The whinge thread

[tricia]

Received two irritating telephone calls - One pfishingfor bank details and one plain annoying!

First one from someone saying my Sky subscription card was expired and needed to be replaced and asked if he could confirm my details. He confirmed my address and where I banked and then asked for details of my bank card to confirm my details. I said NO! - you already have details so you don't need them confirmed. It was at this point he put the phone down, ....I then quickly phoned SKY and reported the incident. I have since checked my account and everything is OK.

Tonight I received a phone call from Premium calls askling me for details of how much I pay fro my BT phone line. She asked how much I pay I month - could you tell me?
Me..NO!

Caller - What do you mean No

Me - No means No

Caller Why

Me - I do not wish to discuss this with you. Good Night!

Tricia

[clvrlad]

good for you


if only more people wouldn't just give info out

[Laura]

I'm having a 'why do I bother?' day with Guiding.

At 6.00 I got a phone call from an irate mother of a rainbow wanting to know why her daughter hadn't been given a place at my Brownies when girls who are younger than her have already started and the communication between the different groups is terrible and her daughter is being so badly treated etc. etc. I tried to explain that if no-one tells me that she wants her daughter to come to Brownies then there is very little I can do about it. She didn't seem inclined to listen. I eventually had to tell her to go away cos I had a Brownie trip to run.

So, half and hour later, there's me, standing outside the theatre in Wakefield city centre, freezing cold with 18 Brownies and 4 other leaders, no-one letting us in. We waited until 15 minutes after we were supposed to start and had rung every phone number we had before giving up and ringing all the parents to get them all to pick their children up again. We had some rather upset Brownies, but fortunately some very lovely parents who offered to complain to the theatre on our behalf. At that point, a man shows up, 20 minutes after we should have gone in. The bloke who was supposed to be running it was ill, and he was covering, but had been given the wrong information. Well, half of the Brownies had gone home by that point, so we just cancelled it all and gave up. But one of the DUke of Edinburgh volunteers didn't get picked up till 8.00 because of confused messages with parents.

I then came home to the news that the leader who is away at Uni isn't going to be allowed to do her pack holiday license when we go away in March because she's not around enough before hand. This is despite the fact that all the planning is already done, all the forms are filled in and everything is sotrted. So I now have to re-do all the forms with my details on instead, because the hoops have to be jumped through, and she can't get her qualification, so can't put it towards her queen's guide award.


Why do I bother????

[Bunnylump]

Oooh that's really annoying, Laura, I can understand why you're upset. But just remember that for every grotty miserable parent there are several lovely supportive ones. For every trip with goes wrong there are loads that are brilliant and that the girls love. This is precisely why I always encourage people to give people like teachers / scout and brownie leaders / sports coaches POSITIVE feedback and thanks as often as possible. It's so easy to put your heart and soul into doing this kind of thing and yet feel totally unappreciated.

[Laura]

The dad that said 'I'm sure I can write a snottier email than you - I'm a solicitor' helped quite a lot actually. There's nothing like playing to your strengths. He also advised that if any of the Brownies were going to break the doors down, to make sure they were nine or under, as the ten-year-olds could get prosecuted! You've got to love some parents!!!

[LAT]

What a frustrating day Laura. Hope you've had all the irritations on one go and things improve now.

PS, that Dad sounds a star!

[Bunnylump]

The dad that said 'I'm sure I can write a snottier email than you - I'm a solicitor' helped quite a lot actually. There's nothing like playing to your strengths. He also advised that if any of the Brownies were going to break the doors down, to make sure they were nine or under, as the ten-year-olds could get prosecuted! You've got to love some parents!!!

Words of wisdom...

[gill216]

Insurance companies do me in!! I've spent the best part of 2 days getting online quotes and ringing up people to renew our car insurance.

Our present insurers , The A.A., (has everyone got that?) came in at £180 over what we paid last year and stated they would automatically renew. Sorry mate, no you won't!! So I started trawling. Swinton came in best on 5 different comparison sites (with 5 different prices) so I duly rang them. Except when it came to the end they upped the cost by £80 on their highest quote despite having been given the lowest online ref. no.!!!

So I started again. Axa came in at below their online quote and below what we paid last year too. They got our business.

The AA wouldn't speak to me to cancel renewal because I'm named driver as opposed to policy holder. Fair enough. OH rang them and just said cancel it. Then they wanted to know how much they'd quoted and what we'd found the same cover for and where. He duly told them and the AA man said he'd match it. Just short of 50% reduction. The from the distance conversation went along the lines of "Tell them to sod off, even the online quotes were less than their paper quote and they should have got it right in the first place!!"

[Bunnylump]

I think you'll find they all do that. It's ridiculous. I think the moral is to never automatically renew a policy.

Does anyone know ANY way to stop these dratted phone calls which purport to be from "Windows"? I know it's a scam - they ring saying that your "windows licence agreement" has expired and you are running on a "grace period". Yesterday I kept the Asian lady on the phone for about 15 minutes asking again and again why she was ringing me and where she had got my number from. She kept repeating over and over again that she was"trying to help me from having problems with my computer". Thing is, when you ask them WHICH COMPUTER DOES THIS REFER TO, they don't know. My friend has also rung up Microsoft and confirmed with them that they NEVER ring people about anything direct.

My problem is that they are ringing on average four times a week, and they are driving me demented. I am already registered with the Telephone Preference Service, which filters out calls from the UK (mostly), but I think this is a foreign call centre, which is obviously not covered by our laws. Grrrrrrr....

[LAT]

Oh I know exactly what you mean about those calls bunny.
I always ask them which computer they mean and they say "your computer" so I ask which one and they get very confused at the idea I might have more than one. Usually I end up walking away leaving the receiver off the hook until they get fed up with waiting.

They have even rung my sister who doesn't own a computer!

We were shocked at the renewal quote for AA membership and were shopping around then I rang them up to say I wasn't happy with the quote - result a drop from £209 to £138. the chap said I should ring each year to see what I could get it for!

[giraffe]

Direct Line have done it to us with the house and car insurance. Direct Line also quoted £2300 to add K to our policy. So I told them it was cheaper for her to have lots of lessons than practice on our car. In the end we bought a little run around for the children and insured it with Admiral, it will work out much cheaper than paying for them to be our policy with Direct Line.


I have had a bit of a stressful day. This morning my washing machine was refusing to spin and making noises like someone was hitting it with a very large hammer. I managed to persuade it to spin this afternoon but not at full speed as far as I could tell. I suspect it is about to die. Then at lunchtime I heard that there was a big fire in Wolverhampton, next to the railway station and that all trains were cancelled through Wolverhampton, which was a bit of a shame as K was due to get the train to Birmingham airport to meet her German exchange student. A few panic phone calls and school decided to lay on a mini bus to fetch the germans. Phew! F got some good pictures on his phone of the fire from his classroom and when they went to play a football match at another school! Over 20 fire engines attended apparently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bi ... m-17205842

[clvrlad]

its pretty common
the usual advice is look around see where you can get it cheaper (try to keep it like for like)
then got through payback sites to see what money you'd be able to recover,
after that phone your current insurance and explain how much less you can get and you can get cash back

and ask them to beat it
most will

[Wulfruna]

Then at lunchtime I heard that there was a big fire in Wolverhampton, next to the railway station and that all trains were cancelled through Wolverhampton,

As a loyal Wulfrunian (guess where my avatar/name comes from??) I was dismayed to hear that your wonderful railway station was disrupted - hope things are functioning again? So many people still underestimate the importance of public transport for getting us to and fro. I get so frustrated when travel instructions for conference venues etc say "easy access from the motorway" - and then mention nothing about how you can get there by train or bus. Sometimes they do actually give the nearest railway station - and then say "you can get a taxi from there". But there is no mention that there is actually a bus that goes from the railway station to within walking distance of them. Presumably the staff at the centre are so used to travelling there by car that they don't have a clue that the bus even exists - or that people might want to use it! Grrrrrr!

[giraffe]

The building that burnt down is a very old (115 years old) builders merchant, apparently one of the largest single site builders merchants around. They supply LPG to houses without mains gas. (My friend had her delivery the day before the fire!) But I think that was part of the reason that they had to close the railway in case of explosions. It is such a shame when something like that happens to an old family firm.

[gill216]

I want to scream, not whinge. OH has gone out to watch the football but I don't know exactly where he has gone. It was going to be whichever pub had his team on, and he walked there. Except he has walked off with my car key as well as he long since lost his own I need to go food shopping and the shops are closed Easter Sunday & Monday. I have a car and no key, he has a key and no car. He's also not answering his phone so I assume he's somewhere with no reception because he'd have rung me back by now if he'd spotted a missed call. Even if he does answer I can't get him to buy the things I need and bring them back with him as his wallet is laid on the table here!!!

[Bunnylump]

Sorry - all men shut your ears now- BL**DY MEN!! Mine once took my car out of the drive to move his, then forgot and left it running in the road for four hours. He also routinely pinches my car to go drumming and forgets to tell me. His car is packed TO THE ROOF with equipment and I can't even get a passenger in it. I've lost count of the times when I've had a call from one of the kids to be picked up, and ended up having to get a friend to get them because I have no car on the drive.

Hope you manage to find him Gill! Other thought for the week - why not get a taxi to get the shopping and then make HIM pay for it out of future beer money??

[LAT]

Phone round all the likely pubs Gill, and ask them to put a call out for him - that will soon embarass him!

[giraffe]

ASDA are open until 10 pm here today, so if you expect him back before 8or 9pm you might be ok.

[LAT]

I thought shops were only closed on Sunday anyway. Our local Sainsbury's is open on Monday. But that doesn't help with what you eat on Sunday unless you make him take you out!

[Bunnylump]

Grrrr incorrect recipes ...
Just tried making James Martin's Lemon tart. It used 10 eggs, 8 lemons and 500ml of cream. I've used exactly the right sized flan case and about half of the filling won't fit into the flaming case.