Refund by cheque

I don't get it. Most companies in the UK are globally aware, and when I contacted them to say I was closing my account and leaving the country, not one of them had a problem changing my address to a non-UK one.

Most companies did a refund of any credit owing to me by refunding directly to my bank account. This is what I expect - I pay via a bank transfer or direct debit; I expect a refund the same way.

But Merton Council, and BT, just have to be difficult. They won't refund directly. Merton wanted to send a refund cheque, to my OLD address, within 28 DAYS after I left! How does that make sense?! BT, at least, are posting the cheque to my new SA address; but that doesn't help. To deposit a foreign cheque here will cost me more than the cheque is worth!

I've arranged with a friend that he'll accept and deposit the Merton cheque for me; I guess if I can stop BT from sending the cheque here in time, and I can get them to send it to him instead, he can deposit that one for me too. But if I can't stop them, they'll have wasted postage sending it here, and I'll then have to post it back there to him. What a monumental waste of time.

Really, get with the 21st century. If I pay by cheque, refund by cheque. But if I pay electronically, refund electronically - especially if I'm in a different country, for pete's sake!

Update: So I thought it was easy to cancel all my UK accounts when I left, but it turns out I was mistaken. Apart from the issues above, British Gas thinks my electricity account is still active, and is still taking payments from my bank account (even though it was cancelled in the same call as my gas account, and that was cancelled) - they now want me to phone them to cancel my account, which I refuse to do since it will cost an absolute fortune from here in SA. They have a facility to cancel your account online, but firstly they want 3 years worth of UK addresses (why!? and I only have one year's worth), and secondly they won't accept non-UK addresses as the new address. So I can't use it.

Tiscali is still taking money from my bank account, even though my account has been cancelled - in fact, they sent me an email saying that I can view my final bill online, but then said that I can't login since my account's been cancelled.

British Gas has made a huge mistake with my gas bill, since their previous estimate of my usage was about 5 times higher than my normal (and actual) usage, and they then ignored my final reading and based my final bill on an (even higher) estimate! And they've ignored my last two emails asking them to look into it.

So it looks like the UK is just as screwed up as SA :(

Update: It's about a week since my last update, and I continue to be amazed by the sheer incompetence of British companies.

BT, after all that, sent the cheque to my SA address.

Tiscali still hasn't replied to me.

Merton Council tax department has emailed me to ask if I want the cheque sent to the address on the refund form, or my bank. This is over a month since I sent the form in, and I thought it had been processed and the cheque posted already!

British Gas is still ignoring my query about the incorrect charges on my gas bill.

British Gas is ignoring my email about cancelling my account. I tried to cancel online, but firstly, they want 3 years worth of valid UK addresses. If I fudge that, they want my new address to be a valid UK address. If I get around that, it doesn't accept my 12 digit account number - it wants a 10 digit number. If I arbitrarily leave out 2 numbers, it asks me to acknowledge that I'm applying for a new account (when what I'm trying to do is cancel an old account). Absolutlely pathetic, and as I say they're just ignoring me now via email.

This is what I find most frustrating with UK companies - if they think you're being too persistent, or too annoying, or too awkward, they just ignore you.

And it's so annoying because I tried so hard to do everything right. I knew it would be difficult to sort things out from SA, so I cancelled everything and sorted everything out before I left. You don't expect to have to cancel your electricity account, and then phone back to check that it was cancelled. You expect that when you cancel your telephone account, they'll tell you there and then if they can only process refunds by cheque. You don't expect to get home and then have endless hassles! The only company that I haven't had a problem with is TMobile (yet); and my tax refund came through fast and without a problem, which was amazing. But everything else just sucks!


Update: Hmm, looks like I haven't updated for a while. Pretty much everyone got sorted, except Tiscali and British Gas for gas.

After complaining to EnergyWatch, and only a couple of days short of the Energy Ombudsman deadline, British Gas deposited a refund into my account. No letter or email from them, just money in my account. But who cares, at least I got my money!

Now I'm fighting with Tiscali. Actually, I'm so angry with them I can't put it into words. Expect a post about it tomorrow or the next day - I'll link to it from here.

What's up with Virgin Mobile today?!

What's up with Virgin Mobile today?

After a bad experience trying to get my sim set up in the first place, things have been going fairly smoothly. Until today.

I tried to access my mail via GPRS - and was told the remote modem disconnected.

I tried to get my balance from the VM menu - and nothing happened.

I tried to get my balance by dialling *101# - and was told 'invalid password'.

I tried to dial my landline - and was told 'invalid operation', and asked for my PIN.

I entered my PIN - and was told that my sim is locked, and to enter the PUK.

I entered the PUK - and was asked for a new PIN, then told that my unblock code was invalid.

As usual, when there's a problem, I can't even dial 123 to get them to sort it out. I can't email them, because they take 24 to 48 hours to reply, and because I'm not dialing up every five minutes to see if they've answered yet.

I dialed the 123 equivalent from a landline - and there was silence. It didn't even ring.

So yet another weekend without any service from VM. I might as well not have a cellphone at this rate. I will certainly not use VM in future - I plan to use up my remaining balance and then switch to VC or MTN. I'm only glad that I didn't get a Virgin Money card, like I was thinking of - it's one thing if your cellphone stops working, but imagine if your credit card stopped working! Although, I'm not actually sure which is worse...

Update: Tried to login to their VZone site, and got this:

We'll be back soon

There appears to be a glitch in the Virgin Mobile matrix. Please try again in a few minutes. If you continue receiving this message please send an e-mail to webmaster@virginmobile.co.za

So they definitely seem to have problems today.

Update: Later I switched my phone off, then on again; it asked for my pin, accepted it, and worked fine. A week later, I still haven't had a reply from customer services.

I've also noticed that premium rate SMSs aren't sent; fortunately, you aren't charged for them either.

I'll certainly never recharge with VM, or get a VM sim again. I really don't recommend them - signal strength varies wildly, data is slow or just doesn't work, and their customer service levels also vary wildly. Pity, because we could have used a decent cellphone provider in SA; but not one with an inferior product who then wants users to help debug their network!

Virgin Mobile: First Impressions

I've been using Virgin Mobile for a few days now, and here are my initial impressions.

I haven't used the phone much, but judging by the signal meter on my phone, the signal varies drastically throughout the day. With the phone in exactly the same place in the house, I'll sometimes have full signal strength, and sometimes minimal.

The GPRS is slow. It's been a while since I've used GPRS in SA, but this seems slower than I remember. It's particularly slow in connecting, and it seems to drop the connection a lot. And maybe it's my phone, but it's as if it drops the connection but doesn't disconnect - so next time I try to check my mail, it just can't find the gmail site. I then actually have to manually tell it to disconnect; then I can go ahead and load a page and it'll automatically reconnect (which, as I say, is very slow - so much for always-on internet, or the simulation thereof).

I also suspect - although I have done *no* investigation into this yet, so I could be totally wrong - that I'm being overbilled. I browsed El Reg, Boing Boing, and Bruce Schneier's blog, and checked my mail a couple of times, and have been billed about R1.50. At 50c per mb, that would imply I used 3mb, which seems a bit high for that amount of browsing. But I've (hopefully) set up the traffic monitor on the phone, so I can see what kind of usage that's recording and compare it to the billing.

I haven't quite managed to set my phone up as a modem yet - I seem to have packed my motorola cable in the boxes being shipped over, so I can't use the motorola; and the Vario seems to have a very different setup, so I haven't got that working yet.

I'm not impressed with their customer service - emails sent to 'sortmeout@virginmobile.com' seem to take at least 24 hours to be answered, and sometimes take more like 48 or 72 hours.

A few things that I've found out that may be useful:

• to change your pin, dial **004*Old pin*New pin*New pin# (although I get an 'invalid parameters' message when I try it)
• you need to activate your sim before you can use it; read the reverse of the sim holder
• they say they'll zero your balance if you don't recharge in 90 days; that's not quite true. All you have to do is use your account; making any calls, sending sms's and topping up all qualify
• the MMS settings are:
  Description: Virgin MMS
  Connects to: WAP Network
  Access point: vmms
  User name: blank
  Password: blank
• Name: Virgin MMS
  MMSC URL: http://mms.virginmobile.co.za
  WAP Gateway: 196.31.116.242
  Port: 8080
  Max Sending size: 100Kb

Virgin Mobile off to a bad start

So I arrived back in the country from the UK on Friday, and needed to get a SIM card for calls and checking my mail from my phone. So yesterday I figured that Virgin Mobile have the best no-commitment GPRS rates, I'd pick up a VM sim. I'd heard that they'd been having data problems, via the mybroadband forums, but it seemed to be mostly in outlying areas, and I hoped that it'd be fine here in Cape Town, at least as a temporary measure.

Well, I can't say whether it will be or not, because I haven't managed to get it to work yet.

I bought the sim yesterday; and I think their marketing strategy needs to be rethought because at first glance, when you're browsing the Cell C/MTN/Vodacom/VM sims, you notice that all the others are R4.99 while the VM sim is R55. Then you realise that it's because R50 airtime is included, so it's fine, but my first reaction was "never mind, I'll get a vodacom one".

Anyway, I bought the sim, opened the pack, took out the free lanyard and business card holder, read through the Virgin Family specials, noted that you get R100 airtime if you get a Virgin Money credit card (which I was considering, but if Virgin Mobile is typical of Virgin in general, maybe not), read the instruction booklet. Okay. Took out the sim, inserted in my phone - brilliant, it connects to the Virgin network. Then I tried a test call to make sure it works, and got a message saying "you have been automatically redirected to this message because your connection to the network has been cancelled. Please call customer service." Huh? Okay, I think, maybe the sim has to be activated first? But they don't mention in the instruction booklet, nor does the message really make sense. But okay, I'll phone customer service. So I phone 123, only to get a message saying "You have been automatically redirected...".

Nice. So I can't use my sim, and I can't even call them to find out why I can't use my sim. The first is bad enough, the second is downright pathetic. Sure, you can call their customer service line from a landline, but charged at mobile rates. And not everyone has a landline or internet access, which is the route I chose - I emailed them to find out what's going on. 24 hours later, I'm still waiting for a response. Maybe they don't work over weekends?

I did some more testing and found that I did get the Virgin Mobile menu added to the phone, but not the WAP/MMS settings. When choosing 'check prepaid balance' from the menu, I get a message saying 'subscriber locked'. When I request the settings, I get told they're in the pipeline and I'll receive an SMS shortly... 12 hours later, I'm still waiting.

Maybe when it's all up and running it'll work great. But it certainly doesn't seem to be a quick solution. I expect to buy a sim, pop it in the phone, and be able to make and receive calls, send and receive sms's, and use the net, all within a few minutes. But at this rate it looks like it might be a few days, and that's pathetic.

Update: Ok, partly my fault. The back of the sim card holder has activation instructions, which I didn't see. I looked at the side with the PIN number and the cell number, but not the reverse. But it's still partly their fault, because: (1) the getting started guide doesn't mention activation at all, even though it goes into excruciating detail about how to get started, (2) I couldn't get through to customer service, (3) customer service never replied to my email, and (4) even though I've now activated the sim and can call customer service, I get told that my account is locked if I try to phone any other number or check my balance; and I can't send SMSs, even in reply to their WAP/MMS settings (they send one, then you have to reply with 'Y' before they send the next batch). Hopefully the sim just isn't fully activated yet; we'll see.

Update: A hour or two later it was working fine; and this morning I got a call from customer services. I guess they don't work over the weekend. I guess they also don't realise that if I couldn't make any calls, even to 123, I probably wouldn't be able to check my voicemail either. And I guess that they don't realise that if I email them, I probably want a reply via email, not a phone call. Oh well, at least it's working now - I still need to get GPRS working, because they can't automatically push the settings to my Vario, but that's a separate issue.

Update: Got GPRS working on my Vario, but it seems *really* slow. Don't know if that's Virgin Mobile, or just South Africa. Still need to get it working as a modem so I can connect my laptop to the net using GPRS; hate using dial up!

Quick Review - Windows Messenger Live

So MSN Messenger suddenly started complaining that there was a new update available, and eventually I gave in and installed MessengerLive.

I haven't used it yet (I've only had it installed for about 5 minutes), but I'm trying to get it set up the way I like it. The first thing I did was install MsgPlus, since it adds a lot of extras (and I know it's gotten a lot of bad press recently, but it's really unjustified).

MsgPlus used to disable the ad at the bottom; it doesn't seem to do that any more. I find the ad really annoying, for three reasons: (1) it uses a lot of screen real estate; (2) it's distracting when it changes; and (3) in some countries, we actually pay per KB downloaded, and I don't really want to pay for someone else's adverts.

Screen real estate is the big issue, here; I like to have my msn contact window open most of the time, on the corner of my screen. But I want to see my contacts, not all the other gumph. If I want to add a contact, I can do it from a menu; I don't do it often enough to need a button on my contact window. Searching my contacts... maybe. But if I want to search the web, I'll do it via my browser. I don't need to see my display picture; I know who I am. My status I want to see, and my personal message. But I don't want an email button; I don't want two Windows Live related buttons; and I don't change the colour scheme often enough to need a button rather than a menu item. And if I have sharing folders disabled, I don't need an icon for it, surely? I realise that other people may have different needs; but why not make the display of these elements configurable?

And my biggest complaint: the window title can't handle being in a small window; instead of truncating, it just gets squished up really small and distorted. Which is pretty pathetic, and indicates that MS think you want your msn contact window to take up half your screen.

So I'm annoyed that I had to upgrade. The new version doesn't add any functionality I want; it uses up a lot more screen real estate; and the old version worked just fine, until it started nagging me about a new version being available. Typical Microsoft.

Update: Ah ha! A quick google turns up APatch, which does exactly what I want. All the things I listed above, and more!

Augmented Reality - Not Just For Academics Anymore

When I was at varsity, I did my honours and master's degrees in virtual reality. We focused more on 'real' virtual reality, but did come across research on 'augmented reality' - which is like a mixture of real and virtual; generally, virtual information superimposed on the real world using translucent head-mounted-displays. The idea was to provide extra information, so for example surgical med students could look at a body and have labels superimposed on the organs; or a wiring diagram could be superimposed on a house wall.

Google maps kinda does this, by superimposing a map on a satellite view of an area. But it's not real time, and it's not dynamic. And it's not the real world - it's a picture of the real world.

But PalmOS game company ToySpring have taken a huge step further, and as usual it's gaming driving the development. They've brought out an arcade shooter for the Treo 650, which uses the pda's camera to generate the backdrop for the game. Bad guys and targets are superimposed on the image coming from the camera, in real time! And if there's a baddie behind you, and you physically turn around, the game will track changes in the camera field so that you can see the baddie. That is just so awesome. My only concern is that it might be terribly slow, but the idea is really great. More info and some screenshots at El Reg.

This is the way that virtual reality is going to filter into everyday life. Not through all the academic research, but via games.

War On Errorism

I was at the Science Museum shop the other day (yes, the shop is more fun than the museum itself), and as part of the merch for their Spy exhibit they have a pin/badge/button saying 'Self Destruct'.

Luckily this is in London, not Boston - otherwise wearing one could get you blown up. As Bruce Schneier put it: 'Boston PD - Putting the "error" in "terror".'