Personal Blog: FAULTY GOODS, GOT MY MONEY BACK!!!

A while ago I told you about a Chinese mobile phone of mine that developed a fault and the fact that the Amazon Marketplace business (WMicroUK) who sold it to me decided not to honour the 1 year warranty that I purchased it with ignoring my emails and any interventions from the Amazon team.

The Phone itself was pretty solid it just developed a touch screen fault which I expect is reasonably common.

Well after about 3 months I finally just got the confirmation through from the credit card company telling me that they accepted the chargeback and will be refunding the payment. Yeah that is a heck of a long time but for someone on a very tight budget the outlay for the phone (£130) was a lot of money even though in theory it would be a saving over most contracts if it had lasted a year.

If you’re in a similar position having bought something from Ebay, Amazon or other online retailers you need to know your rights. An electronic device is expected to have a certain life before developing faults my phone had only lasted 7 months and it is reasonably that a phone should 1 if not 2 years.

I used these links to help me out and eventually went with the chargeback option hope this helps someone.

Which? - Distance Selling Regulations

Which? - Chargeback

You should also have a look at Section 75 which can help.

Personal Blog: HALT IN THE NAME OF THE LAW

So I got stopped by the police today which certainly hasn't happened in quite some time. So to fill in the details it happened just after 10 in the morning while I was on my way to an appointment when these two guys stopped me, I don’t live in the nicest place so I was wondering if this whole situation was going to go south but the men identified themselves as police officers (plain clothed seemed weird but whatever).

They had a lot of questions including:

·         Where are you going (remember it is 10 in the morning)

·         Where are you coming from?

·         Where do you live?

·         How long have you lived there?

·         Do you have documents on you to prove you live there?

I felt that this was more than a lot of prying especially as they hadn’t given me a reason to stop me and didn’t stop anyone else who passed while we were talking. They also treated me like a threat all the way through speaking to me with one in front of me and one off to my side so I could not see both men at once. When I opened my messenger bag to get my notepad to take their details the guy in front of me moved closer like I was going for a weapon or something.

To be honest I had no plans on giving them any evidence (bills etc.) to show my home that speaks way too much of the “Papers please” nonsense that is best left out of any country claiming to be democratic and free but when I pulled out my notepad there was a prescription slip in it that they pretty much grabbed it off me. However, that was not enough for them and they called in my details to have them checked out centrally. After that went through they finally let me go on my way. No reason given for stopping me and no receipt for the questioning (someone reminded me that I really should have asked for one of those).

In case you ever get stopped by the police I added a couple of links below that you might want to read through. Oh and I did make a complaint not sure if it will go anywhere but you have to register your grievance when people do something you think is wrong. That's all from me.

Citizens Advice - Police Powers

Police Powers - Your Rights

I WANT TO BE THE VERY BEST...

Well maybe not the very best but perhaps a contender. What am I talking about? Well as you might know I got a PS3 a little more than a year ago and have not had much use out of it after I finished Sleeping Dogs (which was EXCELLENT) so I had been looking for a game I could really get into. I decided to back to my formative gaming years and picked up Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition. I figured I was good enough at Street Fighter Alpha but I was not prepared for all the changes and updates over those years.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about starting a YouTube channel or in reality adding videos to one of the channels that I already have. Unfortunately if I wanted to make gameplay videos like a lot of people out there I found it wasn’t going to be cheap so I’ve mostly been looking at game capture devices but I am still doing my research to see which is worth the cost of investment.

For now though I have been playing SSFIV: AE (with a standard PS3 controller – NIGHTMARE) and trying to get a good understanding of one or two characters. Obviously for those that follow the community Ultra Street Fighter IV is the current game so I am looking to pick that up next week I especially need it because I want to see if I can ‘Main’ one of the new characters.

I’ve been researching the fighting game scene and it is a little complex much like the game itself on first glance I hope to head to a tournament in the next month to get an idea of how things are. At the very least it seems like I’ll have to research a multi-platform joypad or fighting stick as the tournaments tend to be X-BOX only.

Anyway if you were wondering which character I started training with first then the pictures should tell you a story. I hope to go for at least three characters to be comfortable with, in say a couple of months and I’ll probably post up my gamer tag after I do some security research on that, nothing wrong with paranoia.

So what fighting games do you play? Or perhaps used to play? Answer in the comments.

Personal Blog: Changes Incoming

I only have four weeks left on the Work Programme before being bounced back to the Job Centre indeed probably in two weeks time I'll get a date for my return interview. A few months ago this would probably be a cause for celebration given the problems I've had with Seetec the various sanctions, the bullying and the general uselessness of the whole experience. Now though I wonder if it is going to be a case out of out of the frying pan and into the fire.

As I finish writing up the details of this month's job search for my likely final Seetec Monthly 1-2-1 I wonder what will be happening in a few months time especially regarding Universal Job Match. I read so many stories of people either being forced to give access to the Jobcentre Staff or just assuming they had to only to result in almost immediate sanction.

As things stand for now I have not given access to my UJM account indeed I do not use it that site is full of scams and is very badly put together there are much better options out there just do a little searching. For me Indeed works once you get to grips with its filters it actually becomes far less rubbish than it first appears. 

I'm lucky in that most of the jobs I go for can be found on general purpose job search sites like Totaljobs, CV Library and the rest. So I will be covering my experiences at the Jobcentre just to keep people in the know and to show them how things can go down so hopefully when it is their turn they will be better prepared.

I will be going in there with the means to record conversations as well as taking notes by hand. You have to stand up for yourself against advisors or they will walk all over you or more likely sanction you into destitution.

Sanction Update

If you’re a keen reader of this blog firstly I thank you and then I say that you’ll remember my recent sanction which I talked about here:

http://shaftsword.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/sanctioned-again.html

This can be described as an update but I’m afraid all the updated actions will be from my side as you the reader may know or suspect that the DWP bureaucracy moves slower than molasses especially when they have your money.

Since the sanction I have sent out a request for a written statement of reasons which I finally got and I did what is called a Subject Access Request which means they have to send me documents around the sanction, their reasons and such which I intend to use to form the basis of another complaint against the DWP.

If you were wondering about my complaint against SEETEC then according to ICE that investigation is ongoing after they asked me for some more evidence a couple months ago with no real timeline on a decision.

Back to the DWP and the written statement of reasons basically put the reason for my sanction down to not having evidence of the unannounced visit to install my phone line. Maybe you think they have a point but what advisers have said to me is that in a situation like this where I had requested of the visit is that the DWP should have agreed to allow for more time for the proof to arrive instead of sanctioning me.

Sounds like Maladministration to me so I’ll be writing up a complaint about that but mostly I am just going to try and chase up my sanction being overturned so it doesn’t take 3 months like last time to get the money back.

So if you’re sanctioned and it was for reasons check out the links below and don’t give up hope WHILE still being aware of the fact it is going to take months to get your money back.

Refuted

Great for the detail of how to deal with sanctions

Unemployment Movement - JobCentre Discussion

The place for discussion for all things Job Centre