of 10, y’know.”.

This sort of question appears on so many surveys and every time I just back out of it, because I no longer recommend anything to anyone.

This is partly because, some years ago, a neighbour was having problems with their internet connectivity. I looked at it for them and deduced that their broadband provider was the issue.  I recommended that they switch to Virgin Media, which they did.

All was well for a while and they were well chuffed, but then they started having problems. Big problems, both with their connectivity and with their billing. It went on for months and it caused them a lot of grief and they  told me that they wished they had never signed up.

At that point, I wished I’d never told them to.

I felt bad, even though I had suggested it to them in good faith.  I was a VM customer for 25 years or more and I never had a single issue or problem with them.

But maybe not everyone is so lucky.

So now, I don’t recommend anyone, or any service, to anybody.

Prime Idiot

/ masher / 6 Comments

Like so many of us, I use Amazon.

A lot.

Probably too much.

Thanks to  Amazon Prime, we have what seems like a constant stream of delivery drivers coming to our door on an almost daily basis.  And, I know I spend too much on Amazon.

But that’s because they have made it so easy.
On purpose.

Next day delivery; Single click purchasing; Recommendations.
It’s just all so simple.

So simple that a complete idiot can get it wrong, it seems.

A little while ago, an electronic project on t’internet took my fancy. “I’ll build meself one of those!”, I thought.  Handily, the project author had not only listed all the parts required, but also links to where they could be purchased from.  A lot of it was from Amazon.

I merrily clicked away, adding items to my Amazon basket. At one point, it asked for my password. I thought this strange, as my password is normally stored such that I don’t need to enter it. Anyway, I did enter it – which it accepted – and I carried on ordering my bits and pieces.  Something was subtly different about the site, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

And then I realised the links had actually taken me to  Amazon’s .com website in the US.  It seemed like I now had two accounts: one on the .co.uk site and one on the .com site. D’oh!

I didn’t want two accounts, so decided to delete the .com account.   I went through the very convoluted process of cancelling my account.  “Are you sure?” it said, when I finally got to the end.

Yes.

“Are you really sure? This will delete everything in your account.”

Yes… do it… there’s nothing in this account.

“OK, if you say so… Account Deleted.”

Disaster!  What they failed to mention was that the .com account and the .co.uk account were linked… or they were one and the same thing, I don’t know.  So, I lost everything: details of previous orders; wishlists etc.

OK, that’s annoying, but it’s not a big problem, is it: just create a new account.

I created a new account.

Then I had to get myself set up on Prime, once again.   A bit of a kerfuffle having to recreate the wishlists and boxsets that I had saved on there, but again, not a real problem.

And then I had a thought. I checked my Kindle.  My library was empty!  I’d had about a hundred books in there and now they were all gone.  OK, yes, I’d read most of them, but that didn’t mean I wanted to empty my virtual bookshelf. Plus, there were half a dozen unfinished books and several that I’d recently bought and hadn’t yet got round to reading.

Bugger.

I contacted Amazon on their webchat thing and was assured that this could be resolved  and that they could get all my books back. I was told the relevant department would contact me within 48 hours.

Of course, no-one contacted me.

I got back in touch with them several times in the days that followed.

A week later, after many emails and more phone calls, I was told that it was gone… all of it… and none of it could be retrieved.

I’m bloody annoyed.  Mainly with myself, because this was my doing, after all.
It was my mistake.

But I’m also annoyed with Amazon for not making it clear that my .com account and my .co.uk account were actually the same thing.  Also, you’d think with the amount of server space they have, they could have a procedure in place to hold the data from a closed account for a short period of time, to allow for idiots like me mistakes like this.

The Future’s Bright, The Future’s…

/ masher / 4 Comments

I do like a glass of orange juice with my breakfast each morning.
Just a small one.
150ml is the recommended daily intake according to the NHS and I have just under that amount. Why? Because the 1 litre carton that I get from Sainsbury’s when I do my weekly grocery shop on a Saturday morning, will only give 6.66 portions (1L divided by 150ml). So I have just slightly less, so that I can get 7 equal glasses of juice out of the carton, thereby getting a full week’s worth.

Normally, I will purchase Sainsbury’s own juice, because I find it’s pretty good. Tropicana definitely tastes that little bit better, but is much more expensive. So, last week, when I saw it on offer for almost the same price as the cheaper supermarket brand, I snatched up a carton.

They are pretty similar in size and appearance, as can be seen in the above photo.

Except that they’re not.

On Friday morning I poured myself a glass of juice as usual and was surprised to find the carton was then empty – I would have none for the following morning.  At first I suspected that someone else in the family had been at my juice, however, I knew that wasn’t the case as no-one else in the family drinks it. Looking at the carton, I noticed that despite looking like a regular 1 litre size, it was actually 10% smaller!

So, what’s going on here, Tropicana? Not only more expensive than the supermarket juices, but you actually get less, too?

Another example of shrinkflation in action?

And putting 900ml in a carton that looks like a 1L one, is just being sneaky and devious, I reckon.

Tyred

/ masher / 4 Comments

A couple of months back, a warning appeared on the dashboard in my car.

“Unable to read Tyre Pressure Monitor Sensors”, it said.  Oh great, something else to pay out for!

But then it disappeared. Then it came back. And then it disappeared again.  Eventually, it came back and it stayed there.  I thought I’d better look into it.

It turns out that what I thought was probably something only featuring on higher end cars, has actually been fitted to all new cars in the UK since 2012.  In fact, not just in the UK: Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) have been mandatory in all new cars sold in Europe since 2014 and in the United States since 2008.

Well, I never knew that.

Further research showed that the most likely reason I was getting the warning was that the battery had probably failed on one or more units. There is one fitted into the valve on each wheel and the battery should last between 8 to 10 years, apparently.

My car is 9 years old.

A couple of weeks back, I phoned my local tyre fitter and he quoted me 110 quid to replace the sensor in each wheel. That’s 440 quid!  I decided that I could live without TPMS… you know, just like we did in the old days. We managed to get by without such technology for decades, didn’t we?

But, apparently, it’s now an MOT fail.

In the end, I decided just to replace the one that had died so as to get rid of the warning on the dash.  I shall likely have to go again in a few months when another one dies. Maybe it’s time for me to look at buying a new car. Hmmm…

So, be warned, if your car is coming up to nine or ten years old, you may well have some unexpected expense coming your way.

Whilst we are on the subject of the local council…

/ masher / 6 Comments

Today is “Bin Day”.

I don’t mean Bin Day in the form of a national holiday or anything, it’s just that today is the scheduled day that the bin men (and/or women) come round and empty our large black general waste bin.

If they can be arsed.

They might come round tomorrow, instead. That sometimes happens.

In the ‘old’ days, they used to empty it weekly, but for years now – in line with pretty much everywhere else, I believe – they empty it fortnightly.  Not always easy: there have been plenty of times where I have had to physically climb into the bin and jump up and down on the rubbish to compact it so that I can get some more in.

And I have seen talk in the news that some councils are looking to make it a monthly collection! To be honest, I don’t know if our council is one of those, but even if it isn’t, it’ll probably follow suit if it sees that savings can be made.

I really don’t think that we could cope with our rubbish only being taken away every four weeks.

Today is also Bin Cleaning Day.   Again, not a national holiday.

I pay a man to once a month stalk the bin lorry and once our bin has been emptied, he jet washes the inside and then deodourises it.  It sounds an extravagance, but it’s only a few quid and you wouldn’t believe the pong that comes from that bin in the Summer months!

And… I have just sent 48 pounds to the council to get a permit to have my brown bin collected.  Forty eight sovs, for a bin that is only used during Summer and Autumn to take my grass cuttings away!

Ridiculous.

We should be getting a letter from the council soon, to tell us how much our Council Tax has gone up.

I look forward to that.

Le Weekend

/ masher / 7 Comments

Ahh, Le Weekend… to coin a phrase nicked from us by the French.

Just because we nicked cul-de-sac from them.

Le tit pour la tat.

Or, should it be la tit pour le tat… what with tits being feminine and all?

I dunno.

Anyway… it was a good weekend because – despite the very blowy weather brought on by storm Kathy, I managed to get the bike out for a few hours, for the first time this year.

Saturday was a couple of hours up and down the A5, just to blow away the cobwebs. And then on Sunday, I met up with a couple of mates and we headed out for breakfast at one of our favourite biker cafés on the A10.  It was still a bit chilly, but my heated jacket did a marvelous job of keeping me toasty.

And we weren’t alone: it was packed in there.  I could barely hear myself think, as I tucked in to my Set 1 Breakfast – sausage, bacon, egg, beans and fried slice all washed down with a cup of slosh. Marvelous!

As we rode along some of the country lanes though, I found myself dismayed at the amount of fly-tipping… it seems to be getting worse. Rubbish everywhere. These people should be strung up!

Sunday afternoon, Mrs M and I decided to go out for a Sunday roast at a pub in the village up the road. To get there, we went along some of those very same country lanes that I’d travelled in the morning on my bike, but this time we were in her car.

Parked in a lay-by on one of these lanes where there was a lot of fly-tipped rubbish, was a black Astra. It’s boot was open and I could see lots of black bags full of rubbish, stowed in the back. A man and a woman appeared to be dumping their rubbish here.  I wound down the car window so that I could hurl some abuse at them as we passed.

But then, as we got closer, I noticed they weren’t dumping rubbish at all… on the contrary, they were wearing rubber gloves and were picking up the rubbish and bagging it and then putting it in their car… to take to the tip, I assume.

Rather than hurl abuse, I leaned out of the window and gave them a round of applause as we went past.

There are some bloody idiots out there, but there are some damn-right heroes as well.

Bike

/ masher / 4 Comments

My bike insurance is due this month and my insurance company – with whom I have been fora few years now – have just sent me the renewal premium.

It has gone up from £146 to £255.  An increase of seventy-five percent!

Yes… 75%  !!

I’ve not made any claim in the last year.

I’ve not even contacted them –  at all – in the past 12 months.

And yet they have hiked it up considerably.

And it makes me laugh how, on the letter, it says I can ‘relax’ because they will take the payment from my bank account automatically.

Like fuck, will they!

When the time comes to renew in a couple of weeks, I shall  compare some meercats and will undoubtably secure a better deal with another company.

I will then phone my existing insurer to cancel my policy with them and the conversation will go like this, as it always does:

“I’d like to cancel my policy, please.”

“Sorry to hear that. Can I ask why?”

“Yes. I’ve just received my renewal premium and you have increased it by 75%… for no reason.”

“Unfortunately the cost of insurance is rising throughout the whole sector.  But, let’s see if I can get it any better for you.”

There will be a minute of silence whilst he taps away at his computer and then “OK, I think this is better. How does a hundred and sixty pounds sound?”

“That does sound much better.”

“Cool. I’ll just make the changes so you are only charged the new premi...”

“No. I want to cancel, please.”

“Oh. Is this price not acceptable to you?”

“Yes. But I have already gone with someone else. Maybe if you’d offered me that price in the first place, I wouldn’t have looked elsewhere.”

“What if I throw in free legal assistance?”

“No.”

Insurance companies will always do whatever they can to avoid paying out in the event of a claim, so I’m not going to give them any more than I have to.

And, with the abundance of Price Comparison websites available to us nowadays, taking your custom elsewhere to get a better deal has never been easier.