Be Excellent To Each Other

According to the direct.gov web site "it's quicker online."

'Quicker online' my hairy bum.

I've just tried to apply for a replacement driving licence, but first they force you to register for their Government Gateway scheme. When you get right to the end they say "no, you missed your middle name out. go back to the beginning."

So you fill it all out again and then they say "you're already registered. go find your letter we sent you two years ago." Argh. I dug through all my old documents and stuff, and finally found a letter from them with an alphanumeric ID so long that more than 56 billion billion different people could register, and try to log in. Except I can't remember my password. Helpfully it tells me that is must be 8-12 characters long, both numbers and letters, so that narrows it down to one of three different passwords I would have used at that time.

None of them work.

So I try the password reset service. For which they make you type all the same information again, but with a password reminder question at the end. Except not just one but three questions. A memorable place, a memorable date, and a memorable name. A fucking name?

Obviously I had no hope, and closed the tab in frustration. Much as I hate speaking to people on the phone (because they always like to sell you extra stuff), I elected to ring them, and run up my phone bill in the process.

"Thankyou for calling. We're now closed for the Bank Holiday..."

Gargh! Please share similar tales of misfortune and frustration to appease my appetite for schadenfeude.

Read Governmentyard's tale of trying to get a new Android phone.

I once supported a guy who'd recently become somewhat housebound though ill health. He'd bought a laptop, a big HDTV and a 360. I helped him network them, showed him the difference between scart and hdmi, got his films and music streaming from the computer to the 360... online banking, email, chat, the lot. Happy days.

It was time to change addresses... and for his licence we looked at the site - we could get a form posted to us or 'do it online', he wanted us to do it online at our next appointment a week later. 2 hours we spent methodically going through... and at the end, we were asked to print off the form and post it in.




The next week, we spent our time down at PC World buying a printer.

Student loans company:

I'd quit my job and moved into my girlfriend's house. I'd had some shares and cashed them, enough to pay for my food for a few months, I didn't have any other outgoings. Deferment letter comes in from Student Loans - please enclose payslips. I wrote back explaining I wasn't working and didn't have any payslips. They wrote back, days before I was due to start repaying... and they wrote back asking for proof of benefits. I wrote again, explaining I had no benefits, that I'd a bit of cash in the bank and was working through it... and would reassess my situation in a couple of months when that ran out. I'd probably have a job by then and would be pleased to let them know my salary once I did. They wrote back again, asking for proof of my girlfriend's income, which she was of course not willing to provide to a company she has no relationship with.

"We need some evidence of how you are supporting yourself"

"I've got some money in my current account, I'm using that so I'll send you a bank statement"

"Not good enough, we'll have £80 a month off you"

"How will I pay for food then?"

"Tough, rules is rules and we need evidence, even if the one piece of evidence you've got is ineligible "

I got a job in the end.


Couple of years later, more shit... I had changed roles at the same company (same Jobtitle, permanent contract, payed same month as opposed to the following one as per my temp contract. I also had a year's pro-rata holiday pay coming in in a lump sum so virtually 3x salary in one month, a third of which was not applicable as they'd already accounted for it the previous year, a third of which was for the previous month and a third for the current month. Fearing the worst, I wrote a letter to go with my payslips, explaining in plain English what was happening, then a photocopy of the one complicated enclosed slip with annotated notes on a separate sheet breaking down each and every amount and why it was there. I included extra contact details for myself and for my employer so this could be verified and let my employer know to expect a call. Just before deferment deadline approaches, letter comes through "you are earning above the threshold, we're having £80 a month off you" I rang back...

"What about my letter?"

"What letter?"

"The one stapled to my payslips and deferment form"

"We have no record of a letter, only your payslips here in front of me"

"Then you've lost it - let me explain again over the phone to you as you look at the payslip"

"No, we'd need something in writing"

"I sent you something in writing"

"If it was in with your payslips, we would not have scanned it onto the system"

"Well that's your lookout then, surely?"

"£80 per month, please"

"I'm earning five grand below the repayment threshold"

"Says here you aren't"

"No it doesn't, the amounts are for different things, it even says so on the payslip"

"..."

"How do I re-notify you in writing, if you throw away my letters"

"You can fax us"

"Have you got a fax at home?"

"..."

"I'll find one in another office somewhere then - what's the number and shall I mark it for your attention?"

"The number is XXXXXX"

"What's your name again, so I can mark it for your attention?"

"I won't get the fax, I have no idea where it comes out"

"Can you see a fax machine from where you are sat?"

"Yes"

"What's the number of that fax"

"We aren't allowed to give that out"

SIX FUCKING WEEKS it took to get it sorted. I hate those bastards more than anyone else I've ever had to deal with. Oh, and they've sold my debt.... so now when they fuck up it's two companies I need to deal with as the debt holder doesn't do the admin, that stays in Glasgow.

There's an "I don't care that I've already registered, register me again" option for the Govt Gateway bit on the driver's license website.

Do I have to wait a week for them to send me my user id out by post?

Nope. You'll get it a week later by post anyway, of course - but then just throw it away and reregister again next time you want to use it.

Brilliant. Craster, you've saved the day!

O2. I signed up for a phone contract a few years ago, setting up a direct debit in the process so I wouldn't have to put any effort into paying my bill.

They didn't bother taking any money, and 18 moths later - 6 months after my contract ended - they phoned me up asking for several hundred pounds. No worries: I'd kept the monthly bill aside and was happy to pay. Except their system wouldn't accept my card now - any of them. They wouldn't accept any other form of payment, either. So I gave up and they left me alone.

Another six months and they'd sold my debt on. Fortunately the company were understanding, I got their fees removed and paid it with no hassle.

I SAVED THE DAY, DADDY! I SAVED THE DAY!

Is that Trousers?

Ha! You think the signup bit is the challenging part of applying for a driving license online? Have fun.

Amusingly I only got one in February, as I had to renew the photocard. And then my wallet was stolen.

Ah, overly complicated processes.

I've been in the process of exchanging a faulty mattress through Ikea over the phone. Today I popped into the local store to see which new one I'd like, as the current shit one is no longer stocked. I picked a new one, costing another £100, and went home, ready to ring them up and sort the whole thing out.

I get home and phone them, sorting everything but the price difference, which I'd have to make up. This takes about 20 minutes. I give them my card details, and they process the transaction. Declined. We try again just in case they'd muddle the number over the phone. Declined. So I tell them I'll phone my bank and get back to them.

I get on the phone to Barclays and negotiate the bottomless pit of robots. I get through to an Indian woman and explain my problem. She looks into it and says there's no problem on their end; my account has enough money and there's no block. She tries to sell me some other services. I decline. I'll try Ikea again.

I hang up and notice a text message from Barclays Fraud. I give them a ring, and get through to another robot. I'm told this will be an entire automated process, and delve into the world of weird voices. I'm prompted to prove who I am, and validate some purchases; the Ikea one is on there. I finish and hang up.

Back to Ikea, I go through the process again. Declined. For fuck's sake. I can only guess I simply didn't leave it long enough before trying again; Ikea was about to close for the weekend. Argh: I want a good night's sleep.

If it's (suspected) fraud, the process you went through will need to be ok'd by a human being, so Tuesday. The alternative is we all end up victims to the fraud that's now so easy in the digital age. It sucks but there's not a lot can be done at this point.

I wouldn't mind, but it happens every single time I make a moderately large purchase (>£100 being larger than usual in my case) online or over the phone. Having to contact the fraud department each time is getting quite frustrating. It happened for my iPhone and my graphics tablet, both of which I had to wait a day later for; you're a man who can appreciate how frustrating this is!

Never mind. Hopefully I can validate it next week, and then book a delivery spot. I'm getting quite sore backs from this mattress now.

Barclays' fraud-detection algorithm seem to be particularly oversensitive to me. Also I prefer Capital One's approach of letting the transaction go through, then phoning me a bit later to check it was genuine, rather than Barclays' "No, you shan't buy this with your money!" way of doing things.

I acknowledge this is probably because I've yet to actually be defrauded, so just find the protection irritating in varying degrees.

Yes but if it is a fraudulant transataion, it is the banks money, as they have ti give it you back.

Also if you know your bank is like that, can you not ring them first?

In Finland, 10 years ago, you got a text for every transaction you made above a certain value. A very good idea.

Indeed. As someone who's been victim to fraud (>£1000 of Easy Jet tickets purchased) I'm glad the systems exist, but Barclays' does seem overly sensitive and restrictive. Having your card refused for a legitimate purchase is seriously fucking embarrassing, frankly. I understand and appreciate these methods, but just wish I could splash out every so often without jumping through hoops, waiting several days, and going through embarrassing and expensive phonecalls.

Tesco used to decline transactions regularly. They'd then ring my mobile a few seconds later.

I got really arsey with them about it once (it was getting to the point of being nearly everything I bought that wasn't at Tesco) and, purely by coincidence I'm sure, haven't had anything trigger it since. Even giving varying numbers of hundreds of pounds to the garage every week or two hasn't flagged (yet).

Actually, I wonder if that was around the time they switched away from RBS as the card provider.

LLoyds TSB seem okay in this regard. When I buy something from Steam or from forrins over the Internet, I get a text from them saying that my card has just been used abroad and can I give them a quick call if I'm at all worried about that. With regards to my Credit Card, they only seem to block things when I make a fairly big purchase having not used the card at all for a while, and even then a robot usually calls (irritatingly my home number rather than my mobile, but still) and I just have to tell the robot that I did indeed mean to make the purchase.

To be fair to them, my credit card genuinely was used fraudulently once to the tune of £1000, all of which they paid me back, so I tend not to mind so much if they get a little jumpy these days when I use my card.

Tesco still do this a lot with me. But in doing so, they have caught two frauds (and one set of transactions where a hotel were being utter dicks, putting a £900 bill through as seperate transactions of £100 each, ffs), and also once tipped me off to my wife being on a mass spending spree when pissed. So, all in all, I approve.

Oh of course, I just prefer the more laid-back way that Capital One do it, but obviously that's just speaking from a point of view of my own convenience.



Ring them first? When? Whenever I use my card? The trouble is, I'm not in possession of their fraud formula so can't predict when using my card is going to trigger their alarm.

Well, it seems I was right: I simply didn't wait long enough for the validation to take effect before trying again. Rang up Ikea this morning and the card went through with no problem, and I've got a preliminary delivery date for my new mattress.

I have to say, Ikea customer support have been brilliant. I'd heard loads of horror stories about them, but I can't fault them. After all, they're replacing a mattress I bought 18 months ago, delivering it to my house and picking up the old one, all for absolutely nothing. And, presumably, they'll happily do so again over the remaining 23.5 years' guarantee.

You've got a 25 year guarantee on a mattress? Wow.

I'll be shopping at IKEA next time I need one then. I wouldn't expect a mattress to last that long without going a bit saggy.

All their Sultan mattresses have a 25-year guarantee, but be aware they come in slightly irregular sizes. You might need an Ikea bed for them.

And I'm guessing they also only come in certain shades of pine, which only go with other IKEA furnitures.

Oh no, they've hooked me in!

Clever marketing bastards.