Rant of the Day v2.

[Woody]

Whoever was using a leaf blower at 08.30 on a Sunday morning

[1DC]

Friends daughter is a nurse, she got home from night shift just got into bed when their was a knock on the door, it was the bloke from across the road asking to borrow her mower without thinking she s aid yes. The bloke then spent the morning mowing his lawn and as a thank you hers as well!!

[Hydromet]

Friends daughter is a nurse, she got home from night shift just got into bed when their was a knock on the door, it was the bloke from across the road asking to borrow her mower without thinking she s aid yes. The bloke then spent the morning mowing his lawn and as a thank you hers as well!!

Reminds me of a tale about a late football coach here, Ron Barrassi. He was renowned for his explosive half-time rants. During one of these, one player turned to the team mate beside him and said "Can I borrow your mower tomorrow?" Collapse of other players in uncontrollable laughter, and even more explosive rant from Barrassi.

[OFSO]

Fitting a new, very expensive, ELB to the Spanish house has not helped. Power still off. Rachael trying everything on four-times-week visits to feed cats
Breaker tripped in the stair well lighting system here in Teddington. No reason, reset.
No central/domestic heating here this morning. Water pressure in circuit low, why ? Easy to top up but difficult and wearysome of access as behind kitchen units. Done !

[izod tester]

Landed LHR from CPT at 07:07 this morning. For some reason the AC could not be parked at a T5 gate so disembarking was by bus to the terminal. Just one bus. Finally exited the AC at 07:54.

[Woody]

Landed LHR from CPT at 07:07 this morning. For some reason the AC could not be parked at a T5 gate so disembarking was by bus to the terminal. Just one bus. Finally exited the AC at 07:54.

BA042 does tend to end up on remote stands on a fairly regular basis as it’s one of the last flights arriving during the morning peak and there’s not really anywhere else to put it, lack of buses is due to poor staff allocation, if you’re an Executive Club member put in a complaint and they might give you some Avios as compensation.

[OFSO]

Tried to buy some euros at the PO yesterday, Channel Islands bank card declined. Tried today, declined. Phoned them, 40 minutes on the line. Suspected fraud, card blocked. A lot of impudent questions before they would turn it on again. I lost my temper: Did anyone ask you do do this ? Are you going abroad ? (effing obvious) where ? What for ? I don't think shouting down the phone "stop asking me these idiot questions and turn the f*cking card back on !!!" was very nice but it worked. Off to Kingston this arvo to open a current and savings account with a proper bank.

[OFSO]

Whilst in the new bank, a woman came and sat next to me. Gripping my arm, she said she was furious. Just been in M&S near the ATM. There stood an elderly woman subsequently said to be 80. The ATM had swallowed her card. Woman went off to find manager, "oh yes it's been doing that today". "Well open the bloody thing and give this elderly lady her card back." "Can't do that, Madam, don't have a key. Not our machine. The man might be in tomorrow...or next week..." Elderly woman in tears. My informant gave her £10 to get home. I think the M&S manager was fortunate to escape a punch in the face.

[G-CPTN]

A couple of months back the ATM at my local bank (which was closed for the bank holiday) was 'not functioning' - though it had seized with my card inside - said it was 'still processing' my request.
Fearful that the ATM might 'return' my card I waited patiently (!) waiting for something to happen.

Being a bank holiday weekend there was no response from any of the telephone helpline numbers.

The ATM was refusing to move on (or back) from 'my transaction'.

I eventually gave up and went home.

I ensured that I was waiting for the bank to open on the Tuesday, whereupon I was told that my card could not be returned to me as it wasn't issued by that bank, however I then had the assurance that my card was likely to have been 'safely' retained rather than being ejected for any passing Tom, Dick or Harriet to use and abuse over the long weekend - but that I should contact my bank and cancel the card 'just to be sure' . . .

As it turned out the system had worked as intended, though I was without any card until the replacement arrived by snailmail.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Blxxdy banks are a PITA now, Worldwide. Meanwhile, the real cheats and fiddlers continue unabated, and laugh all the way to ........ the bank.

[OFSO]

RBS card blocked again today and App and on-line disabled. Phoned fraud department, couldn't explain why, had no record of yesterday's blocking/unblocking, could not turn on card etc. I have to go into bank - in Guernsey. Sheer stupidity and incompetence. Letter will be written tomorrow closing account.

[Wodrick]

Love it when *Speedy* rants. I see he has posted and guess the subject before reading it.

[Rwy in Sight]

I share the rant for mis-functioning cards lost to off site ATM machines. Dad inserted a brand new card tried to withdraw cash - machine trapped the card. We hadn't updated the phone to receive the PIN, so it is 3.5 € more to send it via snailmail. Mother is, still, in bad health shape so a lot of stress in the family. Sister works in the payment by card and decided to blame me for not telling my dad to first activate the card - there is some bullying going in the RiS paternal household towards RiS.

Wodrick did you manage to do anything regarding the lost dog food mishandled delivery?

[Wodrick]

Wodrick did you manage to do anything regarding the lost dog food mishandled delivery?

No Big holiday's here last three days so nothing gets done. The manure hits the Rotavator tomorrow (Η κοπριά χτυπάει αύριο στο Rotavator) if google works.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Change of Address. Why am I regarded as an International Criminal when I want to advise our of Change of Address ?

It is some three years since we moved home, and some, particularly overseas, institutions still won't accept our advice of the change without certified copies of a choice from a variety of approved documents showing the new address, like D/Licence, Bank account, Rates demand and the like ?

To send certified copies requires first scanning the document to provide a copy ( if sending an original is not an option ) then queing in-line at the local library only between 11.oo am and 1.oo pm on Wednesdays to get a local J.P. to authorise that "this has been observed as an original copy " and if e-mailing then re-scanning to include the recent authorisation.

Makes me mad, is nobody honest anymore ?

[Rwy in Sight]

ExSp33b1rd I can't describe how complicated is for the staff to handle the request not that it matters but that can be the matter of another rant.

Wodrick your effort to provide the translation was greater than Google's translate efficiency.

[OFSO]

On instructions from RBS fraud squad went to NatWest to get card and apps reactivated. NatWest very friendly but RBS "nothing to do with them, however you are welcome to use our phone to call them". Did so, on request NatWest staff confirmed my identity to RBS and card turned back on. Apologies from RBS as guy I spoke to there on Saturday was too stupid to know he could have done this on Saturday. "Weekend staff". It's cost them my investment there which is being transferred to two other banks.

[OFSO]

Arrived BCN Sants railway station to get tickets to Figueras. Monstrous queues in front of ticket office. Went to machine. In order to buy ticket one has to type in family details, machine doesn't like foreign names. And passport number (!) Three attempts, machine doesn't like foreign bank cards. Moved to another machine, that worked, but by then had missed train. Cold and grey.

[CharlieOneSix]

Are you sitting comfortably?

For the last five years I have had a Boilershield Plus contract with Certas Energy to service my oil boiler on an annual basis. The boiler was serviced at the beginning of the present annual contract last July. Superb OFTEC engineer, pleasant company.

The Certas website states that:

​**Boiler Shield Plus customers have two inclusive call outs included within the Boiler Shield plan, before a £60 call fee will be applied.

The Service Plan includes the Motorised Powerheads on three zone valves. The Honeywell Motorised Powerhead on the hot water zone valve was replaced on 21January 2023 and there is a 12 month warranty on parts. On 1st August I had no hot water so called out the engineer. He could find no fault and after he fiddled with the valve and Powerhead everything worked......until yesterday. Sometimes I get hot water, sometimes I don't. Certas say that if the Motorised Powerhead is faulty they will replace it under warranty and not count the visit as a call-out. However if it turns out not to be the Motorised Powerhead they will charge me £60 as according to them I have had two call-outs in this contract year - one in July when Certas requested a suitable date so they could service the boiler and one when I called them out on 1st August.

You can imagine a heated discussion ensued! The Oxford English Dictionary definiton of the noun 'call-out' is:

A request or summons, usually made by telephone, to provide a service, esp. to deal with an emergency or to undertake repairs.

I did not request or summon them to carry out the annual service, they contacted me. As far as I am concerned the annual service is not a call-out but is implicitly part of my contract payment.

In addition to all this their accounts department is a shambles. They never updated the £24 monthly payment from 5 years ago until this year, each year having to take the residual owed in the final monthly Direct Debit. This year they should be taking £30 a month by Direct Debit. In August they took nothing, £35 in September, £30 in October and nothing in November, December or January.

I told them to forget about sending their engineer out unless the Customer Service Manager agrees that under no circumstances will they charge me a call-out fee. If there is no agreement then being a bolshie sod I will take the financial hit and use my own plumber who we've used for decades for other work and at renewal Certas can stuff my business where the sun don't shine and I'll contact Trading Standards next week about their misguided, ambiguous and contractually unfair use of the word 'call-out'.

[Hydromet]

C16, a man after my own heart. You may be using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but you can be pretty confident that it will stay cracked.