A Brighton Boy Blogs

I wanted to like it, I really did. But Windows 8 promised much and delivered only disappointment. Windows 7 is much better, and is going back on all my PCs.

Here’s the new features of Windows 8:

1. A confusing start menu
2. The inability to perform a single search across all documents, and data stored in Outlook and OneNote.
3. Faster startup

In other words, Microsoft is inviting its users to:

1. Spend money on a new operating system
2. Spend time and money installing a new operating system
3. Wave bye-bye to a remarkably useful piece of business functionality, thus making one’s working life less efficient

No thanks, Microsoft. Seriously, it’s OK. You do it if you want to, I’ll just stick with this much more useful set of stuff you used to offer me, when you appeared to care how efficiently I worked.

And what does Microsoft have to say on the matter? Essentially this… “people didn’t use it, so we removed it”.

So much for intelligence… in both senses of the word.

When my company first started to trade with EU countries outside the UK, we started to receive EC sales list forms from Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs. Stupidly, we didn’t really register that we had to do anything apart from the declaration about EU sales on the VAT returns. Eventually we got a letter through telling us we had to pay a £500 civil penalty for failing to submit EC Sales Lists.

OK, stupid us, fair enough. So we paid it. A £500 fine, paid.

We also applied to the HMRC for the facility to submit our EC Sales Lists electronically via their web site, and when this facility eventually came through, we caught up in full with our EC Sales Lists backlog. But not before HMRC had slapped another £1000 of civil penalties on our account.

£1500 of fines for what? Had we evaded tax? No. Had we underpaid? No. Had we defrauded HMRC? No. We had merely failed to fill in a few pieces of red tape.

Let’s put this into perspective. Vodaphone underpaid their VAT by some £7bn. Yes, SEVEN BILLION pounds of underpaid VAT, and that’s perfectly OK with the HMRC. But if a small company fails to fill in a few bureaucratic forms, it’s a £1500 fine. Even after we’ve caught up with the red tape, AND paid the original fine. It’s disgusting.

What’s even worse is that although the entire case is still very much in dispute – at the independent review stage – the HMRC has now sent a debt collection company, Rossendales, after us. This rudely spoken bunch of incompetent heavies can’t even talk to us because whenever we go through their security process, the phone number we give them is apparently different from that given to them by HMRC even though it’s actually our correct telephone number.

So by way of allowing idiots to display their idiocy to the world as indeed they should, here’s the HMRC telling me it’s under review (expected completion 18th November) and Rossendales telling me to pay up within seven days (25th October)…

Rossendales – premature debt collection letter on behalf of HMRC

HM Revenue & Customs – civil penalty appeal review

Misleading search results for non-members entice you to sign up and subscribe

Genealogy is big business. But it’s hard to find some types of records, especially military service records. So imagine my delight when forces-war-records.co.uk came up on a couple of Google searches I was doing for my genealogical research. This sites tantalises you with a seemingly relevant search result and then refuses to show you any information which might verify whether it’s actually relevant until you’ve paid for a subscription.

Just to make it clear what the site shows you: whatever you search for, you get something that looks like it’s a scan of a real paper record with most of the content replaced with “Full Access Member Only”. What you won’t realise unless you perform a few searches is that it’s a strikingly similar image that’s shown regardless of the search, and it’s not a scan of a real record at all. Any details that might help you discern whether it’s a genuine match for your search subject are conveniently not there. That is, they’re not there until you sign up and subscribe.

So… I paid the £7.49 they were asking for a month’s access and, surprise surprise, the records they were alluding to were nothing to do with my research targets. I tried a few searches for some minor divisions of the army during WW2, which yielded nothing at all. I complained immediately and asked for a refund, but just received blocking tactics in reply. So… best advice is, don’t bother with forces-war-records.co.uk. Instead apply to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) at http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/WhatWeDo/Personnel/ServiceRecords/.

Just to make it clear, I completely get the point about “once you’ve given someone information, you can’t take it back”. It’s just that when you design search results in such a way as to convince someone you’ve actually got a real record, along with lots of convincing sales spiel intimating that whatever you want you’ll find it here… well, that’s going to make customers feel pretty sore when they find that the search results don’t lead to what they expected.

———————————————-
04 July 2012 16:02:43 by jon
———————————————-
I didn’’t need 4.5 million records, I needed one or two which you don’’t have, but I couldn’’t find this out until I’’d paid you money. Your payment processor will have to refund me. Thanks for being thieving self-serving swindling cheats.
———————————————-
04 July 2012 15:43:47 by Support
———————————————-
Can you let us know where we didn”t supply any service to you?
We gave you 4.5 million records access for the subscribed period: we have supplied the service you paid for.
Regards,
Forces Reunited Support
————————–
Did your customer service agent answer your query in a polite and friendly manner? If not please let us know by sending an email to [email protected]
———————————————-
04 July 2012 15:43:10 by Support
———————————————-
Can you let us know where we didn”t supply any service to you?
We gave you 4.5 million records access for the subscribed period: we have supplied the service you paid for.
Regards,
Forces Reunited Support
————————–
Did your customer service agent answer your query in a polite and friendly manner? If not please let us know by sending an email to [email protected]
———————————————-
04 July 2012 15:20:29 by jon
———————————————-
Before subscribing I searched for “****** Silver”. Your site showed the merest stub of a record, but I had to subscribe to find out that it was nothing to do with my Father who was in the Army in WW2. In addition you apparently have nothing for, for example, the Army Kinematograph Service.

It’’s OK, I’’ll just complain to my bank & your payment processing company if you can’’t help me.
———————————————-
04 July 2012 15:16:16 by Support
———————————————-

Hello, I”m sorry you”ve experienced any problems using our site.
I understand you have asked for a refund: in order for us to consider a refund please state exactly where on our pages we have stated we can provide the information that you have now found we do not have.

We do need to know the exact wording and the page where this is stated, as we can”t consider assumptions.

We”ll then investigate promptly and you”ll receive an apology a refund and we”ll ensure that the error doesn”t happen again.

It is worth noting the following however:

a) Our searches are Free, you are never asked to make any form of payment unless you attempt to open a link to one of the results from your search and view the documents that we have provided in our service to you.

b) You may contact us or ask a question in our forums or read helpful tutorials without being asked for payment.

c) What we do offer for payment is the opportunity to look further into records already searched for, the moment you pay, we give you every record we have on that date (in excess of 4 million as of March 2012) and without any limit as to how many records you can view or how far you can see into each record.
Other sites offer differing levels and credits systems for in depth research often at the same time.
However your membership with us is very simple: we give you everything we have for everyone we have instantly.

d) We make it clear on our advertising and on our front page we have ”x” million records, we make no guarantees to have every record or even specific records, this is why the free basic search is there: it allows you to ascertain for yourself – and then, if you are still unclear our free helpdesk etc will assist.

e) Under the ecommerce (UK Distance Selling) Regulations 2000, the purchase of immediately available online services, there is no ”cooling off” period, as services are provided in full upon payment.

We do not offer a ”find guarantee” or ”a free refund if unsuccessful” type of service, and to be fair, no other similar company does so either.

 

Regards,
Forces Reunited Support

Regards,
Forces Reunited Support
————————–
Did your customer service agent answer your query in a polite and friendly manner? If not please let us know by sending an email to [email protected]
———————————————-
04 July 2012 13:51:46 by jon
———————————————-
Having been shown absolutely nothing to verify that search results were relevant to my enquiries before subscribing, after subscribing I found that you have nothing of any interest to my research in your records. I therefore request a refund in full and you may entirely cancel my membership. I think you should stop trying to con people.

A major cockup at NatWest has left thousands wondering where their pay has gone. A telephone announcement greeted disgruntled customers ringing to complain, once their employers had assured them “it’s nothing to do with us”. Apparently something went wrong in some NatWest computer system resulting in no money for an unspecified number of customers including several of my family & friends. NatWest customers are regularly shown no mercy when they go slightly over their limits, but will the bank compensate anyone affected by this debacle? Probably not. Heads should roll…

Update: oh dear, the bad news just got worse and worse. What The Argus said…

As an Amazon Prime member I reckon 30% of my orders are delivered late thanks to one thing – HDNL/Yodel. Goods are despatched on time, yet somehow once they get into the hands of HDNL it all goes wrong. Even the tracking information that comes back to Amazon is confusing, misleading and erroneous. Mind you, HDNL isn’t alone… last Christmas CityLink’s server crash at their Hailsham depot led to thousands of deliveries in my area being woefully delayed. Sometimes these private courier companies even start to make the Royal Mail look good and reliable.

So… over to you… tell me about your experiences with couriers. Which one is the worst?

For anyone fighting an unfair, unjustified or illegal PCN from Brighton & Hove City Council’s illustrious parking department, you may be interested to know that my appeal with the Parking Tribunal (now properly named the Traffic Penalty Tribunal) won by default because the Council didn’t even bother to present any evidence to the Tribunal.

Mine was a case of being accused of parking in a loading bay at 06:30 in the morning whilst not loading, whereas in fact I was loading – see also the original posts Testing the Parking Tribunal and Brighton & Hove Parking – criminal racket in disguise

So… you park in a car park where there are no clear signs of how you should pay or how much you should pay, or indeed to whom you should pay it. Then you get a threatening letter some time later charging a fine for “illegal” parking. Then the debt collector’s letters start, then the solicitor’s letters, and ultimately the threatening, intimidating phone calls. I bet the majority of you will just pay up. And I’m not being sexist here, but most of the people who pay up will be female – they’re just so easy for these telephone debt collectors to intimidate. That’s the reason this racket continues to grow into a multi-million pound business.

I had just such a run-in with Meteor Parking at Brighton Station car park. Visit the car park and you’ll see entry and exit barrier machines all wrapped up in plastic with their barriers removed, as if they’re now disused, which in fact they are. You’ll see cameras dotted about. But until recently you wouldn’t have seen clear signage that says whose car park this is, how much it costs and displaying clear terms and conditions, and it’s debateable whether they’re clear even now. Even if you did see such things, merely parking in the car park would not represent a clear breach of contract – because under UK law you cannot unwittingly enter into any contract, or be tricked into entering into one.

So when you get the “fine”, be very clear in your mind. Though it’s made to look threatening, and as similar as possible to something from the Police or government, that’s just the first part of the process of intimidation. It’s not a fine. A fine can only be levied by an organisation authorised by statute, that is when a law has been passed or a license granted by government to collect such a fine. Meteor Parking is not. Nor are a whole host of other parking companies (Park Direct Ltd, TCP, UK Parking Control, Euro Car Parks etc) which have sprung up over the past 20 years. All they can do is issue you with an invoice, and even then it’s fraudulent if there’s not a clear contract that you’ve entered into with your full knowledge.

So let’s turn to the debt collectors – Roxburghe – well, apart from sending a threatening letter or two, they were pretty ineffectual. The worrying one is “Graham White Solicitors”. Check their records. They have one solicitor listed – one Michael David Sobell, who was admitted as a solicitor in 1962 – http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/choosingandusing/findasolicitor/view=solicitordetails.law?id=183218&orgid=272121&searchType=L. But you’ll never hear from him… instead you get letters threatening you, intimidating you, and even adding extra charges from nowhere for “administration” or “costs”. Then you get calls – several per week – what sounds like and is clearly a busy call centre, staffed by rather cocky, pushy chaps claiming to represent Graham White Solicitors who will desperately try to justify their attempts to get you to pay up with a credit card over the phone. These are not solicitors – nor paralegals – nor legal secretaries. These are just call centre debt collectors. They quote laws that don’t exist. They claim powers for authorities who either don’t exist or who have no such powers (like the British Parking Association who, it was claimed, have the power to license or shut down ANY car park in the UK – which they don’t – they’re just a professional association). They say you’ve parked “illegally”, which suggests that you’re in breach of some sort of parking control legislation – but at the most it’s a minor breach of an implicit, assumed contract. They will threaten your credit rating. They will threaten civil litigation, small claims court, county court judgements (CCJs) – anything they can use to worry you into paying. One complete idiot even mentioned getting points on my driving license if I didn’t pay up! Eventually they’ll even start offering you discounts if you pay right now – bit desperate, eh? They really don’t like it when you actually know more than they do – which generally isn’t hard, if you’ve done your research. Several times they’ve lost their temper and put the phone down on me.

Feeling alone? Don’t. Look here…  http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2329119&page=1 - and see that there are lots of people in the same position. Let’s use some logic for a moment – through all this I have been in contact with a whole host of people employed solely to collect money on a rather dodgy principle of law. If this wasn’t a huge money-making enterprise, how on earth could they afford all this? Go-Ahead sold Meteor Parking to Vinci Park Services in September 2010 for a whopping £11M. Then there’s Graham White Solicitors – all those employees, all that effort. And so much desperation in their tactics. So please don’t be intimidated into paying if you don’t think you should.

Oh, and… this is to the Law Society, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Ombudsman. If you’re fed up with your noble profession being viewed in a negative light; if you’d like to be seen by the public as an honourable, trustworthy profession… well, you know what to do. Regulate your solicitors. Put your house in order.

N.B. The firm Graham White Solicitors mentioned in this article is Graham White Solicitors of Manor House, Lavender Park Road, West Byfleet, KT14 6ND, tel 01932 332 020, fax 01932 352 617 specialising in Civil Litigation, Commercial Property, Landlord and Tenant and is wholly unrelated to Graham White & Co of Bushey, Herts.

Update, February 2012: For more than six months I’ve heard nothing more from Roxburghe or Graham White Solicitors, or indeed Meteor Parking. Today I sent an email to The Law Society, because I know if I was leading a professional body like the Law Society, I’d be pretty damned annoyed about someone taking the good name of the profession in vain like the so-called “Graham White Solicitors”.

Update, October 2012: The law has changed where parking on private land is concerned. There’s a very good summary on The AA’s private parking page.

Brighton Parking Restriction Notice

Today is Sunday. The parking restrictions on my road are clearly displayed as Mon-Fri noon-1pm. There are very faded, patchy single & double yellow lines which haven’t been repainted for years, and a few months ago there were Council notices tied to lamp posts about lifting parking restrictions to allow more parking locally. So what was a traffic warden doing walking up & down issuing parking tickets? The Council is probably hoping that people are idiots who get scared into paying up even when they don’t have to. Hopefully they’re wrong.

A parking ticket (PCN) illegally issued by Brighton & Hove City Council

So, Brighton & Hove City Council – please tell us – what will it take to stop you and your imbeciles from wasting everyone’s time and money with these continued attempts to extort money from people fraudulently?

After I reported my parking ticket woes in my post entitled Brighton & Hove Parking – A Criminal Racket in Disguise, I appealed the PCN and got a rejection notice from the Council. No surprise there – after all they have to earn their money from somewhere, even if it’s from fraud.

Well, my fellow business breakfast club members were up in arms at the claims by Brighton & Hove City Council that I had parked my vehicle in a loading bay early one morning without any loading being observed. “But that was the morning of your presentation” one said, “I saw you unloading all your kit”. Others agreed and were outraged at Brighton & Hove City Council’s blatant attempt at criminal fraud.

So, one by one they submitted signed witness statements for me to forward to the Parking Tribunal. Unfortunately the rejection notice had arrived whilst I was away, which didn’t help, particularly as they give you a measly 28 days to bring the case to the notice of the Parking Tribunal. Not a lot when you have to gather evidence from disparate sources. But why should I be surprised when the vested interests of the multi-million pound parking racket are at stake, that everything should be stacked in their favour and run to their schedule?

So, now I await the outcome of the Tribunal and I’ll let you know when it arrives.

Some time later: Well, I have to report that Brighton and Hove City Council didn’t even bother trying to defend my appeal, and so the Parking Tribunal found in my favour by default. This indicates that the council knew all along that it didn’t have a leg to stand on & was just hanging on in the vain hope that I would shut up, give up and pay up.

As an old ex vegetarian I’m still probably more of an omnivore than any of my friends, and as open to good vegetarian fayre as any other cuisine. Terre a Terre, with its mad menus and gourmet dishes of diverse ingredients lovingly assembled with perfect balances of flavours and textures, is a favourite purveyor. Food for Friends was always reliable if unexciting, producing seventies style veggie bakes and brown rice in a typically home style manner, honest good food. The market changed, the likes of Terre a Terre appeared, and Food for Friends had to change too.

So, cut to the present day. The founder and original owner Simon Hope sold the business in 2004. Everything is about four times the price of the old Food for Friends, and the menu is distinctly more refined and poised, promising much… And sadly failing to deliver.

Our visit was marred by slow, fairly dismissive service from the start, almost as though we were an inconvenience. The food was unexciting, over-ambitious for the abilities of those preparing it, and lacking flavour. Flavours that sounded delicate and refined on the menu were in reality loud, brutish and unbalanced, such as my starter which tasted of nothing other than garlic. Towards the end the staff were eager to hurry us out to make way for the next sitting, despite the delays having been of their making. The final sting was the bill – for six adults and four children the total amounted to just shy of £250. If this had been good food, lovingly and skilfully prepared, and served with a smile by polite, courteous staff, then we wouldn’t have minded. Unfortunately the worst taste of the evening was the one left in the mouth by this monumentally failing, overblown, arrogant restaurant. Bring back the honest, well-cooked food.