Monthly Archives: November 2007

British Telecom

BT finally say they’ll reduce my direct debit

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I had another email from the idiots at BT today. This wasn’t a reply from my email yesterday, I’ve been trying to contact two different departments at the same time, this reply was from my query dated November 1st. So this reply has been 30 days in the making.

Considering I’ve waited 30 days for this, it’s funny then that they reply saying changing the direct debit takes 7 days, so it won’t go into effect until January 2008! I last asked 30 days ago. It takes 7 days. What about the other 23 days they’ve sat with their thumb up their arse?

Anyhow, read the letter…

Dear Mr Daz

Thank you for your e-mail dated 26/11/07 regarding changing your direct debit amount.

Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying to you and for any inconvenience this may have caused.

In response to your email, I would like to inform you after going through your account in detail that BT requires 7 days advance notice to make any changes to your direct debit. I can change your direct debit amount to £40.50 but that would take effect from 01/01/08.

In the future, should you wish to change your Monthly Payment Plan you can do so yourself via our automated service. Please dial 0800 44 33 11 and follow the prompts.

I trust that this email will have helped to provide you with the information needed and I hope that it has also demonstrated to your that your concerns have been looked into thoroughly and professionally.

Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience you may have been caused and my thanks for your patience and co-operation in this matter.

If you should have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us again via e-mail.

Thank you for contacting BT.

Yours sincerely,

Anjelina Morre
eContact Customer Service

Obviously this isn’t good enough. I’m not paying another £68.50 when I’ve requested this direct debit be changed so many times lately. I’ve had enough. I have now cancelled the direct debit and I want nothing more to do with the thieves and liars at British Telecom.

My reply:

I’m afraid that is too little too late. I requested this months ago and you chose to do nothing about it. I have cancelled the direct debit already and will be cancelling my BT broadband this weekend.

I have two recorded phone calls where your operatives told me my direct debit would be £38 when I signed up, then someone else telling me it will be £33. It was instead increased to £68.50.

I was lied to, twice. pure and simple. Your delaying this so you can reduce my direct debit AFTER you have stolen another £68.50 from me is unacceptable.

If you would like to call me *********** to explain yourself, feel free to do so. Otherwise I consider my involvement with BT at an end.

Good riddance to the lying bastards.

British Telecom

BT once again fail miserably

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My deadline to BT of this Friday to sort out the mess they’ve made with my billing is approaching fast, and they’ve responded with yet another irrelevant and incompetent email.

Dear Mr Jamieson,

Thank you for your e-mail.

Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying to you and for any inconvenience this may have caused.

I am sorry that the offer has not been made clear to you. The offer to reduce the cost of your broadband service applies credits to the account. On each statement or bill the amount in credit (£5.00 per month) will be shown in the credit section of your bill. Excluding vat this will show on your bill as £4.26.

Your broadband charge remains the same at £26.99 or £80.97 per quarter. Therefore, minus your £5.00 credit you are paying £21.99 per month for 12 months. Please note that the loyalty discount includes a further commitment of 12 months.

Should you require additional information please call 0800800030.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Hutchinson
eContact Customer Service

Interesting, but not what I asked the moron

You have not answered my question, but then am I surprised? No, not at all.

I asked for my direct debit to be reduced to what it should be. I am paying £68.50 when that is more than I need to pay. BT have failed miserably to understand this simple fact, as you have once again failed.

Congratulations. I commend you for your useless response. You have just lost yourself a customer.

As for my having a further 12 month commitment… No, I don’t. I did not sign for a 12 month commitment, nor was I notified of one. The discount given to me was because you cocked the whole thing up in January this year when I tried to get broadband from you.

I am cancelling my direct debit as of Friday 30th November and refuse to pay BT another penny until someone sorts this woeful mess out. If you think I’m going to phone your customer service number and receive more insulting feedback from you you’re very much mistaken. I’ve already had one idiot pretend he couldn’t hear me and then hang up midway through the conversation.

That’s on my website by the way, soon to be added to YouTube as well.

Good bye and good riddance.

I think I’m better off without them to be honest. Considering the trouble I’ve had even getting broadband installed I should have learned there and then not to proceed with them. They randomly increase their charges without warning, lie about costs and take weeks to respond to emails.

Time for operation Web Assault.

MrDaz gets cut off by BT [ 2:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1371)
CSA

The Child Support Agency in Action

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I’ve just found out now that £163.74 is to be deducted from my pay this week, and every week for the CSA. This is for them to steal the money from me that I don’t actually owe them.

Mortgage payment: £650 p/m
Rent: £250 p/m

Oh dear… that’s me out already!

With the CSA’s deductions that leaves me with nothing. Nothing for my car, food, bills, phone… anything.

Well done CSA. Well done indeed.

CSA

My reply to the CSA

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You may have seen my video animation for the phone call I made to the Child Support Agency last week. If not, watch it now. They eventually sent me the information that went missing some time ago, and I have replied to them. However, as the CSA are know (and have admitted) to losing information rather than rely on them getting the letter I have just sent and processing it correctly I will communicate it here now.

After all they read this blog, evidently, and this also serves as proof that I have replied to them… again.

CSA
Post Handling Section
2 Weston Road
Crewe
CW98 1ZR

Thank you for finally sending the documents to my correct address. I can see from your notes that you either did not receive my last reply, have lost my last reply or simply have ignored my last reply.
I will recap the important aspects for you now.

  • I do not travel down to Wales for work reasons. I travel down to Wales on a 400 mile round trip to see my children. I do not do Freelance work which requires me to be in Wales. Mrs Jamieson has lied in saying these are the reasons for me making the journey. Why do you take things I say and treat them as suspect but take her advice as fact?
  • I have not seen my children since June as Hayley has refused to let me see them. She had refused me probably because she thinks she’ll get more money from me in child support if I’m not paying for petrol to go and see them. I am still willing to, and want to see my children.
  • I resent being ordered to pay money for children I am refused access to by their mother purely because she wants more money. Maybe you could request she makes the children available for me to see as I will continue to make myself available to see them on weekends. This means I will continue to incur the travel costs and will continue to attempt to see my children. I have messages from Mrs Jamieson saying that I will not see them however.I am not an absent father as you seem to make out. I am someone who dearly wants to be a part of his children’s lives but is being completely cut out for the financial selfishness of their mother.
  • The £190 loan repayment is for my BMW Z3 and her Honda Civic. I am paying the bank loan for both of our cars. If you refuse to deduct this, or at least part of this money, from the amount of money I am supposed to pay then can I have the car from her that I am paying for? I could sell it and pay off half the current debt.
  • I didn’t enter the mortgage details into the variations report because Steve Gibson stated in March that I should be able to claim for expenses as a result of my working in Manchester. You have refused to let me do this, so I must instead claim for the mortgage payment. The house is jointly owned and I have been paying the £650 per month on my own since we split in July 2006. As I am paying her half of the mortgage, £325, I cannot also pay her extra money on top of that.

    I did ask her if she would allow me to rent the property some months ago (which I have recorded as a phone call) so I could pay the mortgage and give her the money you wanted me to. She refused. As a result of her unreasonable behaviour I have still been paying the mortgage on our house solely.My solicitor can confirm with you if you wish that upon the sale of the property to me Mrs Jamieson will receive £14,100. I WILL NOT forward any documents to you as you have demonstrated so effectively this last 11 months that you cannot be trusted with any documents. You might lose them, dispose of them or even post them to someone else.

    Mrs Jamieson changed the locks on the property recently so I couldn’t even enter it. It stands empty and has done for some considerable time, with me paying for it. I recently ceased the mortgage payments when you threatened to take money from my employer, but before I complete the purchase I will of course have to make those payments in arrears.

  • I’m not going to fill out the variations document again as you have everything in my last document, sent to you in March. I will add the mortgage costs so you can take those into consideration.Once the sale of the property has gone through to me I can start paying Mrs Jamieson the 25% of my income that you requested in January 07. I hope this will go through in the next few weeks.Please understand that I am not in arrears due to payments already made for her share of the mortgage.

I look forward to hearing from you once again. My address is at the top of this letter; take care when writing it down.

Regards

Darren Jamieson

So let’s see if they get that, or lose it as they seem to do regularly.

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five to reform

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Jermaine Jackson told Radio 5 last night (it would be Radio 5, not 1,2 or 3… 5!) that the long rumoured tour from the Jackson Five was very much on. He also said that it would happen with Michael Jackson.

Michael will be involved. We want to tour. We want to touch the lives of everybody who’s bought our records and supported us.

“It will probably start here first, but it will be sometime in 2008. That’s our plan”

Their last tour together was for the Victory Tour in 1984 (for which I have the tour jacket, somewhere) so any fan of MJ or the Jackson Five will be very excited about this.

Michael also has a new album rumoured for 2008, so the tour could be a joint one, much like the Victory Tour when Michael performed hits from Thriller.

Internet

Computeach

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Have you seen those adverts for Computeach that appear on some UK satellite channels during the day? You know the ones, they promise to get you off the sofa and into a £35,000 a year IT job. The problem with these adverts is who they are actually aimed at, who their customers tend to be. I’ve noticed quite a bit of press online for Computeach lately as some disgruntled customers have been complaining on forums and reviews websites because they haven’t managed to get their 35K salaries, but upon reading the complaints in detail I find that they haven’t even completed the course.



One in particular hadn’t even completed the first piece of work he was sent, and was complaining that the bank he received the loan from for the course wanted their money back. Can you imagine that? A bank wanting their money back?

Computeach are like any educational course, school, college or University. You get out of it what you put in. If you’re willing to do the work, to put in the effort and the time then you’ll get the rewards back. Those 35K per year jobs aren’t handed out to people who can’t even be arsed to finish the first module of a course, quit, and then complain on a forum that the bank wants its money back. In actual fact, it was this guy’s mum complaining rather than him – he couldn’t even be arsed to complain himself.

So if you’re considering a career change and wanted to move into IT and take up a course with Computeach, or any other similar company; remember it’s what you put into it that counts. It’s not a magic wand. If you’re a lazy, unmotivated sort of guy who’s never finished anything in his life; don’t bother.

Rather than an oversubscribed industry such as IT, which doesn’t feature £35k salaries as an average, you’d be better off with something like CeMAP Training to be a mortgage advisor. You’ll find it more rewarding than a bogus IT course.