A. has been a bit grumpy for two days he has a good reason though: problems trying to get thru to some people. He tried to pay council tax by direct debit which is only possible by filling out a form which they have to send to you. Since A. can’t make phone calls while he’s at work he had to contact them in the evening. And of course in the evening they can’t make payment arrangements so you’ll have to call during the day… Dilemma and worse, he got a court summons and had to pay £90,- on top of the bills that kept coming in. He tried so many times to sort out an arrangement over the phone but somehow he couldn’t get thru to these people on the other end of the line…
I recognise his frustration, I had the same problem with UPC. They kept sending me invoices and took more money out of my account than they were supposed to do. In the end they owed me 200 Euros. And then one day this letter came in, from a major dept collecting company in The Hague. They summoned me to pay a final amount of 280,- Euros including tax and their fee. I sent a folder containing a 80 page document existing of correspondence [faxes and recorded letters], invoices, notes of corrections I made on the invoices etc. All the stuff I’d collected over the years. They wouldn’t accept it.
In the end I was so frustrated I decided to pay the money, just to get rid of them and have some closure. It worked out just fine. They threatened to cut off my internet connection, my telephone line and my cable connection. Internet was indeed disconnected, so was my phone line, but I was quite happy with that and moved all my business over to KPN and XS4ALL *my heroes still* but what they forgot to disconnect was my cable connection, although I had in writing that they DID. So in the end I ended up watching cable tv for free for at least three years which has gotten me my 200 Euros back and even a profit.
To emphasise their stupidity, the previous tenants of the apartment I lived in at the Westlandgracht [ground floor 80m2 and tiny garden *I miss it; can you tell?*] were a couple; old sweet people. The woman past away and after two years so did the man. Up till the day I moved to London I have been receiving invoices from UPC and threats from the same debt collectors, addressed to a deceased person. Now isn’t that sad???
So I was laughing my ass off when I read about the latest trick people played on UPC, sending heavy and big concrete paving stones to them, making use of their freepost deal. Why? Because UPC sent them this Mediabox that they didn’t request and by accepting a parcel from the mailman at the door and opening it, you’ve accepted UPC’s terms [which are included in the box of course] and got yourself a subscription without realising it. *yup that’s actually how UPC treats people!* So in return for their favour of a forced subscription UPC will receive a paving stone every day [UPC pays for receiving them based on volume and weight…].
This is why I love Dutch attitude at times… [just every so often] Read more here –> [in Dutch]
Tag Archives: xs4all
XS4all
I miss them you know… Internet is flacky out here and I hate it. The moment storm or rain, or both, mixed with a bit of thunder shows up, it will stop the internet hub from working and will send out a message that the lines are not synchronised. Every two minutes it will reconnect for one minute and fail again the next. Quite annoying that is!
I wish we had XS4all over here, never never never had any problem with these guys, perfect service and policy. Especially after having to deal with UPC and their vicious ways of ripping off people, XS4all is just a relief!!! Anyway internet has been flacky for a couple of days now and whenever I needed to look for stuff online I couldn’t which is quite frustrating.
I have been busy working on my website and it is getting much better, I changed the looks of the bee and will change some more details tonight, in Illustrator. It looks more like a cartoon now which is quite cool actually. I need to look for sound files to use with my intro and AS. has been busy adjusting some scripts that I couldn’t get to work; the equaliser on my main page and the script to make the eyes of the bee follow your cursor.
The ones that were used didn’t quite work, or I tried to mix two different items together, each with their own scripting which sometimes isn’t such a good idea… Well I knew he would get it to work, I also realise what the problem was with the scripts I just can’t put them together in one working script. I did with the play, pause and stop buttons though, but it just takes me ages and I’d rather design and work on the main thing than the tiny details, although they’re important!
So AS. has been a great help to me. He is on standby *again* this weekend and had to go to work this morning because he couldn’t dial in. Lucky him he could park the car in the car park of the office. Hopefully he won’t get any call outs tonight [or the middle of the night]. It would be better if our internet was okay then he could stay here at home and dial in…
Diet is going well, I love all the healthy food and I’m learning too. Each recipe is different but in a way quite simple and sober but just the right combination of food makes it special and delicious. I prepare two portions of lunch a day so AS. can bring his to work the next day. He loves the food too. I’m happy with that because it makes it all a lot easier otherwise I would have to cook different things for him as well and to be honest I’m not sure if I would have done that…
Well I better continue working on the website. I skipped my sleep last night and have been working all night on the bee. I enjoy working with Flash but it’s intense at times, especially for me because once I’m busy and on a roll I won’t stop [like last night]. I had some sleep but went to bed at 08.30 this morning to wake up around 14.00 and start working again. I won’t do it too often, I would kill myself and become a very very grumpy person. I don’t think AS. needs that!
Check the test website every now and then if you like, it’s there and will be there a few more months I reckon… The url can be found below in an earlier post. Talk soon!
Noticeable Oddities of the Day:
The UK telephone infrastructure is all overhead instead of under ground. You will notice the spaghetti of wires running from each house to a center point in the street. When the GPO/BT were building the local telephone infrastructure, the internet was not even thought of.
Nobody had more than one phone line in their house. These days it is not uncommon for people to have two or more phone lines in their house. Also business use of telecommunications has increased hugely over the last 20 years. So sometimes when someone requests an additional line there are simply not enough pairs in the ground.
It is a technology which allows two ordinary phone lines to be squeezed down a single copper pair. Normally each phone line requires its own copper pair all the way to the exchange. Copper pairs are subject to corrosion and can occasionally fail. In this case BT are obliged to repair the fault quickly. Read more about BT’s copper access network