Gripe of the day - What is yours?

[Sir Trev]

Good to hear they took it seriously.

[garynortheast]

Having to deal with the parasitic kn0bheads at Nexus, the company which administers various car parks. One of theirs is the pay and display car park on Ffordd Senghennydd in Caerdydd. The cameras for this car park point at the actual public road rather than the car park entrance. Consequently when I drove down this road to go to Senghennydd Court to park at the allotted time in the student flats parking space, the cameras at the PaD car park back up the road took a picture of my car. They then proceeded to send me a letter telling me I owe them a penalty payment for parking in a car park I never even entered. The pictures they sent me in the letter quite clearly show my car on the public highway, not in the car park entrance, and when you look at google street view it's even more obvious that this is the case.

I sent them a snotty response on their appeals form and suggested they take a look at the positioning of their cameras, and they responded by ignoring that and telling me I owe them money. Unscrupulous b@astards.

I've also now sent an official appeal response to POPLA, the ombudsman, telling them about this. While I know I am completely in the right over this, it's still causing me a lot of anxiety (to which I am quite prone these days, sadly), so in some ways I would be happy for them to try and take me to court. If that happens I will make sure they are properly nailed for this and be claiming compensation for the stress and anxiety caused.

Parasites.

[redtrummy]

Farrell got off - going to take several days to get that out of my system

[Bibio]

not good Gary. i have a similar ongoing one about a pay and display that never said blue badge holders were not exempt

[admin]

Originally Posted by garynortheast

Having to deal with the parasitic kn0bheads at Nexus, the company which administers various car parks. One of theirs is the pay and display car park on Ffordd Senghennydd in Caerdydd. The cameras for this car park point at the actual public road rather than the car park entrance. Consequently when I drove down this road to go to Senghennydd Court to park at the allotted time in the student flats parking space, the cameras at the PaD car park back up the road took a picture of my car. They then proceeded to send me a letter telling me I owe them a penalty payment for parking in a car park I never even entered. The pictures they sent me in the letter quite clearly show my car on the public highway, not in the car park entrance, and when you look at google street view it's even more obvious that this is the case.

.



Parasites.

Let them take you to court Gary. You've got sufficient evidence to make them look stupid.

The selling off car parks to these parasites does boil my blood. Modern day clampers.

It seems that wherever you go these days, supermarkets, cinema, hotel etc, they all have some outsourced parking arrangement.

Grrr



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[Seeker]

I have a pension pot in the US (it's called a 401k), upto this month it was administered by TRowe but my last employer (Kodak) decided to switch it to Merrill. Uh oh, I thought. I know I'm a negative person but I also predicted this would cause issues for someone outside of the US.
I tried to open an account following the instructions.

1) My US Social Security number (you use it a lot in America, it's 9 digits and everyone has their's memorised), so no problem.
2) DOB - remember to switch over day and month - no problem.
3) City of residence - Cleethorpes (not sure I'd ever call it a city, I have many other names for it).
4) First 5 digits of ZIP code (Zone Index Postal if you ever wondered, common ones are 5 digits long but sometimes they have a 4 digit hyphenated suffix) but post code was mentioned. First 5 digits of a UK postcode? I would have never entered that. Hmm.


"Unable to create account" (surprise ). I'm guessing it's the postcode but after 3 attempts I was locked out.
I emailed the lady at Kodak who is the contact for the switchover. She couldn't help (?) but said she would call her contact at Merrill.


Merrill called last night at 6pm (they're in NY, 5 hr time difference) and asked me some security questions -SS #, DOB etc but then it got difficult.
1) Date of hire, month/year (I was working for Scitex,we got taken over by Creo and then taken over again by Kodak over a 10 year period, my 401k started with Scitex - which company hire date?)
2) Date of termination, month/year (apparently "about 14 years ago" is not accurate enough).

The Merrill guy got locked out too (join the club).

I emailed Kodak again. This is when it gets odd imho, Kim (at Kodak) emails me a screen grab from Merrill showing the information that they just asked for. I feel like a soap bubble circling the drain hole. I suppose Kim calling Merrill and saying: "this is the person he says he is" is not much security although the required information seems readily at hand to everyone except me and the login computer.

Merrill are calling me tonight when we can continue the adventure of creating my login. Assuming we stick to the same security questions I feel positive (well, guardedly neutral) that it may work this time.
To be continued ...


Edit: ...continued. Successfully created a log in account and it works. Well, it worked once, I'll make sure it's ok by trying again today. (Oh, ye of little faith as my Dad would say).

There was one oddity. My phone rang at 18:30 and I could see it was the US number (of Merrill). I answered and asked if it was the same guy as yesterday because I now have the answers to his questions. He said: "I cannot answer that until you answer my security questions". Huh? So - Last 4 digits of US SS#, DOB: Then he said: "Yes, we spoke yesterday".

[admin]

That sounds like fun. At least you're making progress if slowly.

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[BoltonSte]

Don't expect them to apply logic and try a work around.

When we first went over on secondment:
- I'd like to open a bank account.
- You need an address and a social security number.
- I arrived on secondment 2 days ago, will the temp accommodation do?
- No you need a permanent address and a social security number.
- I need a bank account to be able to rent anywhere and don't have a social security number yet.
- You need a permanent address an a social security number.
- Will my work address do? It'll be permanent for the next 3 years and I'll be there every day.
- No you need a permanent address
- I can't get a permanent address as I can't rent without a bank account...

- Hello, I've just arrived from the UK on a work secondment, could I organise a social security number.
- Not a problem sir, what's your address...

[Kenzie]

Why is car shopping so difficult? I need to replace my aging Civic coupe but I can't find anything that grabs me.

[Sir Trev]

I had the same problem earlier this year when I was thinking about changing my bike. Everything I liked was either too tall or had no torque...

And I'm really not looking forward to replacing my car in three or four years time as I seriously doubt you'll be able to buy anything other than a crossover or SUV. a trend I really dislike!