Monthly Archives: December 2007

Royal & SunAlliance, Stolen Car

RSA still have work to do

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Today I sold my Celica, which was a big leap of faith because it means I’m having to use the Z3 which hasn’t been fully fixed. For some reason when BMW repaired the bodywork they neglected to fix the door. Why? Guess they missed it.

I’ve told RSA and they said to get it quoted on and they’d pay for it. Fine.

However today, after selling the Celica, I tried to drive the BMW. Not a frickin’ jot from it. Flat, dead, lifeless.

I called the AA and they looked at the car, performed a test on the battery and found it was leaking power. Seems the battery was completely useless and needed replacing. Also, the connections were loose which showed it had been jump started recently. By BMW perhaps to get it on the flatbed?

So I’ve just spent a further £80 on a new battery with the AA, which of course had this car been fixed in July 2006 when it was RSA’s responsibility to do so I wouldn’t have needed to. Being sat idle for 17 months takes its toll.

Guess I need to phone RSA again on Monday and get them to pay for this as well.

I hope this is the last of it, I really do.

Direct Line Insurance, Royal & SunAlliance, Stolen Car

My car has been fixed!

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I arrived home today at 6:05pm to be greeted with the sight I never thought I’d see. My BMW Z3 sat on a flat bed outside my house. It has now, after 17 months, been fixed.

I’m in too much shock to post up a full review of my emotions and feelings towards all of this, and how it has affected me over the last year and a half. I’ll give a detailed summary tomorrow.

But for now, my car, my pride and joy, has been returned to me.

I need a drink.

Affiliate Marketing, Google, Movies

Adsense Video Contest Winner Announced

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Google have posted up the winner of their Adsense video contest, and it’s not me 🙁

Still, this video is good, fair play. Plus they said they’d post some of the interesting ones over the coming weeks, so you never know. If you can’t remember my entry, it can be viewed here.

The winning video is from Don Vandervort from Hometips.com.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Royal & SunAlliance, Stolen Car

Pay to get my BMW radio Keycode? Not bloody likely!

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I had a message left on my phone this morning from Dan at BMW Bluebell. He said they’d managed to get the locks to recognise my car at last, but if I want the radio to be unlocked I have to pay £10.

£10???

Naturally I left a message with RSA immediately stating that I’d had a call from BMW and they seem to be under the misguided impression that I’m going to pay the £10 to get my radio keycode sorted, and for RSA to have a word with them.

Incredibly they did, very quickly. Seems RSA can move fast when they want to. The fact they’re paying for a courtesy car and time is very much money could have something to do with it!

As it stands now my car is ready to be quality checked and road tested so I might get it back this week. I will of course keep everyone posted on this epic saga.

Direct Line Insurance, Stolen Car

My compensation from Direct Line

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I received this cheque for £200 from Direct Line in August, but until now hadn’t cashed it. I was resentful of their insulting offer and had stuffed the cheque away somewhere, refusing to look at it.

I’ve decided now not only to cash it, but to parade it around like some trophy. I will still be pursuing Direct Line for more as £200 barely covers one month’s payment on the car they caused me to store for over a year through their error. I want a lot more than this, but I figured I’d cash it anyway.

This does after all prove they’ve admitted fault, plus their admission of fault in the letter… that helped too!

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Make Money, Rants

My house will be repossessed on January 21st

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I had made an agreement with my ex-wife (through our solicitors of course, she won’t speak to me) to purchase her share of the house for £14,100. This means I get the house and the items within it, plus I keep my BMW (not that it’s drivable anyway) and my wife gets £14,100, keeps her car and I continue to pay the loan on both cars.

The deal was agreed. Simple.

I had to raise the mortgage within 14 days, which thanks to Lloyds TSB and the C&G I managed to do that. Everything should have run smoothly you’d think? Then she got greedy.

Her solicitor drafted the financial settlement and added in 3 extra points that I had to agree to.

I wouldn’t post any further mentions to her on the Internet

Well that’s that one broken already, so you can see where I’m going with this. Plus I’ve had far more important and intelligent people than her and her solicitor try to stop me posting on this, and other websites in my cannon. They’ve all failed, without exception.

I wouldn’t suggest to Direct Line that they pursue my ex-wife for the money she defrauded from them for my car

Hmmm… as I’m actually pursuing Direct Line myself for compensation because their original offer of £200 compensation to me was unacceptable, I can’t promise this one. She knew what she was doing when she claimed on a car that wasn’t hers, if they chase her for the money good luck to them. They do so with my blessing, and where necessary, my assistance.

If Direct Line demand she pays back the money, I will agree to pay half of it

You have got to be fucking kidding me?

She defrauded them out of the money for my car, when I was still paying for it. They gave her £6,500 for a car she didn’t own and then they demanded I surrender the car to them because she’d spent the money and they saw me as the only way they’d get the money back. I paid £190 per month for over a year on a car I couldn’t use or sell, that’s over £2,000 I’ll never get back because of her fraud; now she wants me to pay off her debt?

No fucking way. She knew what she was doing. She committed fraud, she can pay it back. As a result of her money grabbing it looks like the deal for me to buy the house is off and now the property will be repossessed at the hearing on January 21st.

Could I do any more? Would anyone pay her debt for her in my situation?

I honestly can’t believe the cheek of it. What do you think?

Royal & SunAlliance, Stolen Car

BMW engineers stumped by my car

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It’s December, which means the saga of my stolen car has rolled over into its SEVENTEENTH MONTH. That’s One-Seven, 17.

17 MONTHS!

Beat that! I’ve just heard from Royal & SunAlliance who have spoken to the BMW service centre. It appears that they’re having trouble getting the new lockset to recognise my car. They’ve been trying since last week with no luck. Surely it’s a BMW Z3? It can’t be hard to recognise it.

Well, I have a courtesy car now from the folks at Enterprise. They’ve given me a Ford Focus, hardly a replacement for a convertible Beamer, but better than nothing. It’s a good job for RSA that they didn’t give me this car when I first asked about one in July 2006. It would have cost them an absolute fortune.

In fact, it makes me wonder why didn’t they give me a courtesy car in July 2006, when they have now forked out for one? I wouldn’t have had to spend my own money on a replacement car if they were liable, which they evidently were as they’ve now admitted that. What’s changed? Maybe the power of the Internet and the bad press they’ve been receiving on this blog, but it’s a question I will be asking when all this over… if all of this is ever over.

Internet

Oakridge Steel ask “Dude, where’s my website?”

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I just had an email from a former colleague at Black Sheep asking if I’d heard of the business ‘Oakridge Steel’. The name rang a bell to me and after some research I remembered.

It seems that Oakridge Steel have contacted him asking where their website has gone. When I worked at Meridian Design we hosted their website, which was designed by Darren Joslin before he moved to another company. As you can see from the Internet Archive, the site was somewhat poor. Piss poor in fact. Oakridge Steel never renewed their hosting with Meridian Design, so I deleted their website.

Something of a service to the Internet as a whole, I’m sure you’ll agree. This was in February 2005. Then Meridian Design was taken over by Black Sheep. Now, nearly THREE YEARS LATER Oakridge Steel have noticed their website doesn’t work!!!

I’m staggered, truly staggered.

How poor must this company’s website have been performing for them if it took them nearly 3 years to notice their site had gone down? Sadly this is an all too familiar tale with the websites built by Meridian before I joined them.

If you have a website for your company ask yourself this; would it take you 3 years to notice if your website disappeared?  If the answer is yes, you should look at getting yourself a new website.