Monthly Archives: July 2008

Internet

Website hacked

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I had a text today, and several emails and facebook messages, about one of my sites being hacked by this guy.

Now, normally you’d expect me to rant and rave about this and threaten violence, but as it turns out it was a pretty harmless hack, he’d just created a meta refresh to his hacker page to show what he’d done, as hackers of that type do. It’s like graffiti, they ‘tag’ your website. Now I’ve had hacks on other sites before that are a lot more harmful than that, so I kinda relieved when I’d logged on, saw what he’d done and how he’d done it.

This led me to thinking about the kinds of hackers there are out there, and how some, like thieves if you will, are honourable and trustworthy, whereas others are just destructive tossholes.

It’s nice to be hacked by someone with a sense of decency for a change.

Damn I sound weird today, don’t worry normal service will be returned soon and I’ll be laying into people like old times.

Direct Line Insurance

Guy who crashed into me gives fake mobile number

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What are the chances? The guy who reversed his Renault Espace (WV04 XNS) into my car at 9:00pm on Friday night, gave me a false mobile number. I’ve tried calling him, but the number doesn’t work. Typical eh?

The address he gave (79 Parkland Drive, Elton, CH2 4QE) is a real address, so we’ll see if that’s correct in due time. You can see it on Google Maps here.

I’ve told the insurance company (our friends at Direct Line again) that he gave a false number, and they’ve sent details to his insurance company. Let’s see what he comes back with, if anything.

Direct Line Insurance

I lasted two weeks without crashing

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OK, a few weeks back I had a prang in my car, which caused me to need a new bonnet, new bumper and some repaint work done. It was really annoying because not only did that mean I had to pay out my rather large excess, but I also had to drive around in an awful courtesy car, a Kia Placenta (or whatever the hell it was called).

So, I had my car back all shiny and new and made a pact to go at least a year without needing it fixing again, as the BMW body shop know me by name now.

However, last night it had a little bump again. This time though it wasn’t my fault. Some guy reversed into me in a car park, driving a Renault Espace. The bump didn’t seem too bad at first, but then I noticed the knock on my bumper (on the drivers side) has caused the other side of the bumper to buldge, which has pushed it out passed the headlight. Also, the side panel on the passenger side has been pushed back, causing the passenger door to catch when it’s opened.

Bloody typical. 2 weeks, that’s all I lasted, 2 weeks. Now I’ll have a damn courtesy car again. It better not be that Kia.

Internet

Mr Daz receives an email from his past

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This is so cool. I just received an email from myself, from 2 years ago, through the website www.futureme.org. I wrote an email to myself when I was going through divorce, and set it for two years later. Now it’s arrived, and shocked the hell out of me.

Here it is, for your reading pleasure.

From: FutureMe.org [mailto:mailer@futureme.org]
Sent: 12 July 2008 17:01
To: ***********
Subject: Daz, it’s Daz!

The following is an e-mail from the past, composed on Wednesday, July 12, 2006, and sent via FutureMe.org
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Dear FutureMe,

As I write this you’re getting divorced and fighting a war with Don Murphy. Hopefully by now you will have defeated Don, have an ex-wife and will have conquered many, many women. I trust you haven’t been foolish and gone and gotten married again, or got back with Hayley – cos that would have been a big mistake.

I trust you are now at the peek of physical fitness after spending the last two years in the Gym, and are of course well on your way to being a millionaire. You should be raking it in from numerous websites, be a porn baron and have at least two extra properties that you rent out.

If you’re a lonely miserable wreck, then snap the fuck right out of it knob end. Go out, get fucked and fucked up.

If you’re a millionaire already, well done dude… and can you lend me a tenner?

Daz
About to shag Amanda… did I? You’ll know.

Wow, a kick in the ass from myself. Just what I needed. Have I succeeded with those points? Well, I am renting one property out (and looking to buy another, though the CSA are stopping that one). I’m not quite at the peek of physical fitness, and I’m not a millionaire (by some way).

I haven’t conquered many, many women either, but that’s a good thing. I’ve had some great girlfriends since getting divorced though, so I’m definitely better off there.

I am pleased to say that I haven’t gotten married again, which is good (for now) and I’m certainly not likely to get back with my ex-wife.

As for the sign off comment, no, I didn’t… despite the rumours to the contrary.

Complaints, Michael Jackson, Rants

Event Travel Complaint

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This weekend I was sorting through some old boxes and came across one of the very first complaint letters I’d ever written. It was such a moving experience, like finding an original Picasso or something. While the letter was rough round the edges, and lacked any real venom, you could see the formings of what would become MrDaz right there.

This letter was from 1997, eleven years ago, before the Internet became what it is today. Not being one to hold a grudge (;)), and someone who lets sleeping dogs lie, it’s time to dig this one up again as these bastards never replied to me!

So, for the guys at Event Travel, who ignored TWO complaint letters of mine, it’s your turn to worry. Before you had to deal, and ignore, Darren Jamieson, student… now you’ve got MrDaz on your ass, and he’s a right bastard when it comes to being ripped off.

In 1997 I attended the opening night of Michael Jackson’s History Tour in Prague, in the Czech Republic. The trip was booked by my girlfriend Lisa, using a company called Event Travel. This was her first mistake, an event with Event Travel is quite an ‘event’ indeed.

We went on the coach from Cardiff, driving through England, France, Belgium and Germany (which took hours) and then, at around 12 midnight, the coach we were travelling in blew a tire. The driver did well to slow down and pull over onto the hard shoulder of the German Autobarn, where we all got off on that freezing September night in Germany.

We waited… and we waited… and we waited.

Eventually, someone turned up to fix the tire and we got underway, at 7:30 am!!!

SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS, throughout the night, we all stood on the side of the road of the German Autobarn in September while very little happened.

What made matters worse is that we were actually travelling with two coaches in tandem, and the second coach stopped to see that everyone was OK, before driving on – arriving at the hotel some 8 hours before us.

So, why did it take 7 1/2 hours for someone to turn up and change the tire?

Why did the second coach drive off, when the services (we found out the next morning) were just a few miles up the road? It could have dropped off its passengers there and turned back for us, so we could have waited in the warmth, before it continued.

Why did Event Travel never, ever reply to me?

Maybe Event Travel will reply to me now? Perhaps Event Travel will explain why they bodged the trip so badly and never even said sorry for the disaster that befell the passengers?

I doubt it, but we’ll try. More importantly though, has anyone else had any experiences with Event Travel? Let me know here.

You could even visit their site and tell them direct.

CSA

CSA Complaint Letter to Judy Cass

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Here is my long awaited response to the incompetent Judy Cass of the Child Support Agency. This has also been sent to my local MP, Paul Goggins.

Hopefully this will get the message across, otherwise we’ll just have to call it quits 🙁

—————————————–

Judi Cass
Senior Complaints Resolution Manager
North West Area
Child Support Agency
Birkenhead
2 Weston Road
Crewe
CW98 1BB
July 4th 2008

CSA/33768 / Judy Cass
REF: 320527668885/JE908832A

Dear Judi, thanks ever so much for your letter than once again ignored all of the facts and completely missed the point that I am making. I shall endeavour, for one last time, to make you understand what seems so simple to me and many others, yet seems completely alien to yourself and the people at the CSA.

Thank you for apologising unreservedly, though I feel your apology was somehow false due to the fact that you followed it up with ‘if you feel you have not received the service you have a right to expect when we failed to reserve your calls’, this suggests to me that you do not feel that way, therefore there was little point in you apologising.

You went onto say that you cannot comment on what I was advised back in March 2007 by my caseworker Steve Gibson as you cannot retrieve the call. Fear not, for as you know I record ALL of my phone calls, thus I am able to retrieve the call. I will be adding this, and all of my correspondence with the CSA on the Internet in due time.

Perhaps you are suggesting I am lying when I said that Steve Gibson advised me to file a variations form for my rented accommodation to do with my working in Manchester when my children lived in Cwmbran? Then of course Nicky Taylor explained in December how I couldn’t have claimed for that at all, as the rules had changed in 2003.

This means that either Steve Gibson was incompetent, or he was lying. Whichever the reason, it has left me paying for your error. I should have course been advised to claim for the mortgage payments I was making on behalf of Mrs Jamieson. The payments I had been making since long before you first contacted me in January 2007, when I spoke to Shelly Ducore from your office. She assured me that Steve Gibson would contact me the very next day, as I could not pay what you had requested. It then took Steve Gibson nearly 3 months, and numerous phone calls from myself before he bothered to call, and when he did, he lied to me.

A catalogue of mistakes from the CSA that would only get worse.

As for your other comments, I already replied to Mrs Jamieson’s objections last year, but for some reason you have not acknowledged my reply, nor indeed has anyone at the CSA. You seem to wash over it as though I never replied. I will try once again to make you understand these most simple of facts.

Mrs Jamieson claimed that I made the journey to Wales not just to visit my children, but for work reasons and to stay in a house that I owned. I did not visit for work, I work in Manchester. If you believe I travel back to Wales to work please prove this in some way. I do not work in Wales and have not worked there since March 2nd 2007. She is lying and you have taken her lies as fact, without evidence.

If you would like to contact my employer to query this, please do so with my blessing.

I would also like to add, once again, that I did not choose to make the journey even though I wasn’t having access to my children. I continued to make the journey for several weeks, even though my ex was not showing up with my children. It was still the understanding that I would see my children; hence I travelled the 400 mile round trip to Cwmbran. The fact that my ex-wife didn’t bother to show up, nor did she bother to even let me know she didn’t plan to attend, wasn’t under my control.

Of course the fact that the CSA tells the parent with care that she’ll get more money if her ex doesn’t see his children doesn’t in any way help matters. Perhaps you should look at that policy? Her being financially rewarded by you for not showing up, when I have driven 200 miles to see my children, forcing me to turn around and drive 200 miles back doesn’t help to keep children in touch with their fathers.

But of course that’s not what the CSA is about is it? You aren’t interested in what is best for the children, you just want the pounds in the bank.

I also did not own a house near my ex wife and her children. We both jointly owned a house that neither of us lived in as she chose to move out. I live in Manchester. The property in Wales is the property that I continued to pay the mortgage for, for her, so that it wasn’t repossessed. I can prove that the mortgage was paid, in full. I have bank statements and a final mortgage statement when the mortgage was settled by me. The payments were frozen in July, and then settled when ownership of the house was transferred in January 2008. I refused to send any of these documents to you as you had already proved yourself incompetent. You had lost my letters, failed to return phone calls and sent confidential information to a completely different address despite having the correct address on the screen in front of you.

No, I was not prepared to send you original documents. I can photocopy documents if you wish, or maybe fax them. I will not post them. You will lose them, perhaps intentionally.

I would like to reference your own website, on this page: http://csa.gov.uk/en/setup/other-financial-commitments.asp

I believe these two points refer to my situation as I have described it:

  • keeping in contact with your children (for example, if the parent with care has moved a long way away).
  • making payments on a mortgage, loan or insurance policy to pay off a mortgage or loan on the home that you and the parent with care used to share.

In addition to these points Mrs Jamieson also claimed that I owned a Hyundai Coupe. I have never owned a Hyundai Coupe, and am not paying a car loan for any vehicle. If you claim that I am, please prove it.

Even if I were, how would that be relevant?

I am paying a bank loan, which was originally for Mrs Jamieson’s Toyota Landcruiser and my cheaper BMW Z3. Her Landcruiser was sold and approximately £4,000 of the money was used to buy her Honda Civic. I am still paying the loan, which was for her car and mine. This loan, which costs me £190.51 per month, has been paid be me since before your initial contact. I mentioned it when I phoned up in January 2007, to Steve Gibson when he eventually bothered to make contact, in both variations forms and every time I call you.

Yet you still ignore it.

I refer again to your own website and quote:

  • paying back a debt that you took on before you separated from the parent with care, and the debt was for the benefit of the family or a member of the family.

This obviously refers to the loan I am paying. Why do you continue to ignore its existence? Where do you think the money for the £16,000 Landcruiser came from in the first place?

Then we move on to your threats of:

Should you fail to respond within 14 days we reserve the right to consider further action

This of course is regarding my website and the various videos I have uploaded. Firstly, my website is www.mrdaz.com (not www.mrsdaz.com). If you intend to threaten someone to remove content from a website, giving them a 14 day notice period, you’ll need to get the domain name correct or it’s a useless threat. By the same token, the video website is called www.YouTube.com, not ‘u tube’.

Furthermore I will not be removing any content as I have a legal right to publicise my dealings with the Child Support Agency. All of my recorded conversations are in the public interest due to the mistakes and incompetence that you have demonstrated.

I trust I have made my position clear on that matter, and to further emphasise my intentions I will be adding further phone calls to my website, YouTube, Face Book and various other websites as I see fit. I have every conversation with the CSA recorded, so can prove all that I claim and am prepared to publish the content.

So, for the last time this is what you need to do.

Take into consideration the bank loan that I am paying off, for my car and Mrs Jamieson’s car, which I have been paying since the start of this claim. The amount is £190.51. It currently stands at £3513.15 because I have made some large repayments recently. It was much higher. I’d suggest 50% of the loan repayments to be deducted in lieu of maintenance payments, dated back to the date of the claim.

Secondly take into consideration my travel expenses for seeing my children. It is not my fault that my ex-wife failed to show up, without warning.

Finally take into consideration the mortgage payments I have made, from January 2007 for our jointly owned house, which neither of us lived in.

These variations should be backdated to January 2007 when I first made contact as it was your negligence that meant Steve Gibson never returned my call until March, meaning my variations form was not sent to you until April. It should have been with you in January had your staff acted appropriately. It would also have had the correct information had Steve Gibson not advised me incorrectly.

I trust I have made everything as clear as it can possibly be, for I cannot continue working in my full time job with the DOE that you have imposed upon me. I will have no option but to quit my job within the next 6 weeks should you fail to act accordingly.

A copy of this letter has been sent to Martin Connor of the CSA and Paul Goggins, my local MP.

Regards

Darren Jamieson