On 2007-07-28 00:24:52 +0100, "Bob Eager" said:

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 22:49:21 UTC, Andy Hall wrote:

You're such an old grouch! Just think, with any luck, you'll be
a pensioner yourself, one day!

I have a cunning plan to drink myself to death before I become an old fart.

Too late.....

Ask for either the Dirty Old Man or Victor Meldrew starter kit for Christmas.

I think I must be (prematurely) becoming a 'grumpy old man'....

This week:

Tuesday: dust up (ongoing) with Barclaycard over problems with their
so-called 'fraud prevention' which caused me a lot of inconvenience.
Second level complaint ongoing.

Did you do some pattern of transactions that you don't normally do, or
perhaps some sequence that by time is unlikely?

I have contacts by Nat West's fraud prevention about every six months.
As a result of traveling a lot, there are quite large numbers of
transactions and throughput of money on my card. In the early days
of fraud detection systems, they weren't very sophisticated at all.
For example, I once had a card stop because of transactions in three
countries in a 24hr period. For me, that's not a regular occurence
but it does happen - my record is 5 countries in a day - but that was
enough to do it.

It seems that nowadays, the systems have become a lot more
sophisticated, so the frequency of contacts has reduced. What I do do
is to inform them before going to certain countries or before going to
one for the first time. The account is annotated for a period and no
problems.

I did have a recent occurence where my card number had been used to
make some fraudulent internet purchases (music and designer clothing).
All places that I haven't used before and I don't buy designer
clothing anyway. Only one transaction out of an attempted 8 actually
went through. Card was replaced. In this case the trader takes the
hit for not doing proper verification.



Wednesday: CPC, for failing to pack a hard disk properly (continuation
of long saga). Still awaiting warehouse manager's response.

I think you will wait for a long time. These people are just storemen
with a slightly elevated job title. I'd cut it short. Give them two
days to come up with a replacement and then contact the card company
and report it. Having the transaction backed out may get more
attention.



Thursday: Crucial, for screwing up a delivery and hitting the postal
strike. Still not resolved.

As in the memory people? These days, one of my purchasing criteria is
to go for suppliers who don't use Royal Mail or have an option not to
do so. Hopefully, if they continue to do stupid things like strikes
and drive yet more business into the hands of their competitors, they
will eventually go bust anyway and we'll all be a lot better off.




Friday: Council highways department, for coning and fencng off a large
chunk of our road earlier this week. Lots of extra traffic noise due to
congestion, also parking problems. I wouldn't mind, but the road surface
still hasn't even been touched. One workman to do coning, fencing and
signing, that's all.

Contact councillor and ask your neighbours to do so as well.




Not sure it's just a bad week or I'm becoming more intolerant....!

These are all things where there is no excuse (except perhaps
Barclaycard, but you didn't describe the circumstances).

Intolerance is the right way to deal with poor service that is not
immediately addressed. Asking for name and specific commitment on
when is a very good starting point. Keeping the acceptable timescale
uncomfortably but no unreasonably short, often instils a sense of
urgency that should have been there in the first place.