Luke Sheldrick's Blog

I started a new job a few weeks back, which means, I am now home based. Which is working out pretty well so far. When I worked in an office all day, I’d always get things delivered to the office, and never really had any issues with the post. I’d occasionally get a ‘we tried to call’ redslip at home, but just assumed these were all genuine.

However, now I work at home, I’m in during the day. However now I get my post delivered home, I’ve noticed something, which well, really isn’t on – I’m still getting those slips. Not once, but every delivery this week, has failed, with “We tried to call, but no one was in” “The item was too big for the letterbox” type excuse.

This has happened with RoyalFail, DPD, HDNL, all of them pretty much. Most of the things I’ve ordered from Amazon, with Amazon Prime (which gives next day delivery). However when I’ve picked this up with them, they say the next day isn’t guaranteed if there are any issues with their courier.

I really don’t get that, I have a contract with Amazon, for them to deliver the next day. They then outsource the delivery to a courier company, yet if there is an issue with that contract, then it’s me, that paid for the Prime service – yet don’t get the item.

My theory here, is that most delivery drivers/postmen who deliver to home addresses, know that 99% of the people won’t be in during day, so rather than carrying around a big postbag, just pre-fill out the redslips.

Grrr.

So I am greeted today with even more PayPal fail (they’ll now be known to me as payfail).

A few months back, I had a letter from Natwest, who informed me they were charging me £25 a day for being over my overdraft limit. Interesting, I don’t have an overdraft, nor have I used that account since I worked for them quite some years ago.

Checking my online banking with them, and noticed ~£450 worth of PayPal direct debits. Interesting, these transactions were not listed on my PayPal account. Sent them a few emails explaining this, and they then said I had to call to discuss further. When I called they had no knowledge of the email correspondence, so I had to go through it all again. They basically said that they could not help as the transactions were not listed on my account, and they could only talk to me about MY account. They advised I talk to my bank.

Called up the bank, and explained the situation, then got put through to fraud, explained, then put through to another department, who said as I had given my bank details to PayPal years back (to deposit, not debit), it wasn’t fraud, and it was something I’d need to take up with PayFail. Back to step 1.

I then explained they can’t help, and it’s up to the bank to resolve. The only thing they could do was advise me to go into a branch, and fill out a direct debit indemnity form, as these were direct debits, and they could return them that way.

Off to the branch I went, to then be told, that form is for modifying a direct debit, I.e. you’re paying £50 a month to sky, but should only be paying £45. It wasn’t for historic transactions. They suggest I talk to PayFail. Awesome! nobody wants to take ownership.

I then asked to talk to a manager, who apparently was busy for the afternoon. I advised I probably wouldn’t be leaving the branch until I spoke to he/she, so I’ll happily wait. I had the paper, my iPad and my Macbook, so I had plenty to keep me busy. Within 10 minutes, that very busy manager was then available.

She was very helpful, and talk to the fraud team, who had earlier said they couldn’t help. They agreed to take on my case, and would give me a call by 16:00 (it was 14:00 at the time) to confirm the refunds were in place.

At around 17:00 I thought, hey, where is my call? I gave the fraud team a call, and the person I spoke to had advised the chap who was dealing with my account had gone home. I then proceeded to ask for a manager, as I had been given the royal run around. Spoke to a very nice lady who was the supervisor who advised the handling team had rejected the case, as I had at some point given my details to PayFail.

As you can imagine, not the best of responses to give to an already peeved customer. She was pretty good, and said that department was now closed, but she was in at 09:00 the next morning, and would personally go talk to the manager of that department. She advised I check my account in the morning, and if there weren’t refunds on the account by 10:00 to give her a call directly.

The refunds were on there. Awesome. Later that afternoon, I started to get emails from people on eBay I had previously purchased things from. PayFail in their infinite wisdom, had not just looked at the amounts I had contested, they had rejected all payments I had made, all the genuine transactions. I can only imagine they couldn’t find the actual transactions that had been posted to my current account, so made up the funds from the genuine transactions. So lots of irate (and rightly so) people from eBay. I explained the situation, and most of them were fine. They just had to give PayFail some docs to prove they were g transactions, and a copy of my email.

I thought that was all done and dusted. Until someone sent me some money today, I had totally forgot they had an annual auto payment to my account. The money has been accepted, and now cannot be returned. So I have funds in my PayFail account, and oh, I can’t get hold of them.

See above, my account has been ‘limited’, funny, as it was them that had made all the errors, but they feel the need to limit my account. Interesting.

The only way I can get my account working again, is to confirm my details. One of the things I need to do, is confirm 2 transactions to my bank account. They put two transactions through up to £1, and I need to tell them how much they were for. Except, my bank have blocked all transactions from PayFail, and I do not particularly want to give them the details of my actual current account, just in case they go on a frenzy again.

Arse!

So today, I am mostly furious. This is due to a number of things. I’ve had a pretty crap week, and was really looking forward to having a nice long weekend to relax and enjoy myself. I adore spending time with my friends, and they’re a very important part of my life. However…

Yesterday I was in Slough for work, and was planning to go out in Vauxhall in the evening to an event I knew a friends would be at. I txt/IMed a few people earlyish in the day, but didn’t hear anything back. Assuming they weren’t going, on my way back to London, I took the route that would take me straight home, and then settled in for the eve. I then get messages later on to say they were there, at this point I was in no mood to travel back across London. Also spoke to another friend later in the eve, who wasn’t going to go, but knew I wanted to, who turns out to have gone. Would have been nice to let me know? but hey, guess not.

Today I wanted to go around the Tottenham Court Road computer fairs, I’d mentioned it to a friend to see if he wanted to go along, and he was going to let me know if he could make it. Nothing heard back this morning. I was then meant to meet another friend for lunch in the afternoon. She said she was going to finish work at 13:00, and give me a shout, to look to meet around 13:30/14:00. I’d come home back to East London where I live, and she works in anticipation of hearing from her. At 14:30, I was a bit worried as hadn’t heard back from her, so gave her a shout, to be told she now wasn’t coming.

Seriously WTF, do people not have any concept of general courtsey? If I arrange to do something, and I can’t make it, even if I just don’t fancy it, I’ll certainly let the other people know as soon as know. I certainly wouldn’t expect them to have to chase me after the arranged time to see if I could be bothered. My day has been mostly trashed, and my time wasted. All could have been averted if others had just had some forthought. These are by no way isolated incidents, this happens far too often for my liking.

Same goes with people being late, sure shit happens that makes being bang on time difficult. However we all have mobiles today, it’s not like you cant send a call/txt. Nobody is perfect, however people who are prepetually late, really get my back up. I make every effort to be on time for everything, and if I’m not, crikey at least I’ll make sure you know before hand. Being on the tube is no excuse either, I’ll always ensure I send a message before going down to the tube/losing signal.

RARRR!!

P.S: if you read this and think this is about you, I don’t mean this to be directed at or moaning about you, just about today’s society in general. I don’t hold grudges, but maybe just think about someone other than yourself next time?

So I am meeting a friend for coffee and lunch today, unfortunately she’s running a bit late, so decided to grab a frappacino and be one of those geeks in Starbucks with their laptop/netbooks out.

I’m in the process of swapping out the wireless card in my netbook (for osx86) so don’t have any drivers or modules setup in the OS’s at the moment.

Luckily though, I do have a vodafone data sim, and the 4213 has an inbuilt 3G modem.

Here comes the fun part, the data tariff is on Vodafone business, so you would think they’d be slightly reliable… erm nope.

Every month, without fail, they mess up the billing. Apparently my Direct Debit fails, it doesn’t. A few ways I know, is it’s gone through a couple of times, so we know that it’s got the correct details. The other being when a DD does bounce, my Bank arse rape me on charges. Third being, there is always funds to cover all my DD’s.

Now vodafail, are funny people, because you know how I said it’s a data card, well how do they try to contact you… by txt message. That’s a big clever idea.

I can sort of see the idea, in that their app for windows, does have a sms function, but I would at least have thought an email may be a better option? or even both. However, I don’t use windows, instead my netbook is running Fedora 10, and NetworkManager doesn’t support sms… FAIL

The best one is when I do look at the missed call txt’s, from their sales drones. WTF? do they talk binary? no, well don’t call a datacard then!

Bah, alas, I phone them up, and go through the usual crap of, could we take your mobile number (No, I don’t know it, I never have, and have no intention of, it’s a datacard.) Can I have the account number, it’s on your bill (No, it’s a datacard, I use it when I am out and about, I don’t carry a copy of all my bills with me)… so we eventually get there, and they say to switch my PHONE off and on… FAIL.

Alas I am mobile again, thanks to the friendly folk at vodafail.

Hmm, the contract runs out next month, who should I move to?

I was horrified when driving home the other night, to see that spec‘s cameras had been put up on the A127. The A127 being one of the core roads to and from Southend, in Essex.

For anyone that doesn’t know, spec’s cameras, are average speed cameras, so they take a photo of your number plate when you join the road zone, throughout the zone, and a final camera when you leave or the zone, then they work out your average speed. A few pics below (taken from the link at the bottom).

This are, a double edged sword really, as they are very effective at stopping speeding, which is the idea, but then you can’t cheat by just slowing down at the cameras.

The problem with them putting these up, are people are idiots. The A127, is a dual carriage way, with traffic devided by a central reservation, with National Speed limits. So the speed limit is 70mph. However the idiots, see these camera’s and hit the breaks down to about 40mph or sometimes 50mph. This is by far more dangerious than going 75mph or something terrible like that.

If these idiots, had bothered to check [1] The highway code, they’d know it’s 70mph [2] The road signs, i.e. there aren’t any saying the camera’s are live [3] Google to see if they are live [4] a lot more sites, including the council’s.

Further reading & pictures: http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/a127-specs-speed-cameras.php