Wednesday 19 February 2014

The Midas Touch


The switch-over from one phone provider to another whilst keeping my number proved as straight forward as the new provider promised. It's a shame I couldn't have done it three years ago without being penalised for loss of income from the other company. Yes, Orange is indeed shit.

It is just another example of how loyalty is punished by exploitation. Their reasoning is that anyone stupid enough to put up with their bad behaviour for any longer than they are contractually obliged to, deserves everything coming to them. Why, for instance, did they leave it until my departure before offering me a more reasonable deal?

Coupled with the sad fact that the experience of switching providers (or banks) is second only to moving house in terms of stress, and that elderly people are more stressed than others when faced with this sort of upheaval, means that many old folk are paying about £4000 per annum premium on insurance policies which would go down to £400 if they switched. They is all shit.

I used to love weekends and bank holidays, because - in the old days - everyone stopped working, and there was a couple of days when nobody was trying to squeeze every last penny out of you. Now, they have software which squeezes money out of you as you sleep - holiday or not.

The beauty of this latest phone deal is that it is not a tied contract set up with a direct debit. If they treat me badly, I just sign on with someone else, and they know it. With all the other companies, if they want to get more money from you than you signed the bit of paper for, they simply refer you to some small print in a microscopic font, buried deep in about six virtual pages which you lied about having read to save time. Then they just help themselves.

We were sitting at the kitchen table last night, listening to some old tapes of Orson Wells, when H.I. began trying to remember what the name of the famous film where he plays a corrupt police chief alongside Charlton Heston as a righteous lawyer. It was on the tip of our tongue.

H.I. asked me to go to the iMac and look it up, when I remembered that - for the first time ever - I could get the internet on my phone. So just for the novelty and to save myself a walk of 25 feet, I typed the details into Google on the little Nokia. There it was.

'Touch of Evil'

20 comments:

  1. You are making my reluctance to have a mobile phone appear very sensible.

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    1. Technology is bloody marvellous. It's the cunts who write the software and the bosses who administrate it who are the biggest put-off.

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  2. I am glad to hear your transition from Orange has gone so well. Several years ago, I left Orange for T-Mobile!!! Now the two of them have teamed up to be EE. It's all very strange -- when I go to my online account I go to the EE site, but then click on T-Mobile... And the cheap deal I want I got by buying through a third party -- which offered a cheaper contract than was available if I went to T-Mobile directly. Not only did I get a better contract that offered more, I also got the phone I wanted (Samsung Galaxy S3) free.

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  3. Everything is the same these days Tom. I had a letter from a Building society where I have an ISA this morning telling me that they are 'sorry' but after very careful consideration, 'because I have less than £20,000 in my account, they are cutting my interest from 1.75 to 1.50!
    I can't be bothered to try and transfer my meagre amount of money - I don't suppose anyone else is any better and the wear and tear of shoe leather/frayed nerves or whatever makes it absolutely not worth it.

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    1. Put it under the damn bed - you will get a lot more than 1.50 if the economy continues to recover in your lifetime.

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  4. Pat, there was an emergency debate in Parliament here about a local bank that's going to cost the taxpayer up to €20 BILLION. That's €3 for every man woman and child on the planet and Austria only has 8 million souls. No wonder there's a lack of interest!

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    1. Apropos the Midas Touch there was a great quote concerning the latest bank scandal. When somebody on the radio asked somebody else where all the money had gone and why didn't anyone seem to know.
      "There were twenty fingers on two hands!"
      That's a great definition of banking I think.

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    2. Barclays Bank has announced the axing of about 1500 menial jobs at the same time as allotting the executives a 10% pay rise. That doesn't even include what the shareholders are getting.

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  5. Yesterday I was in the consultation room, waiting for the ophthalmologist to come in and examine my new eye. A technician had already removed the tea strainer. I was several columns into a news magazine when the doctor came in, looked at me reading finer than fine print and announced he obviously did a good job.
    My phone is worth every penny I paid for it. The grand kids, however, will be getting WallMart pay phones. They aren't old enough to appreciate more.

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    1. Good news about the good eye, Joanne. Buying kids cheap technology - especially optics like telescopes and binoculars - can put them off the subject for life. Ferraris are also wasted on the old men who can afford them as well. There isn't the same cell phone culture in the US as we have here, I think. I've seen 4 year-olds here with iPhones far more sophisticated than mine, AND they know how to use them.

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  6. Sometimes (often) I don't understand what you're going on (and on) about Tom. But I do love your rants. I mostly agree. With the bits I recognise, anyway. One day if you're very unlucky, I'll drive over to Bath and throw stones up at your window.

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    1. Now I wish I hadn't been so open about my geographical position. I thought I had to watch out for Chinese hackers, but I hadn't reckoned on mad women.

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    2. Tom, re the world's "mad women" as you call them, could be the world needs a few more of them! e.g. 84 year old American nun sentenced to 3 years in jail for breaching security at top US military uranium storage area to make a protest . . .what a gal!

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    3. That's not mad. Driving the 33 miles between Salisbury and Bath whilst drunk in order to throw stones at someone's window is mad.

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  7. So much to say about a bloody mobile phone.

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    1. Get it off your chest, Rachel. It's what I'm here for.

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    2. Great thanks Tom. I will. I cant stand namby-pamby polite crap.

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    3. That's probably why you like my game so much.

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