Well, fat load of good Comet were when I called about watching the Perseids meteor shower.
Call yourselves a comet helpline?
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I’m tweeting at last – and only about 8 months behind everyone else, so it seems.
Here’s what I’ve learnt over the last few weeks: You’ll need a client, either
Tweetdeck or Destroy Twitter (note: it doesn’t!)
http://search.twitter.com/Search tweets
http://hashtags.org/ - http://www.tweetlater.com/ and http://tweetburner.com/ – haven’t really worked out what these do yet!
Get twitter widgets for Myspace, Blogger, Facebook, Typepad, Wordpress etc.
http://freemyfeed.com/ if your feed reader cannot handle authenticated feeds
Then there’s Twitpic If you’re looking for a mobile client, I find Twibble works well as a mobile twitter client on the Skypephone S2
And here’s 8 twitter tips. and 10, 11 and 16 things you can do with twitter.
And a podcast about Tweetdeck and all your tweetdeck questions answered.
Now, what are you waiting for? Follow me!
I don’t like to call this a “hack” cos it’s not, but there’s a simple way of seeing the “front of card” preview of other people’s moonpig cards. Not the inside, or the person to or from or any account details, just the jpg previews.
But if you’d like a look into the minds of others, click here!
In late July 2008, fire took hold at the heart of Britain’s economy on Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare.
The government would like us to believe it was just a blaze – but are we being told the truth?
Look at this image from the BBC news pictures site:
Let’s look more closely at that caption:
“After a little while I heard what sounded like an explosion. I don’t know if it was an explosion or the noise when the pier collapsed.”
It’s well known that Weston-super-Mare is in the UK. But did you know that MI5 headquarters is in London, and London is also in the UK? With MI5 being just 141 miles away, all the evidence is there of a missile attack. An explosion? What else could it be.
Sifting through the evidence, the fire service say they though it might have been started by chip fat. We found an unemployed bloke on the internet who’s been blogging since his wife left him who says he has evidence that MI5 is colluding with the FBI to provide chip fat fuelled missiles. If it can be done with cars, it’s a logical step for missile fuel.
Dozens of firefighters fought to tackle the blaze which took hold of the partly wooden pier in the North Somerset seaside resort at about 0700 BST.
More evidence of BBC cover-ups. The blaze took hold at 0700, but the BBC had it fully written up just 7 hours later – how did they know?
The pier was built of metal. Just like the Twin Towers. During construction, someone could have embedded explosives in the legs of the pier.
The pier has never burnt down before.
The pier was built in 1904. The number “one” looks like the letter I. ninE. zeRo. Four = IERF – re-arranged spells FIRE.
If you take the letters of the word PIER and rearrange them, it makes the word PIRE, which is a bit like PYRE, which is a burning pile.
Finally, just like the Titanic, they were both on the sea.
I got a cold call earlier (I am on TPS) and recorded it. Have a listen:
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Key phrases in the call include:
This is a public opinion poll. You will receive two free boarding passes for an all inclusive cruise to Nassau Bahamas
In agreement with this confirmation, you are responsible for a $59 per person US Governmental Port and Service Fee paid directly to the cruise line fulfilment centre.
Please note, this is a complementary offer – you have neither won this, nor is it a prize.
The guy says it’s Imperial Majesty Cruise Line, the picture shows Regal Empress Cruise Vacations.
The company appears to be called National Research Group.
During the call, I am told to go to http://www.householdsurvey.com/ – this is a login page and site loaded with Google Ads.
UPDATE: I got a callback a few days after taking the “survey”:
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The number they tell me to call back is 001 954 556 5867
Here are Wikipedia entries about Imperial Majesty Cruise Line and
Here’s a scathing criticism of Imperial
Here are other blogs mentioning this:
http://www.skyhasfallen.net/2008/05/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-lunch-or.html
http://think-pot.blogspot.com/2008/04/psa-imperial-majesty-cruise-line.html
http://byotipol.com/2008/04/lalabs-won-free-bahamas-cruise.html
http://smartercruising.blogspot.com/2008/04/win-free-cruise-for-life-on-imperial.html
Here are the questions asked during the survey (and confirmed in the page I was told to go to)
Note – the spelling of the word “question” is their spelling, not mine!
Qustion 1: Do You want to take the survey?
Answer: YesQustion 2: Are you Male or Female? Press 1 for Male or 2 for Female.
Answer: MaleQustion 3: What age group category do you fall into? Press 1 for between 18-25, press 2 for ages 26-35, press 3 for ages 36-49 press 5 for all ages 50 and above
Answer: Ages 36-49Qustion 4: What type of television service do you have? Press 1 for Digital Cable, Press 2 for Satellite, Press 3 for Internet or press 4 for Over Air Antenna
Answer: Satellite
Qustion 5: Are you a Homeowner or do you currently rent? Press 1 if you’re a homeowner, press 2 if you are a Renter. Press 3 for any other type of living condition
Answer: HomeownerQustion 6: Have you purchased a New Television in the last 8 months? Press 1 for yes or press 2 for no
Answer: NoQustion 7: When making purchases at grocery stores, or department stores do you prefer to use your Major Credit Card, Visa Debit card or do you prefer to write a check from your check book?
Answer: If you prefer your Major Credit Card press 1Qustion 8: This is the 7th question. You’re almost finished. What type of internet service to you have? Press 1 for DSL, press 1 for Cable, press 3 for Dial up, or press 4 if you don’t have a computer.
Answer: DSLQustion 9: How often do you dine out? Press 1 for once a week or more. Press 2 for once a month, press 3 for I rarely dine out.
Answer: Once a week or moreQustion 10: How many times to do Vacation every year? Press 1 for 1 or less. Press 2 for 2 or more.
Answer: 2 or moreQustion 11: This is the last question. Assuming you own an automobile. Does you vehicle have either an existing manufacture warranty or an extended warranty? Press 1 for Yes. Press 2 for do it doesnt have a warranty. Press 3 for I dont own a vehicle.
Answer: Doesnt have a warrantyThe information that I have provided through this process is true and correct. In exchange for my participation in a Consumer Market Research Survey, I will receive a complimentary Bahamas Cruise. I accept this reward and agree to be contacted by a travel coordinator within 72 hours to go over the information regarding this reward
Here are some places you may wish to report it:
http://whocalled.us/lookup/4047989983
http://whocalled.us/lookup/4099831671
http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/8007300197
UPDATE 18/06/2008
I just got a call from 08006943328 and spoke to a Welsh bloke who actually seemed quite nice. He was just qualifying the leads, and I didn’t have time to be put through. But he’s definitely in the wrong job. He seemed quite earnest and genuine…if only he knew the cack he was selling!
The interesting this is that last week I got a call telling me I had received a free cruise to Nassau, Bahamas (all I had to do was pay taxes, charges and get myself to Florida!). I gave them a false name, and they asked me various questions about whether I drove a car, had a credit card, what age I was etc.
So, I can be pretty certain that UK Debt Information Line / FSDM are buying leads from the company that did the “free” cruise.
UPDATE 26/Aug/2008
Lots more people are getting ripped off lately. This is now the highest read and commented post on this blog. Here are some other places that might be able to advise:
Post your question on MoneySavingExpert’s forums or at the UK Legal group
Be careful with personal details, don’t use your real name.
Try contacting Trading Standards – they might be able to advise more about the credit card.
There is, of course, another idea – if you’re a family, have you thought about selling the story to a paper?
You’d probably get your money back that way AND you’d be warning more people about the same thing too.
It certainly is a very bad thing that you got ripped off like this, and I’m sure the Mail/Express/Sun etc would love this.
Just so as more people are warned about this, whichever route you choose can you please mention the link back to the blog page you found it on?
You know, it’s a simple enough question -
“Why are the downloads from my Mobilcast/Melodeo application [provided by Three] of such low quality?”.
Mobilcast/Melodeo never reply anyway, so I emailed three.
The phone call you hear below is unedited – the third such phone call regarding this, even after I emailed customer services stating the problem and saying “please don’t ring me about this, just reply”.
I’m sure everyone will sympathise when I say that I find Indian call centres to be possibly one of the most unpleasant and frustrating things to deal with these days, and so I have managed to rid myself of all banks and companies which use them (explaining why I’m leaving too) except the damn contract with three (“please wait some moments [25 minutes] which I check the informations on these details and then
tell you to use the reset function of your phone even though a key is physically broken”).
Anyhoo…I started recording about 15 minutes after she first rang, and before my dinner had finished cooking. So, you’ll hear some cutlery action in the background. I kid you not, the whole phone call was as slow and unhelpful as this….and yes, she really does tell me to take the battery out while talking to her, and that rebooting the phone will improve the download bitrate/audio quality of podcasts…
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Have you had a worse call? It got me thinking – there is excellent wind-up potential here! Find some words they don’t know (“I have a problem with the zeotrope wangling functionality of my Nokia Discombobulator”) and see if you can make it amusing, and how much of their time you can waste. Them drop me an email with the file and I’ll add it here!
UPDATE! I had a reply from Melodeo shortly after posting this blog:
Jonathan,
I sincerely apologize for not getting back to you sooner.
I was alerted by your digitaltoast post. Thanks for not bashing us. We are a very small company — and I will be honest with you…
Mobilcast does not get the attention that it used to. We have been putting all our energy on our newest product, nuTsie.
You should check it out: www.nuTsie.com
As for your questions:
1) podcast and sync’ing – Looked like there was an issue with Pat Condell’s Godless Comedy — it was stuck in the trans coding phase. I have resolved this.
2) poor audio quality – This is carrier/connectivity specific — not much I can do here, I read your blog post about your experiences with Three customer service.
3) poor search results on mobile – I have let head of engineering know about this – I will continue to let this be known
4) downloader on mobile – same as #3. As this is a product feature, I will continue to harp about it.
Thank you very much for your patience, and I apologize greatly for the delay.
Good on them for answering…at last! And I believe them when they say that the audio quality is down to Three.
This isn’t the denigrate or make light of the troubles in Tibet, but every time I hear the Dalai Lama, I just can’t helping thinking of Yoda.
Military rule leads to suffering, suffering leads to anger, anger leads to riots. Resist, we must.
UPDATE! New call recorded 22/May/2008 (original call below)
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By popular request, a shorter slightly less dull version of the above (note that this is still sequentially linear, but the middle section where I’m stringing the bloke along has been chopped out).
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I manage to get a little information out of them. And can you believe, apparently people are rude to the advisors…imagine that! I’ll be honest, it gets a bit dull in the middle, but I haven’t edited anything out in case then info is useful to someone. I just had to keep it going. If you get bored, drag the slider to about 11 minutes.
The incoming caller ID was 0012317322143 which is from Michigan in the good old US of A. When they called back, it was from 0800 6943328 which appears to be Financial Services Data Management (F.S.D.M.) based in Swansea.
Apologies for the quality, it was their end not mine.
UPDATE 18/06/2008
I just got a call from 08006943328 – spoke to a Welsh bloke who actually seemed quite nice. He was just qualifying the leads, and I didn’t have time to be put through. But he’s definitely in the wrong job. He seemed quite earnest and genuine…if only he knew the cack he was selling!
The interesting this is that last week I got a call telling me I had received a free cruise to Nassau, Bahamas (all I had to do was pay taxes, charges and get myself to Florida!). I gave them a false name, and they asked me various questions about whether I drove a car, had a credit card, what age I was etc.
So, I can be pretty certain that UK Debt Information Line / FSDM are buying leads from the company that did the “free” cruise.
See also
http://www.digitaltoast.co.uk/free-imperial-majesty-nassau-cruise
The original call that started it all…
Fortunately, I was near a PC when I got this automated phone call. It said to press 5 if I wanted to speak to someone about my debt. In the UK, this form of random dialling is illegal, so I thought I’d try to find out a little more. And get some revenge at the same time!
You can hear him trying not to laugh at one point. Altogether a bit odd.
The address he gives is C2/111, West Enclave, Pitampura, New Delhi 11003
There is no UK Debt Information Line I can find on Google.
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While I’m here, http://whocallsme.com/ was a great source of info the help me track two other “cold calling” numbers which call, but there is no-one at the other end. 08453723709 – Space Kitchens and 08451309405 – GE Capital Finance.
Both now reported.
Got a call here this afternoon from 01634 386678 was by the phone this time, but got cut off as soon as I answered it.
I phoned OFCOM on 020 7981 3040 who then gave me a reference number. Once you have this number (and only then) you call BT on 0800 731 2762. BT then tell you that there’s nothing illegal in getting 5 calls a day with no-one at the other end. Annoying, but not illegal. However, if you are with BT, they will offer you 3 months free service of Choose to Refuse, which works well. They also suggested calling the TPS, especially if you are registered with them: http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/
Now, onto the meaty bit – the company name is Cost (UK) Ltd, and here’s what I found:
A petition to wind up Cost (uk) as they promoted a bankrupt company:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5243/is_200308/ai_n19558394
Cost UK are timeshare scamsters:
http://forum.holidaywatchdog.com/Timeshare-&-Holiday-Clubs-The-Cost-Group-Thread-3456.html
75 silent calls from this number have been reported at Snozwangler so far:
http://www.snozwangler.com/search.php?q=01634386678
They used to have a website, but this is now gone:
http://www.costgroup.com/
They are based in Sevenoaks, Kent. Here are there details:
http://www.brownbook.net/business/47917/cost-u-k-ltd
Forum for this number: http://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/01634386678
Does anyone want to grab a mic and, get them back and post a link to the recording here? :)
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