Replacement Card
Posted: Tue 1 November, 2016 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Business, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Rebuilding 2 Comments »On Friday evening, while I was out for a meal, I paid using the card for one of my Barclays accounts. That transaction, while all went OK, had traits that felt… odd. Wrong. Or at least just Not Quite Right.
So I called the bank straight after, and cancelled the card with immediate effect. That took a bit of explanation, as “I want to cancel the card from right now, no more transactions” apparently still needs discussion, and a whole bit of scripted text from the bank about “With the card cancelled, you won’t be able to use it”. (Well yeah, that’s why I’ve cancelled the cocking thing.) But I assume they’ve had to deal with morons in the past who’ve cancelled the card and then complained they couldn’t use it for something.
Anyway, they told me my replacement card would be sent out as soon as possible, and all that jazz – all fine, I’m just happier knowing that I’ve handled it to the best of my abilities, should that transaction have turned out to be as dodgy as it felt like it could’ve been.
When I got home last night, there was the new card.
And I can’t deny, I’m impressed with that – a card that’s been requested in the late evening (10pm-ish) on a Friday, and is delivered on the Monday? Not bad going at all.
While Barclays have their moments of driving me absolutely crackers – and that’s still going through the Financial Ombudsman, so I assume Barclays are being dicks with the Ombudsman as well – I can’t deny that some of their systems are also pretty bloody good.
[Updated to mention : Having looked back, it turns out it’s not the first time I’ve been impressed by this replacement card system]
EE’s broken payments
Posted: Sun 16 October, 2016 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Geeky, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »As I wrote yesterday, I ended up having some major issues with the cottage’s already-installed 3G Dongle through EE.
Basically, it’s either not been used for a while, or the previous people ran the account into the ground – there’s absolutely no credit or data available on it. That’s OK, you can connect to EE still and add a credit. Or at least you should be able to.
Basically, the device is set up so that it can still connect to ee.co.uk , and that doesn’t come out of the data allowance. All’s well and good. But. Ah, but.
The thing is, when it comes to processing payments, the processing isn’t all done on ee.co.uk. It also goes off to get the 3D secure (also known as “Verified by Visa” or “Mastercard [something]“) from the relevant bank. Only that’s from a different (and thus not-allowed) domain outside of EE, and because there’s no data allowance, the connection is refused, and the credit transaction fails.
All you get to see on screen is “An error occurred” with “Try again”. Which is… unhelpful.
What’s more unhelpful is that EE’s transaction system has pre-authorised the amount you’ve topped up by. So the funds are then locked by your bank. They’ll be released when the transaction doesn’t complete – but it can take two to three working weeks for that to happen, because banks are paranoid and slow and shit. And EE are just shit, because their failed transaction doesn’t release those funds.
Even better, you can’t then offer feedback or contact EE. Because – yes! – all the online feedback is done through a third party, and goes off to a different domain.
So you’re basically left with no data, no top-up, locked funds, and no way to contact EE to tell them so.
Even worse, I suspect it’s only because I’m a techie that I understand it this much – for Joe Public it’d just be “it’s broken, and EE are shit”. (Which isn’t something I could argue with either, but at least I can understand why it’s broken!) It’s a simple scenario, but one I’m willing to bet they’ve never tested, going on the assumption that people would top up before they ran out completely, etc. etc.
I’ve written to them to explain the same situation, so it’ll be interesting to see what they come back with (if anything)
An Expensive Week – finale
Posted: Thu 13 October, 2016 Filed under: 2015/16, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Rebuilding, Thoughts Leave a comment »Collecting the new (to me) Kia Ceed yesterday, it made me think again about how much things have changed over the last few years. Back when I had to get the Saab, I was mid-bankruptcy, and the available funds were super-tight. I got lucky with the Saab – very lucky, in fact – and in some ways I needed to get that lucky.
This time round, while things haven’t been perfect, I’ve been able to do much better. I’ve moved a fixed amount from savings to bank account, and worked within that larger-but-not-huge budget to get the Kia. I could’ve taken out more, but didn’t want to drain the savings entirely. I could’ve spent more from the budget, not bothered with the maintenance/parts warranty. I didn’t want to, but I could’ve done. I had options.
I hope that the Kia will last me a couple of years. I’ll spend that time rebuilding savings and so on, and hopefully be in a better place again when it comes times to replace it. By then I should be OK to look at sorting out a finance agreement, rather than paying outright, which will be another step in the rebuilding process.
A lot has changed in the three-and-a-half years I’ve had the Saab. A lot more will change during the expected lifetime of the new one. And that’s nothing but good.
An Expensive Week
Posted: Sun 9 October, 2016 Filed under: Car Repairs, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »As usual when things go quiet round here, it’s been a busy week – and an expensive one. If this is the aftermath of holidays, I’m going to have reservations about taking them again.
While I was away, the Saab was (again) in the garage, getting a winter service, as well as checking out a couple of weird issues that only occur when it’s been standing for a couple of days (and thus are hard to get to happen once you’ve driven the sodding thing to the garage) I’d hired a car to do the driving for the holiday, which was an expected expense.
On Tuesday, I dropped off the car at the hire company, collected the Saab from the garage, and drove into town to work for the rest of the day. All fine. When I drove it home afterwards though, the oil light came on, and the engine started sounding unwell. Bugger. With no back-up plan, it meant I had to sort out getting the car recovered back to the Saab garage, then collecting a new hire car, and doing it all in time to collect friends I was taking to a charity quiz night. So, no pressure.
As it happened, it all worked out – the recovery wagon turned up earlier than expected, we got to the garage, and the car-hire guys met me there, to take me to the hire place, so I could collect the car and then collect everyone. Pretty stressful all round, and a lot of juggling and keeping people informed of what was happening, but it all came together.
By the end of it, we even came second on the quiz!
It’s made for an expensive post-holiday week though. Paying for a new hire car, and whatever work the car needs etc. etc. Oh, and then of course my Fitbit decided to fall apart as well – because why not, when everything else is doing the same?
Just one of those weeks.
Adding to Savings
Posted: Wed 5 October, 2016 Filed under: 2015/16, 2016/17, Bankruptcy, Change, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Introspective, Rebuilding, Thoughts Leave a comment »About six weeks ago, I wrote about the changes to my intended savings plans for this year, and how it was affecting things.
Basically, I’d had a plan of how much I wanted to put into my savings account this year, and that hasn’t happened. There’s been a lot of other stuff going on instead, but all the same, it’s been a bit annoying to have not managed that target.
Since then, though, I’ve been adding in to the savings account, and making progress. I won’t get to the original target figure for this year – but putting some in is better than putting none in. So since that first post, I’ve put in the full amounts of a couple of invoices for work I’d done, but also a bit more than 10% of each piece of income has gone straight back out to the savings, so I don’t even really notice it’s gone.
In honesty, that’s what I should’ve been doing all of this year, but I was looking at it from a flawed perspective. (I can’t be bothered to explain that right now, but may do some other time) I’m intending to keep doing the same for the rest of this year, and do the same but with more money next year, and see how we go.
Eating Well For Less
Posted: Mon 22 August, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Brands, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, Food, Health, Laziness, People, Shopping, Television, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last few weeks, I’ve been watching the BBC’s “Eat Well For Less” series. It’s an interesting concept, helping people with their eating habits (and more accurately, their spending on food) by removing all the labelling and branding from food in people’s houses, removing all the prejudices etc. around their food spending. They replace expensive branded stuff with ‘own-brand’ or cheaper alternatives (and in some cases with more expensive, but better/healthier options) and also leaving some things alone. Additionally, they help people with recipes for their favourite meals, rather than buying pre-packaged and so on.
A lot of it is insanely annoying, but the core information is (in my opinion) worth it, for both the families on the programme, and people watching it.
But oh Dear God, those families are fucking pathetic. There’s lots of preconceptions about brands being preferred “because they wouldn’t be so popular if they weren’t the best” and so on, which drives me crackers.
The most recent one tonight, though, drove me crackers. One family member had been diagnosed as coeliac, and had spent six years eating salads he hated. Six. Fucking. Years. How does anyone end up eating stuff they don’t like for six bloody years? There’s no logic in it that I can see – unless they haven’t done any enquiries or research about what’s got gluten in and so on?
In this case they were buying loads of pre-packaged food – and I get that more, because they were so worried about cross-contaminating from their foods to his, and making him ill – but with no thoughts or understanding. I think the peak point for me was buying pre-packaged “gluten-free” rice, not understanding that all rice is gluten-free, in the name of Jesus H Pant-shitting Christ.
So yeah, it’s been an interesting series, but Holy DogEggs, some people are fucking lazy/stupid/pathetic*.
(* Delete as applicable)