I don't usually blog or anything, so I thought I'd post here...
it's kind of computer related, but also kind of not...
My day actualy started late last night when I got a call from my girlfriend, (2:30 in the morning), she's drunk, nobody else wants to leave in a taxi from her office party yet, can I come get here?)...
so I say yes, get out of bed, get in the car and drive to get her, cept I can't find the place, stopping to ask directions didn't help since the only place I could find to stop was a petrol station, where the guy was very nice, but had no real clue of the city he lived in, and a somewhat shaky grasp of the english language...
anyway, eventually I found the place, and drove us back home, to get in at abuot 4:30...
got up again at 9am, (late) to go to work...
work was boring, practically nobody was there, so there was nothing for me to do, (I'm IT support, no people = no problems)... I sat and played with the phone that I picked up yesterday, it's an O2 XDA mini S, it's the muts nutes of mobile phones, touch screen, windows mobile, slide out keyboard, wireless ethernet and such... in fact I had a small spell browsing these forums over the wireless... so that was great, and I finially finished copying over all my contacts...
I left work on a half day... went home, and that's when the big tidying up came... our house is now really clean, but spending hours tidying did seem excessive, even though I was pretty much too tired to do anything...
anyway, at about 8:30 (pm), I loaded all our stuff into the car, and by about 9:30, we set off... (we left late so as not to get stuck in traffic...)
spent 2 and a half hours driving home... through some of the thickest fog known to humanity, (anyone living in britain at the moment will know that it's pretty much blanketed by fog for the past few days now)...
when I get home, I get a cup of coffee, (though it's actually 12:30 the next day now). before I go with my dad to tesco, cause he wants to do christmas shopping, and wants a hand, so we drive to the nearest large town with a 24 hour store, cause he's decided that shopping in the middle of the night will mean that the store will be empty... -how wrong could he be?
the store is far from empty, ot seems a few other people shared in his cunning plan, and any space that wasn't filled with tired customers was filled with cages, and dopey tesco staff restocking the shelves, (surey there has to be a better way of stocking than to pretty muh completly empty the stock room into the shop for the evening?
andway... finish shopping and drive back... then it was 2:30... have another coffee...
now I start opening the post that has accumulated from the past few weeks...
this is where my day goes really downhill and not even playing with my funky new phone will cheer me up...
student loans first... recieved my statement, even though I make payments each month, (and those payments are based on the amount that you earn), and even though I took the minimum loan for three years, I still owe more now than I did when I finished Uni... how stupid is that? the whole loan system is meant to be geared towards students...
I'm not saying that I want a free ride, but it does seem mighty mean to charge me interest at a rate of twice what they request in payments... that surely means that I'll pretty much never be able to pay it all back, unless I make a lot o 'lump sum' payments to reduce the interest... and benig as I have to work/runcar/pay rent/eat etc... I won't be making any lump sum payments any time soon...
second... and this is reall annoying...
2 years ago, 1&1 tempted me with a free domain offer, (get a free .info domain for nothing)...
last year they sent me a bill, for the service of the comming year...
I got onto them straight away, saying that I didn't realy want the domain any more, could they cancel it, I'd be happy for them to take the money as I hadn't cancelled in time, but I really didn't want and didn't use this service...
they say I should fax them a signed letter saying th atI don't want the doamain, and that's their cancellation process...
I reply that I don't have access to a fax machine. and say I don't see why they need it, they have nothing to compare a signature to, as the accounts are all opened online... (it's basicall just a scam, a whole bunch of hoops that they make their customers jump through to make it hard for them to remove accounts from their name).
a few months ago I recive another bill for this service for the forthcomming year...
now I'm realy pissed, I get in contact with their customer service department, and say, hey, I asked that this be deleted last year... why do I have to pay?
they tell me that they said last year if I wanted to cancel then I should have written to them or faxed them, (not what their terms and conditions did say!).
but the process was much simpler now and I can cancel online...
I duely thank them and cancel, but tell them that I resent paying for a service that I formally asked to be cancelled...
they basically tell me that I should have cancelled, I say that I asked it to b cancelled, and they basicaly tell me to piss off in not so many words, and suggest I take it up with the complaints department.
the complaints department are even less helpful, but rather than just be flat out rude, they sugar coat their speeches and canned replies. they also say that they pretty much don't care that I wanted to cancel, being as I never faxed confirmatoin, (as I didn't have acces to a fax machine, (even though they didn't have access to a compare signature), that the account was still valid).
I argue, to the point that they actually agree to cancel the account now, so that I can't use the account for the next year, I thank them and hear nothing more...
that is until I open my post that's been accumulatnig for the past few months...
3 months ago, 1&1, you're debit card expired, please update your account details -you owe us money
1 month ago, 1&1, you have an outstanding balance, all of your packages are now suspended. if you don't pay in a week we'll add a late charge to the account.
Yesterday, BFS finance, our client says that you owe them money, now you owe us money, don't bother contacting them cause we're a debt collection agency, and we expect payment in full + charges before 29/12 this month... (working hours are mon-fri 9-5, (so I guess I have to call them on wednesday?)
I'm now really really pissed...
I've paid two years for a service that I didn't want and never used.
I'm paying for a service that I asked to be cancelled, and never used.
and now I'm being persued by a debt collection agency for the fee for a years service that is formally cancelled and cannot be used... e.g. 1&1 want money when they provide you with a service, and want money when they don't provide you with a service.
the charges are 2 and a half time the original amount, which takes the total balance to a whopping £25...
now my thoughts are f' it I'll pay the money and just cancel all my services...
fact is that I wsa a good customer
I took out more than one package.
I was happy to pay when it was my mistake, and I tried to work with them to correct the mistake.
they were just unhelpful and downright rude to me.
then they put bad credit scores against me and have debt collectors persuing me...
now it's a quarter to five, roughly 24 hours since I last went to bed... and I've had a total of about 4 hours sleep, and driven around 200 miles...
and the worst bit of all of this...
the onboard memory on the phone is already full...
all local suppliers, (supermarkets) prices on miniSD cards are ridiculous.
the money that I would have spent on a 2GB card from dabs is now being used to pay for a service that I can't ues cause it's cancelled.
and to cap it all off...
my dad doesn't have wireless internte at his house, so I'm unable to use my phone to browse the internet... wihch was pertty much all the fun that I had planned for tomorrow...
it's kind of computer related, but also kind of not...
My day actualy started late last night when I got a call from my girlfriend, (2:30 in the morning), she's drunk, nobody else wants to leave in a taxi from her office party yet, can I come get here?)...
so I say yes, get out of bed, get in the car and drive to get her, cept I can't find the place, stopping to ask directions didn't help since the only place I could find to stop was a petrol station, where the guy was very nice, but had no real clue of the city he lived in, and a somewhat shaky grasp of the english language...
anyway, eventually I found the place, and drove us back home, to get in at abuot 4:30...
got up again at 9am, (late) to go to work...
work was boring, practically nobody was there, so there was nothing for me to do, (I'm IT support, no people = no problems)... I sat and played with the phone that I picked up yesterday, it's an O2 XDA mini S, it's the muts nutes of mobile phones, touch screen, windows mobile, slide out keyboard, wireless ethernet and such... in fact I had a small spell browsing these forums over the wireless... so that was great, and I finially finished copying over all my contacts...
I left work on a half day... went home, and that's when the big tidying up came... our house is now really clean, but spending hours tidying did seem excessive, even though I was pretty much too tired to do anything...
anyway, at about 8:30 (pm), I loaded all our stuff into the car, and by about 9:30, we set off... (we left late so as not to get stuck in traffic...)
spent 2 and a half hours driving home... through some of the thickest fog known to humanity, (anyone living in britain at the moment will know that it's pretty much blanketed by fog for the past few days now)...
when I get home, I get a cup of coffee, (though it's actually 12:30 the next day now). before I go with my dad to tesco, cause he wants to do christmas shopping, and wants a hand, so we drive to the nearest large town with a 24 hour store, cause he's decided that shopping in the middle of the night will mean that the store will be empty... -how wrong could he be?
the store is far from empty, ot seems a few other people shared in his cunning plan, and any space that wasn't filled with tired customers was filled with cages, and dopey tesco staff restocking the shelves, (surey there has to be a better way of stocking than to pretty muh completly empty the stock room into the shop for the evening?
andway... finish shopping and drive back... then it was 2:30... have another coffee...
now I start opening the post that has accumulated from the past few weeks...
this is where my day goes really downhill and not even playing with my funky new phone will cheer me up...
student loans first... recieved my statement, even though I make payments each month, (and those payments are based on the amount that you earn), and even though I took the minimum loan for three years, I still owe more now than I did when I finished Uni... how stupid is that? the whole loan system is meant to be geared towards students...
I'm not saying that I want a free ride, but it does seem mighty mean to charge me interest at a rate of twice what they request in payments... that surely means that I'll pretty much never be able to pay it all back, unless I make a lot o 'lump sum' payments to reduce the interest... and benig as I have to work/runcar/pay rent/eat etc... I won't be making any lump sum payments any time soon...
second... and this is reall annoying...
2 years ago, 1&1 tempted me with a free domain offer, (get a free .info domain for nothing)...
last year they sent me a bill, for the service of the comming year...
I got onto them straight away, saying that I didn't realy want the domain any more, could they cancel it, I'd be happy for them to take the money as I hadn't cancelled in time, but I really didn't want and didn't use this service...
they say I should fax them a signed letter saying th atI don't want the doamain, and that's their cancellation process...
I reply that I don't have access to a fax machine. and say I don't see why they need it, they have nothing to compare a signature to, as the accounts are all opened online... (it's basicall just a scam, a whole bunch of hoops that they make their customers jump through to make it hard for them to remove accounts from their name).
a few months ago I recive another bill for this service for the forthcomming year...
now I'm realy pissed, I get in contact with their customer service department, and say, hey, I asked that this be deleted last year... why do I have to pay?
they tell me that they said last year if I wanted to cancel then I should have written to them or faxed them, (not what their terms and conditions did say!).
but the process was much simpler now and I can cancel online...
I duely thank them and cancel, but tell them that I resent paying for a service that I formally asked to be cancelled...
they basically tell me that I should have cancelled, I say that I asked it to b cancelled, and they basicaly tell me to piss off in not so many words, and suggest I take it up with the complaints department.
the complaints department are even less helpful, but rather than just be flat out rude, they sugar coat their speeches and canned replies. they also say that they pretty much don't care that I wanted to cancel, being as I never faxed confirmatoin, (as I didn't have acces to a fax machine, (even though they didn't have access to a compare signature), that the account was still valid).
I argue, to the point that they actually agree to cancel the account now, so that I can't use the account for the next year, I thank them and hear nothing more...
that is until I open my post that's been accumulatnig for the past few months...
3 months ago, 1&1, you're debit card expired, please update your account details -you owe us money
1 month ago, 1&1, you have an outstanding balance, all of your packages are now suspended. if you don't pay in a week we'll add a late charge to the account.
Yesterday, BFS finance, our client says that you owe them money, now you owe us money, don't bother contacting them cause we're a debt collection agency, and we expect payment in full + charges before 29/12 this month... (working hours are mon-fri 9-5, (so I guess I have to call them on wednesday?)
I'm now really really pissed...
I've paid two years for a service that I didn't want and never used.
I'm paying for a service that I asked to be cancelled, and never used.
and now I'm being persued by a debt collection agency for the fee for a years service that is formally cancelled and cannot be used... e.g. 1&1 want money when they provide you with a service, and want money when they don't provide you with a service.
the charges are 2 and a half time the original amount, which takes the total balance to a whopping £25...
now my thoughts are f' it I'll pay the money and just cancel all my services...
fact is that I wsa a good customer
I took out more than one package.
I was happy to pay when it was my mistake, and I tried to work with them to correct the mistake.
they were just unhelpful and downright rude to me.
then they put bad credit scores against me and have debt collectors persuing me...
now it's a quarter to five, roughly 24 hours since I last went to bed... and I've had a total of about 4 hours sleep, and driven around 200 miles...
and the worst bit of all of this...
the onboard memory on the phone is already full...
all local suppliers, (supermarkets) prices on miniSD cards are ridiculous.
the money that I would have spent on a 2GB card from dabs is now being used to pay for a service that I can't ues cause it's cancelled.
and to cap it all off...
my dad doesn't have wireless internte at his house, so I'm unable to use my phone to browse the internet... wihch was pertty much all the fun that I had planned for tomorrow...
