The Random Thread

[JanB]

We'v got a lot of open space and one bar - and a lot of darking bogs too

Doing my head in tonight and they have guests too

But Portuguese guests, so quite used to darking bogs

[JoM]

We've got our share of barking dogs around here too Jan. Thankfully Billy only barks when absolutely necessary!

[JoM]

Just reading about the hurricane that may, or may not, hit Florida this week. My beautiful friend Laurie lives in Jacksonville so I'm a tad worried for her.

[Kaz]

I had a couple of Facebook friends affected by Harvey - it makes it very 'real' when it's someone you know, doesn't it Jo? I hope your friend will be ok xxx

[JoM]

It does, and I'm not sure that she could evacuate as she's an X-ray tech and her ex husband is a firefighter. Not sure what would happen with their sons.

You know, she and I will meet someday. We've spoken on the phone (and she even called me from Madison Square Gardens midway through a Duran Duran concert so that I could hear it ) but when we were in Florida she was back visiting family in New Jersey, which is where she's originally from, and when I was last in New York she'd been in NJ just an hour away up until the day before. We keep missing each other.

[Diflower]

Had a lovely almost an hour phone call with my uncle Arthur.
How can an 82 year old be so funny, chatty, entertaining that the time just flies by

[JoM]

Had a lovely almost an hour phone call with my uncle Arthur.
How can an 82 year old be so funny, chatty, entertaining that the time just flies by

Uncle Arthur sound so lovely!

[JoM]

Why do people who do admin jobs make things so flippin' difficult. I'm so sick of incompetence.

I cancelled my gym direct debit in February. I've never had a contract, they weren't offered when I joined and at that time most people paid monthly by cash at the reception and then they started offering a direct debit which showed on the bank statement as being paid to the local council. Five years ago the council refurbished the leisure centre and brought in an outside company to run all leisure services. Shortly afterwards the name on bank statements changed to 'debit finance'. Thought nothing of it. In February there wasn't a contract to cancel, because I'd never had one, just the direct debit to be taken care of. Did that and heard no more.

Joe decided he wanted to cancel in July. Now he had a contract which lapsed in May but has been on a rolling month by month basis since then which stated that he needed to give a month's notice in writing. It was in my name so I dropped a letter into reception as I was passing one day. I was told that August would count as his month's notice and to be sure to cancel the direct debit once payment had been taken on the 1st.

Ffw to this afternoon when I received an email from the direct debit company saying that there was an unpaid direct debit against Joe's membership, and that had to be paid plus a fine for not paying which would double if not paid within 7 days.

I called the gym and spoke to the membership advisor (didn't know they had one) who had no record of the cancellation letter I'd taken in so there was nothing she could do and did I know that there was also unpaid charges against my account too? No I flippin' well didn't. I couldn't get it through to her that I've never actually taken out a contract with them so had no t&cs and if the direct debit now states that a month's notice must be given to cancel then I've also never been given a copy of those and the t&cs were different when the centre was council run, which was when I took out the direct debit (still have my copy of that after all these years and nowhere does it state anything about a notice period).

I repeated all of this to the manager, who I asked to call the direct debit company on my behalf seeing as her staff had screwed up. She said that she would but felt that there was nothing that they would do.

I called them too shortly afterwards. The manager had called and explained in the mean time. There was nothing to pay for Joe. I asked the lady to check any charges against my membership, there were none and there never had been. My agreement was showing as being cancelled in February and was completely up to date.

[Diflower]

Crazy Jo, as with the hospital (mine too), you end up having to do their job

[Kaz]

Good grief Jo!