Ordered my new washing machine this week and today get a phone call from someone saying he was from the company.
He thanked me for the order and asked if would be interested in appliance cover? I said I'll think about it, so he says he needs to set up a direct debit so that the monthly premium can be taken if I decide to take out the cover.
He reads out all the info I've supplied including the last 4 numbers of my credit card, and points out that he wouldn't have that info if it wasn't genuine.
Maybe my suspicious nature but it just doesn't ring true to me.
I say to him send the details and I'll post the debit info later if I decide I need the insurance, but he claims he can't send out the info without setting up a DD first, as the post isn't a safe way to send bank info!!
Maybe I should tell my bank this when they send my statement by post :)
After refusing to give him the info, he gets the hump and hangs up.
I've contacted the company and told them their info is being used by probable scammers, will wait and see what they say.
Maybe I'll get some money off as a reward? haha
Friday 29 February 2008
Artists to sue the RIAA
You have to laugh.
It seems most artists haven't received a penny from the estimated $400 million that the RIAA screwed out of early P2P pioneers such as Napster and Kazaa.
Virtually none of this fortune has filtered down to the actual artists they were supposed to be defending, and the artists have had enough and are threatening legal action.
The rumour is that most of the settlements were used to cover the high legal costs of actually getting the money.
So the only winners as usual are the lawyers, and it looks like they might be looking forward to another huge payday soon.
It seems most artists haven't received a penny from the estimated $400 million that the RIAA screwed out of early P2P pioneers such as Napster and Kazaa.
Virtually none of this fortune has filtered down to the actual artists they were supposed to be defending, and the artists have had enough and are threatening legal action.
The rumour is that most of the settlements were used to cover the high legal costs of actually getting the money.
So the only winners as usual are the lawyers, and it looks like they might be looking forward to another huge payday soon.
Thursday 28 February 2008
Wednesday 27 February 2008
Consumer Advice
Finally (a year after I promised the wife) bought a new washing machine today.
Our old one leaks all over the floor and the water running down the inside has corroded the foot so it now stands at an angle which means it rattles all over the place when the spin cycle starts, yesterday it shook a jug of the side and it smashed leading the wife to say "where's my new washing machine" :)
It's done well considering it's about 15 years old and the electrics have been held together with cable ties (wonderful invention) for the last 5 years.
Been looking at a couple of models for a while, but even during the "January sales" the price didn't really come down much, but after some internet searching found one at a good price today, 50 quid lower than their "Sale" price of last month.
When ordering I noticed a "promo code" box, I had saved nearly a £100 when buying a new fridge last year by using these codes, so did some searching and found a few sites offering deal codes and managed to save an extra £50 with a free delivery code and a £25 off if you spend £250 one.
So some useful consumer advice for anyone buying on-line electricals.
There are a multitude of sites out there offering discount codes for nearly all the major electrical retailers, so it's worth a Google
Just enter "discount code" "promo" or "voucher" with the name of the retailer and sites like discountcodes, voucherstar, couponsurfer, everydaysales etc will probably have a promo code for saving some pennies.
Look around as some offers are better than others and some retailers might only accept one of the codes.
Our old one leaks all over the floor and the water running down the inside has corroded the foot so it now stands at an angle which means it rattles all over the place when the spin cycle starts, yesterday it shook a jug of the side and it smashed leading the wife to say "where's my new washing machine" :)
It's done well considering it's about 15 years old and the electrics have been held together with cable ties (wonderful invention) for the last 5 years.
Been looking at a couple of models for a while, but even during the "January sales" the price didn't really come down much, but after some internet searching found one at a good price today, 50 quid lower than their "Sale" price of last month.
When ordering I noticed a "promo code" box, I had saved nearly a £100 when buying a new fridge last year by using these codes, so did some searching and found a few sites offering deal codes and managed to save an extra £50 with a free delivery code and a £25 off if you spend £250 one.
So some useful consumer advice for anyone buying on-line electricals.
There are a multitude of sites out there offering discount codes for nearly all the major electrical retailers, so it's worth a Google
Just enter "discount code" "promo" or "voucher" with the name of the retailer and sites like discountcodes, voucherstar, couponsurfer, everydaysales etc will probably have a promo code for saving some pennies.
Look around as some offers are better than others and some retailers might only accept one of the codes.
Bogof?
To lighten the tone of this blog I'm back on dodgy supermarkets.
Son's on a health kick and is eating lots of tinned tuna (sorry Greenpeace), anyway the local Morrisons are charging £3.19 for 4 tins a rise of 20p on their previous price and the buy one get one free (bogof) offer has ended, so off we toddle to Tescos and they have the same product on a "bogof" deal, "great" I think then notice the price .... £4.99!!
So £2.50 a pack is a better price but how can they get away with saying it's buy one get one "free" when they're charging nearly twice as much?
Ended up in Iceland's and their price without special offers is £2.50.
So if Tescos price is correct and it really is buy one GET ONE FREE, they are charging 100% more than a competitor.
No wonder they make so much money as it's certainly not the only product they use this scam on, but Tescos is always packed and Iceland's is usually empty?
The words "rip off" come to mind for some reason.
Son's on a health kick and is eating lots of tinned tuna (sorry Greenpeace), anyway the local Morrisons are charging £3.19 for 4 tins a rise of 20p on their previous price and the buy one get one free (bogof) offer has ended, so off we toddle to Tescos and they have the same product on a "bogof" deal, "great" I think then notice the price .... £4.99!!
So £2.50 a pack is a better price but how can they get away with saying it's buy one get one "free" when they're charging nearly twice as much?
Ended up in Iceland's and their price without special offers is £2.50.
So if Tescos price is correct and it really is buy one GET ONE FREE, they are charging 100% more than a competitor.
No wonder they make so much money as it's certainly not the only product they use this scam on, but Tescos is always packed and Iceland's is usually empty?
The words "rip off" come to mind for some reason.
Racism, PC and Britain today
Probably shouldn't comment as any opinion voiced on the subject of race seems to get you labelled as supporting one or other of the extreme ends of the argument, but I'll risk it.
There seems to be an agenda at the moment perpetrated by the tory rags (Mail, Express, Sun, Telegraph etc) to bring us a few stories every day of how the Muslims and other immigrants are demanding this and that.
This leads the papers readers to come out and reply with things like "well if they don't like it ...." etc.
Then the second phase kicks in with replies claiming "political correctness" and accusing anyone who bothered to reply about being concerned of being Nazi racist scum, which then infuriates the readers further and anyone who didn't rise to the bait at first gets dragged into the argument as it now seems we aren't allowed to care about Britain anymore, leading to people who have never witnessed any of the supposed muslim takeover of Britain calling for action.
While the newspaper editors sit back smugly knowing their right wing agenda is a hot topic guaranteeing paper sales for years to come.
Maybe I'm just cynical or totally misguided?
Nothing promotes racism more than these stories of political correctness we are subjected to (e.g don't put up Christmas lights as it offends members of other religions etc.), I'm sure these are specially selected for maximum impact.
Every ethnic group and religion has extremists but it's a question of whether you listen to them or not, you could go out and interview a BNP member who wanted all immigrants shot but would you get away with calling him representative of the views of all British people? of course not, and nobody would believe it, but if you interviewed someone like Abu Hamza his extreme views are taken as the opinion of all muslims by a lot of people.
I've just viewed another link on a (normally sensible) forum I visit, to a guy reading his diatribe on "how Britain should stop pandering to the Muslims" posted by a "concerned" reader.
The guy in the video appears to be reading every headline I've seen on the Telegraph website over the last 6 months, the sort of things that are guaranteed to make you think Britain is becoming a muslim state and you need to take action.
I also know the message is getting through because I received an e-mail from my (as far as I ever knew) non racist mother-in-law with the old "bird feeder" analogy which is doing the rounds at the moment.
Unfortunately race riots are almost inevitable in the future as the British public is being conditioned by the media to treat all immigrants with suspicion, and the "PC brigade" are just inflaming the situation.
The "Sun reader" mentality that swept the tories to power in the late seventies is sadly still alive and kicking, too many people still believe everything they read in their morning papers and follow whatever lead they're told to.
There is a very real problem of Britain becoming overcrowded in the future due in part to the steady influx of economic and political immigrants coming into Britain, but also to the longer life expectation of the elderly, I read that there are five times as many people over 85 as there were fifty years ago and for the first time in recorded history the over sixties outnumber the under sixteens, advances in medicine means people are just living longer which accounts for a high proportion of the population increase.
The "cut down to the bare bones" public services will not be able to cope, my local area has half as many hospitals as it did when I was young in the sixties and seventies, so even if the population hadn't increased in that time they would be struggling.
Labelling every immigrant a terrorist is not the answer to this problem, it just reeks of "looking for a scapegoat" to cover the mismanagement of Britain by the tories and now carried on by new (we're like the tories but nicer) labour.
I don't know the answer? and it appears after years of governments lining their pockets to the detriment of the British people they don't either.
There seems to be an agenda at the moment perpetrated by the tory rags (Mail, Express, Sun, Telegraph etc) to bring us a few stories every day of how the Muslims and other immigrants are demanding this and that.
This leads the papers readers to come out and reply with things like "well if they don't like it ...." etc.
Then the second phase kicks in with replies claiming "political correctness" and accusing anyone who bothered to reply about being concerned of being Nazi racist scum, which then infuriates the readers further and anyone who didn't rise to the bait at first gets dragged into the argument as it now seems we aren't allowed to care about Britain anymore, leading to people who have never witnessed any of the supposed muslim takeover of Britain calling for action.
While the newspaper editors sit back smugly knowing their right wing agenda is a hot topic guaranteeing paper sales for years to come.
Maybe I'm just cynical or totally misguided?
Nothing promotes racism more than these stories of political correctness we are subjected to (e.g don't put up Christmas lights as it offends members of other religions etc.), I'm sure these are specially selected for maximum impact.
Every ethnic group and religion has extremists but it's a question of whether you listen to them or not, you could go out and interview a BNP member who wanted all immigrants shot but would you get away with calling him representative of the views of all British people? of course not, and nobody would believe it, but if you interviewed someone like Abu Hamza his extreme views are taken as the opinion of all muslims by a lot of people.
I've just viewed another link on a (normally sensible) forum I visit, to a guy reading his diatribe on "how Britain should stop pandering to the Muslims" posted by a "concerned" reader.
The guy in the video appears to be reading every headline I've seen on the Telegraph website over the last 6 months, the sort of things that are guaranteed to make you think Britain is becoming a muslim state and you need to take action.
I also know the message is getting through because I received an e-mail from my (as far as I ever knew) non racist mother-in-law with the old "bird feeder" analogy which is doing the rounds at the moment.
Unfortunately race riots are almost inevitable in the future as the British public is being conditioned by the media to treat all immigrants with suspicion, and the "PC brigade" are just inflaming the situation.
The "Sun reader" mentality that swept the tories to power in the late seventies is sadly still alive and kicking, too many people still believe everything they read in their morning papers and follow whatever lead they're told to.
There is a very real problem of Britain becoming overcrowded in the future due in part to the steady influx of economic and political immigrants coming into Britain, but also to the longer life expectation of the elderly, I read that there are five times as many people over 85 as there were fifty years ago and for the first time in recorded history the over sixties outnumber the under sixteens, advances in medicine means people are just living longer which accounts for a high proportion of the population increase.
The "cut down to the bare bones" public services will not be able to cope, my local area has half as many hospitals as it did when I was young in the sixties and seventies, so even if the population hadn't increased in that time they would be struggling.
Labelling every immigrant a terrorist is not the answer to this problem, it just reeks of "looking for a scapegoat" to cover the mismanagement of Britain by the tories and now carried on by new (we're like the tories but nicer) labour.
I don't know the answer? and it appears after years of governments lining their pockets to the detriment of the British people they don't either.
Friday 22 February 2008
Tesco and Alcohol
A suprisingly responsible call from Tesco to ban them from selling cheap alcohol Here
Obviously made me laugh as they are one of the companies that introduced it in the first place, and have probably been responsible for a high proportion of the drunken yobs that inhabit most areas every day.
But it seems they are finally taking some of the blame, and are being honest enough to say they won't stop selling unless their is a law as it would be "commercial suicide" for them to come out on their own.
The cynical part of me says that no company does anything these days unless there is a profit in it!, just look at anything marked Organic or environmentally friendly or even Healthy eating, they always cost a lot more than the basic label as so many people just swallow the con (pun not intended) .
They are trying to do away with plastic bags 'for the environment' of course, nothing to do with how much money they can save by not giving away free bags, while still overpackaging almost every item in their stores.
I've struggled on some occasions to buy loose tomatoes, Leeks and potatoes as a lot of stores only have them in polystyrene clingfilmed packs, surely if they had an environmental conscience they would scrap all unnecessary packaging.
The other thing I thought about was if you've been to a 24 hour supermarket, they have to employ extra security staff to deal with the abusive drunks who usually turn up late at night to buy their "fix" after the pubs and corner shops have closed.
So by not selling cheap beer they could up the prices for the regular customers while saving many wages by cutting back on security staff as it would surely lead to less drunken behaviour from the undesireables.
A win win situation possibly?
But I could be wrong and maybe they should be applauded for making an effort.
Rant - I like a pint and have been drunk on more occasions than I should admit to, but I can't understand why drinking and getting drunk seems so socially acceptable unless it's done by youngsters, whereas smoking now seems to be almost a criminal activity.
NHS figures quote -
There are 1.2 million incidents of alcohol-related violence per year.
40% of A&E admissions are alcohol-related, Rising to 70% between the hours of midnight and 5AM.
This costs the NHS £1.7 billion per year.
Obviously banning cheap supermarket alcohol won't solve the problem on it's own, although possibly helping with the amount of street corner drunks we all have to endure.
The whole culture of acceptable drinking has always amazed me, every soap opera on TV is based on the local pub with everyone in the local most nights drinking, virtually every programme on TV shows people getting home from work and having a stiff drink to relax? and just about everyone pulling out a bottle of spirits at the drop of a hat.
Maybe it's just my upbringing? but feeling the need for alcohol in everyday situations is alien to me, and just says dependency or addiction.
Alcohol is just another drug after all, but no other drug is promoted and accepted like it, and then people wonder why the young after years of indoctrination into the culture of acceptable drinking feel the need to go and get drunk?
Obviously made me laugh as they are one of the companies that introduced it in the first place, and have probably been responsible for a high proportion of the drunken yobs that inhabit most areas every day.
But it seems they are finally taking some of the blame, and are being honest enough to say they won't stop selling unless their is a law as it would be "commercial suicide" for them to come out on their own.
The cynical part of me says that no company does anything these days unless there is a profit in it!, just look at anything marked Organic or environmentally friendly or even Healthy eating, they always cost a lot more than the basic label as so many people just swallow the con (pun not intended) .
They are trying to do away with plastic bags 'for the environment' of course, nothing to do with how much money they can save by not giving away free bags, while still overpackaging almost every item in their stores.
I've struggled on some occasions to buy loose tomatoes, Leeks and potatoes as a lot of stores only have them in polystyrene clingfilmed packs, surely if they had an environmental conscience they would scrap all unnecessary packaging.
The other thing I thought about was if you've been to a 24 hour supermarket, they have to employ extra security staff to deal with the abusive drunks who usually turn up late at night to buy their "fix" after the pubs and corner shops have closed.
So by not selling cheap beer they could up the prices for the regular customers while saving many wages by cutting back on security staff as it would surely lead to less drunken behaviour from the undesireables.
A win win situation possibly?
But I could be wrong and maybe they should be applauded for making an effort.
Rant - I like a pint and have been drunk on more occasions than I should admit to, but I can't understand why drinking and getting drunk seems so socially acceptable unless it's done by youngsters, whereas smoking now seems to be almost a criminal activity.
NHS figures quote -
There are 1.2 million incidents of alcohol-related violence per year.
40% of A&E admissions are alcohol-related, Rising to 70% between the hours of midnight and 5AM.
This costs the NHS £1.7 billion per year.
Obviously banning cheap supermarket alcohol won't solve the problem on it's own, although possibly helping with the amount of street corner drunks we all have to endure.
The whole culture of acceptable drinking has always amazed me, every soap opera on TV is based on the local pub with everyone in the local most nights drinking, virtually every programme on TV shows people getting home from work and having a stiff drink to relax? and just about everyone pulling out a bottle of spirits at the drop of a hat.
Maybe it's just my upbringing? but feeling the need for alcohol in everyday situations is alien to me, and just says dependency or addiction.
Alcohol is just another drug after all, but no other drug is promoted and accepted like it, and then people wonder why the young after years of indoctrination into the culture of acceptable drinking feel the need to go and get drunk?
Saturday 16 February 2008
Shit Britain
What a crap country I live in nowadays.
A country full of two faced arseholes and a general public who are afraid to say or do anything.
A country where it's frowned upon to discipline your kids when they do wrong, and when they grow up and murder people it's the parents fault.
A country where although we've adopted metrication, we still openly use both metric and Imperial measures for virtually everything, but only market stall holders get taken to court for selling a pound of apples, when every pub sells pints and the road speed limits are all in Miles per hour.
A country where the government is going to introduce laws to target anyone who downloads music from the Internet while failing to do anything to the retailers who charge 2/3 times as much for CD's than the rest of the world.
A country that still claims inflation is running at 2% when everything I use and buy has gone up by at least 10% in the last year.
A country full of do-gooders who do no good whatsoever.
A country where you are afraid to say anything about immigrants even if they've just murdered your granny, because you'll be branded a racist.
A country where violent criminals get lighter sentences than shoplifters.
A country that has shut down my favourite pub, because a few people don't like smoking even though 8/10 regulars were smokers.
A country that is talking about not allowing overweight people or smokers to get treatment, while still treating drug addicts, drunks and people playing dangerous sports.
A country where everything is profit driven, basic services are cut because it's not cost effective.
To be continued
A country full of two faced arseholes and a general public who are afraid to say or do anything.
A country where it's frowned upon to discipline your kids when they do wrong, and when they grow up and murder people it's the parents fault.
A country where although we've adopted metrication, we still openly use both metric and Imperial measures for virtually everything, but only market stall holders get taken to court for selling a pound of apples, when every pub sells pints and the road speed limits are all in Miles per hour.
A country where the government is going to introduce laws to target anyone who downloads music from the Internet while failing to do anything to the retailers who charge 2/3 times as much for CD's than the rest of the world.
A country that still claims inflation is running at 2% when everything I use and buy has gone up by at least 10% in the last year.
A country full of do-gooders who do no good whatsoever.
A country where you are afraid to say anything about immigrants even if they've just murdered your granny, because you'll be branded a racist.
A country where violent criminals get lighter sentences than shoplifters.
A country that has shut down my favourite pub, because a few people don't like smoking even though 8/10 regulars were smokers.
A country that is talking about not allowing overweight people or smokers to get treatment, while still treating drug addicts, drunks and people playing dangerous sports.
A country where everything is profit driven, basic services are cut because it's not cost effective.
To be continued
Simplistic View
Two hot topics in the news, introducing Sharia law into Britain and proper punishment for murdering thugs.
So the simplistic view is introduce some of the harsher aspects of Sharia law and stone the bastards to death, then everyone's happy ........ aren't they?
So the simplistic view is introduce some of the harsher aspects of Sharia law and stone the bastards to death, then everyone's happy ........ aren't they?
Money Saving
Was thinking of going back-packing around the world to "go and find myself",
but then I looked in the mirror, and there I was.
Fortune saved ........
but then I looked in the mirror, and there I was.
Fortune saved ........
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