Cam I Am

Well, I just got off the phone with Capital One again..

After getting a person on the line, I was transferred to the fraud department relatively quickly and got a guy on the phone who checked into things for me.  I told him what happened, and he took care of things for me.  I should have a new card number in less than 2 weeks. As for the three charges that were put through, they will be reversed.  Apparently, the fraudster also tried charging $185 in Edmonton at Walmart too.  This is probably one of the few times I’m glad that there wasn’t much room on my credit card.

So, it looks like I’m finally getting what I was looking for last night.  However, I expected better service when I phoned in at 11:30pm.  There should be a 24/7 fraud department.

I think that once this is settled, I will start shopping around for a new credit card.  It may be difficult with the whole “global credit” situation, but Capital One has not been my favourite company to deal with, on the whole.  But that is for another post..

I’ll tell you what’s in my wallet..

It’s a Capital One credit card. 

And someone went on a little bit of a spending spree with it over the weekend… in Alberta….  and it wasn’t me.

About half an hour ago, I was going through my account statements online, just to make sure everything was in order.  I was about to head to bed when I thought that I’d quickly check my credit card statement (as I frequently do), to see available credit and make sure that everything was fine.

I logged on, and on the main screen, I saw that my balance was about $100 over limit.  “That’s strange,” I thought to myself, “it’s shouldn’t be over it’s limit.”  So, I looked a little closer at the transactions. 

hmm.. paid for camping site, a couple transactions through iTunes…  and Superstore?  And McDonald’s?   And Shaw Cable?

I racked my brain for answers..  I never use the credit card unless I’ve got nothing in the bank account.  Why use credit when you have cash?  Then I started to look closer..  Shaw?  Why would I have charged $3.00 to Shaw on my card?  As an employee, it comes directly out of my bank account..  I certainly never would use my credit card for that. 

Then it hits me…  Someone has scammed my credit card.  All these transactions happened on the weekend..  I can only assume that more will post to my account in the next couple of days.  I called Capital One right away.

I went through the obligatory menu options, getting a little more stressed as I listen for the option that I want.  Eventually the “speak to a real live person” option comes up.  I mash the “0″ key on the keypad.  Relatively quickly, I get a person on the other end of the phone.  I explain to her that I needed to report fraudulent activity on my card..

Well..  I might as well be speaking to a brick wall.  She told me that I could dispute the charges if I like.  Umm… hellllloooo???  I tell her that I want a freeze put on the card.  “I don’t want ANY activity on the card for now!” 

“Oh…  well, I can transfer you to the fraud department, if you like”, she finally clues in.  I tell her yes, that’s exactly what I want.  I get put on hold for about 30 seconds, when she comes back to tell me “I’m sorry, but that department is closed.  Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Ummm…  YES!  You can put a hold on my card!”, I tell her for the fifth time.  She then goes on to assure me that she’ll make a note on my file, but I’ll have to call back in the morning.  (I guess fraudsters sleep at night too.)

After I try a couple different angles with her, I give up in futility.  I ask her when the fraud department opens, and she said 5am PDT.  So..  you know what I’ll be doing in the morning.

That brings us up until now.  I’m mad and a little stressed.  I should be in bed sleeping.  I shouldn’t have to worry about what else is going to appear on my credit card overnight, especially since it’s $100 over it’s limit.  I shouldn’t have to deal with a script reading CSR that doesn’t seem to listen, but only reguritates what they are told to say.  I wasn’t saying “I don’t think I made these charges”, I said, “Someone has been using my card and I need a freeze put on in immediately”..  Similar, but very different.

Stay tuned…  I’m sure this will only get more frustrating as I try to sort this out.

Recently, we’ve been having some problems with our cordless phones. Yes, Handset 1 has been acting up again!

We’ve noticed that in two of the three handsets, the batteries are no longer holding a charge.  In fact, one of them last for about 10 minutes after a full charge.  So, I went looking for some new batteries.  After some shopping around, I came to a disappointing conclusion.

It’s cheaper to buy a new set of phones than it is to buy replacement batteries. 

Seriously!  The batteries I priced out between $25 and $30 each..  I found a new set of phones for $69..

Something is very wrong with this picture.  In a society that is trying to be more enviromentally sound, this is unacceptable. 

The ironic thing is that batteries come with the phones.  Shouldn’t the phones cost more?

Over the past couple years, my wife and I have been trying to paint the inside of our house.  When we bought it, most of the walls had this horrid looking sponge painting job done on them.  While this works for some people, it certainly was not our style. 

Since both of us work full-time and we have three daughters, it isn’t easy to get around to getting things done.  We’ve managed to paint our dining room, living room and two bedrooms, but the upper hallway and stairwell have been a task that we haven’t been looking forward too. 

When it comes to painting, I am pretty meticulous about it.  I take my time to tape things off, patch holes, wash and sand the walls.  In this case, we’ve had to put primer on the walls before the two (and sometimes three) coats of paint required to make everything look nice.  But this time, we decided to hire a painter to do the hall and stairs.  We figured that it would be easier and quicker than the several days (to a couple weeks) that I would take to do it between working and making sure that I do a good job.

We looked through the local newspaper and called a painter by the name of Steve.  He came over, had a look and gave us an estimate.  We liked his offer, and told him the colour we wanted..

Well, it took him two days to do the job, which was expected. The result was less than spectacular.

He missed a couple corners/spots completely, and I’m not happy with the overall job.  The only reason I don’t call him back to fix it is simple..

I didn’t have to do it.  I would have taken a lot longer to set everything up, tape everything off, sanding, etc..  He got it done in two days, while my wife and I were working..

My only other complaint would be that his “receipt” is questionable.  A piece of paper that he scrawled on..  But I’ve kept it, and will be using it as a tax write-off next year.

Next time, I’ll just do it myself..  at least that way, I’ll be happy with the end result..

Please stop poisoning my family.

Every time that you start your very sick sounding vehicle, it spews out a horrid blue cloud that smells atrocious.  It’s bad enough that I walk out my front door into a haze of gases that nearly knock me unconscious, but it filters into my home, even with the windows closed.  You compound the problem by letting your van warm-up for 10-20 minutes each time you start it; even if you just returned from the store. 

I’ve politely asked you what was wrong with it, you told me that it was the catalytic converter and that you were going to get it fixed “soon.”  I’d like to know what your definition of soon is. 

You are making it uncomfortable and dangerous to be in my home.  I know that it is dangerous because my carbon monoxide detector is set off nearly every time you start your van…

So, once again, I ask you..

Please stop poisoning my family…

Anyone who is looking specifically for complaints about Alarmforce will find a number of posts here about my disdain for them..

It’s been no secret for over a year that I am very dissatisfied with their service–both the system and customer service..

So, I finally called them today to cancel my service.  Our contract is up on June 1st of this year, but I wanted to give them plenty of lead time.  After waiting on hold for about 10 minutes, I got to tell them that I was canceling.  They asked the usual questions like why was I cancelling and “is there anything we can do to change your mind?”  After several  minutes, they said that I would have to either fax, mail or e-mail my cancellation request.  I got the information from them that I would need to include and hung up.  I then e-mailed them, as requested..

A couple days later, I get a call from them and get the same barrage of questions from them…  This time I was quite blunt and said that I didn’t want to have anything to do with their service and I want it out of my house.. 

A understand the “customer retention” department concept, but all that last phone call did was piss me off more..   I was clear in my initial conversation with them and the e-mail.  The final call was unnecessary, in my opinion..

So..  the point of this point is this..  if you have Alarmforce and want to cancel, keep the following in mind:

• They require about 60 days notice.  Don’t wait until the last day of your contract.
• They will ask you to send back ALL of the equipment that is part of the system.  I challenged them on this and asked why I needed to give back equipment that I paid for.  They quickly amended their statement to say the parts that were part of the original installation — not the extra sensors that I paid for.
• Be prepared to ship the unit to them.  They’ll provide the Purolator info, but they won’t come pick up the units themselves..

Hopefully, this helps someone.. 

Since I moved to Vancouver in 1998, I have listened to a couple radio stations.  One is News 1130, which I listen to for news, traffic, weather, etc.   The other..

Well..

When I moved here, it was Z95.3..   For a number of years, I would listen to this Top 40 station.  A lot of the music I didn’t care for, but sometimes, they’d play what I consider to be some decent stuff.  True to this type of radio station, they played some music and then a ton of commercials.  A few years ago, they tried to revamp the station format, but essentially it was the same.

Then, about 2 years ago, they “changed their name and format”.  They became 95 Crave.  The first few weeks, it wasn’t bad.  They played a little more from the 90’s, and a little too much of the 80’s.  But it didn’t take long before their old habits returned.  Too repetitive, too many commercials, and too much music that I wasn’t interested in..

A few weeks ago, I turned it on, and now they are Virgin.  Same staff, same theme.  Nothing has changed but the name..

This radio station has a serious identity crisis.  They change the name, say that they are going to make changes, and yet, it stays the same. The only thing I enjoy about it is the morning show.  The only problem with the timing of the morning show is it falls when I’m driving to work and listening to News 1130 for stuff that matters..  like traffic.  Besides..  the on-air personalities at the news station actually are entertaining to listen too..

There are other stations in the Vancouver area to listen to, but I none of them hold me interest for long.  Jack FM isn’t bad, but most of the others are crap.

So..  keep up the good work News 1130!   As for Z95/Crave/Virgin..  well.. keep trying..  someday you’ll actually achieve the change that you are looking for..

Old habits die hard I guess.

For nearly four years, I’ve had the misfortune of having your alarm system in my home.  I have endured countless problems (see below for links), including your wireless sensors not consistantly communicating with the main unit, battery issues, poor customer service, and the lack of action that occurs when an alarm is triggered..

Oh yes, you really do get a voice through the unit.  It isn’t that loud, booming voice you hear in the commercial..  It always like some timid person trying to sound important.. 

My “favourite” part of having your service is discovering that my local police department won’t respond to an alarm unless there are two sensors triggered or if I am present and request that the police be present..

Here’s a scenario that my wife posed to me that illustrates how useless having your system is.

A burglar breaks into my home at night.  Let’s say that they trigger the door sensor, but of course the motion sensor isn’t tripped, because it isn’t armed when I’ arm the alarm to “stay.”  Anyway, the burglar comes up stairs, holds a gun to us and says, “Don’t say a word”.   Alarmforce’s timid creature comes over the system and asks us to “identify ourselves”.  We say nothing.  Because only one sensor is tripped and there was no verbal response from within the home, the local police are not dispatched and therefore, help is not on the way.

What good is your system?  I’d have better luck with having a phone and 911…

In closing, I’ve had my alarm system unplugged for about five months and don’t miss it.  When my contract is up, I’m dumping your alarm system and getting a new one.  

I’m going with “Large Noisy Dog”. 

Past Stories: http://blog.eagleinbc.com/?s=Alarmforce

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve got another website that I sell custom-made wood growth charts.  I’ve had it for about a year, and while it doesn’t generate a lot of traffic or sales, it’s there. 

When I first made www.camscrafts.com, I used FrontPage to create it.  FrontPage isn’t that great of a program, but it got the job done.  While I wasn’t overly happy with how it worked (or didn’t work), it was at least something.  After a month of using the site I created, a friend of my offered to make up a new one for me, using his Mac.  I think it was a matter of 30 minutes, and he had designed the current site that is there.  It looks great!  I love the graphics and the friendly look to it.  And for the last year, it’s worked well for me.

Now, I don’t do a lot of promoting of the site, but I was going to start advertising it a little more.  I realized that I don’t have a gallery of pictures that show some of the work I’ve done in the last year.  So tonight, I tried to add in a gallery page.

This is when I started to run into problems.

I don’t have a Mac..  FrontPage doesn’t seem to play well with others!  I couldn’t incorporate a gallery page into my site because FP wanted me to have a FP-made page attached to the site. 

Now, the obvious answer is that I should buy a Mac (to save you from saying it, my next computer will be a Mac!  And you know who you are!)  All kidding aside, it seems that in order to avoid bothering my friend everytime I want to change my site or something, I will need to create a new one, once again in FrontPage.  So I tried tonight to re-create the current one in FP..

I might as well try building a particle accelerater out of a hamster wheel and an elastic band.  I probably would have more luck!  No matter what I do, FP just isn’t as versitile as the program on the Mac that was used.  I can’t get text over a picture without it trying to convert the picture to a GIF..

So, I will rebuild my site using FP and then attempt to teach myself HTML to tweak it the way I want..  Although, I am thinking about the CSS route..

Oh well..  for tonight, no new changes..

Over the past few years, I’ve been making sure that we switched most of our light bulbs over to compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs.  We’ve done this partially for environmental reasons, but mainly to save a little money on our electricity bill..

In the past, we rented, so when we moved, we brought all the bulbs with us..  When we bought our current home about 18 months, ago, I put in all the bulbs, with the exception of our kitchen that uses floodlamps, and our bathrooms that have “globe-style” bulbs.  My intention was that as these ones burn out, I’d replace them with their compact fluorescent equivalents..  Up to this point, I’ve been very happy with the performance of the ones I’ve bought so far.

So.. In the last few months, all three of the incandescent floodlamps in the kitchen and a several of the bathroom globes go out.  No problem!  I went out and bought new CF ones..  Then, I start to notice things..

First, the CF floodlamps and globes, take time to come to full brightness..  This is a pain, but I can deal with waiting a minute for them.  It’s a little dim in the kitchen/bathrooms at first, but it’s manageable.  Within two weeks of buying a floodlamp, it burns out..   Within 6 months of installing a globe, one of them burn out.

Now, for a product that costs up to five times the cost of an incandescent bulb, I expect it to outlast the bulbs that I haven’t even replaced!  Why am I wasting my money on bulbs that don’t last, or at the very least don’t seem to function properly..

So, while I’ll continue to use CF bulbs for “normal” lamps and lights, I think that I won’t be wasting my money to save money in the kitchen and bathrooms..