Teahot

I have managed to resist the temptation to buy an iPod by looking at my mobile phone and asking “what’s the difference?”

I use a three year old Sony K750i with earphones, having recently upgraded the memory to 8GB here’s how they compare:

As I prefer to carry one gadget and have to carry a phone, this seems a pretty
good solution on the assumption that 100 CDs worth of music is enough variety
for my regular bus and train journeys (and I never feel the need to watch video
clips on my moble). As I listen to podcasts and the odd audio book rather
than music anyway, 8GB is plenty of space. I would find the lack of a radio to
catch up with the live news rather an annoying oversight with an iPod.

This week, based on comments at moneysavingexpert.com, I signed up with a couple of “mystery shopping” agencies and had my first experience the very next day.

To earn my £5 payment I had to travel into town to a well known cafe chain, buy breakfast and a coffee (I claimed back the food, £4.75) while covertly making a note of the time, tidiness of the cafe, how the staff were dressed and how they served me. Okay, considering how long it took to set up my account, work out how to use the on-line system, read the brief, fill in the on-line questionnaire and scan in my receipt, I doubt this is minimum wage, but a fiver and free food for something you were going to do anyway isn’t too bad. Pleasingly my payments were confirmed the next day and I’m to be paid in about a week (they pay out twice a month, no minimum payment).

I’m signed up to retaileyes.co.uk and baidata.com both of whom come with reasonable reputations.

I really like the idea of getting the odd freebie and a fiver when going out into town on my regular shopping but I also found that reading the assignment brief and accurately assessing the shop’s customer service quite satisfying. Makes a nice change from only complaining when I get appallingly bad service.

NOTE: If you are thinking of trying mystery shopping, take care not to fall for an online scam. I suggest doing a bit of research first to double check they are legitimate as you will have to give them your bank details plus quite a lot of personal identity information (birth date etc.) before you can be assigned any work. It’s also unnecessary to part with any money, so don’t!

I’m one of those people who is ultra careful about opting out of marketing whenever I sign-up for anything. I am also registered with the Telephone Preference Service and the Mail Preference Service. Unfortunately when your phone number gets misused it is almost impossible to find out who sold your customer data to pesky cold calling marketeers.

I was phoned today by a auto-dialler for a telemarketer and was amazed that when I tried dialling back on the caller-id (above) the number did not exist (I thought that faking the caller-id was illegal in the UK).

A little research and I found that you can use the number 01709 763849 for the same people where their voice mail will give you the option to opt out of the telemarketing calls. I also discovered the free silentguard register who also help to opt-out your number from silent calls from auto-diallers, though you have to re-register every 12 months.

It seems to be the pattern in the UK that Ofcom are toothless and absolutely useless when it comes to avoiding the abuse of customer information.

An Aussie friend of ours who is planning on working in Paris recently asked if we would mind holding a deposit for a Paris apartment as the owner wanted evidence that the deposit would be “in escrow” in order to keep the apartment available. On the face of there seemed no problem and we were happy to help out.

Unfortunately I found out today that it looks as though he was ripped off. Apparently Western Union fraud is rife. By sending the con-man the WU transaction number but not our details (we were supposed to be the receiving party) this is enough for anyone to walk into a WU agent and claim the money. WU do not make it clear this can happen and you are led to believe that it is a secure transaction and they require proper ID before handing over the cash.

He’s lost around £1,000 and gone straight to the Australian police. Unfortunately the police seem a bit crap as they could not even raise a search warrant to force the company to pass over transaction details, the pathetic excuse being that Western Union keep all their data in the Philippines even though they took the money through their Australian company! I doubt that WU will pay him back the money though they were keen enough to take the transaction fees.

Here are some very similar fraud case studies:

The conclusion is easy; I’ve never used them and now I never will, WESTERN UNION IS NOT SECURE.

We moved to London 12 years ago, into our delightful Victorian semi (built in 1875). One of things we quite rapidly learned was never answer the front door.

The problem is that living in Zone 2 we are the target of endless con-artists, door-to-door salesmen, dubious and religious charity collectors and so forth. 90% of the time answering the front door would be to my disadvantage. Luckily I can see through the glass built into the door to check if it is the postman. Friends and others only call “by appointment”.

I have been subject to two classic cons (don’t worry, I didn’t give them any money). One was the well dressed man who claimed to be a new neighbour of mine, had his car wheel-clamped as he wasn’t aware of the parking rules and needed £50 for the fine which I would get back when he could drive to the estate agent to get his keys; he was quite good apart from the fact there are no parking restrictions on my road. The other was a woman who claimed to live next door and needed some change for her electric meter and happened to have no cash on her, which just seemed odd as I knew next door wasn’t rented out.

In the case of the well dressed man I contacted the police (in concern for my real neighbours) and they were around for a statement within 10 minutes, they seem to see it as a real problem for the area.

Every now and again I’m expecting a delivery and keep answering the front door to check, on these occasions I get about 2 unwanted callers before getting the delivery which re-enforces my determination to stick to the no answer policy.

It is a sad fact of the realities of London life that we have to adopt a hermit-like approach to doorstep hassles.

The last time I queued for a bus was probably in the 1980s. Simon assures me that in Nottingham they still queue politely for the next bus, everybody filing in, claiming seats and buying tickets in order. Anachronistically, many Northerners will tip their caps and call out “Thank you, driver” when they alight!

Seemingly everyone in London has accepted that when a bus turns up during rush hour, it is time to have a Euro-style free-for-all scrum. The part that really irks is that it seems okay for people to push in front of you at the last minute when they see the bus coming down the road.

I have been assimilated, monkey-see monkey-do; head down, I shove in, particularly when there is no guarantee that there’ll be any space on the next bus. Along with most modern travellers, I wear my earphones and pass the time with Radio 4, which helps me ignore being pressed so unpleasantly into the sweating crowd. Just to prove I am still a nice guy, once in a blue moon, if I happen to have a seat and happen to look up, I’ll try giving it up to some elderly looking person or someone with a walking stick; about 50% of the time they’ll refuse it.

The bus queue has been left behind in the last century, all hail the new millennium!

What happened to pancake day?

It was amazingly early this year, on the 5th February, because Easter is going to be ridiculously early. According to the Easter calculator it will be the 23rd March and in theory the earliest it could ever be is 22nd March, the latest being 25th April.

It costs the British an estimated £20 million every year in extra business administration costs to deal with Easter dates changing in accordance to an incomprehensible religious formula. You would think we could agree business Bank Holidays without having to ask the church for their latest ruling on the phases of the moon as seen from Jerusalem!

Anyway, we missed it.