Financial daubing

It's good, once more, to turn a page watch the tv or  listen to the news, without hysterical arm waving alarms about an impending financial meltdown; which could have brought the global economy crashing down, to the dawning days of wattle and daub and people using tallow candles for lighting.

At times, it somewhat felt that as ordinary citizens, we'd been mugged by the banks.  Then arrested and brought before a judge, who'd ordered us to pay the said mugger for the stress and heartache the poor mugger had been put through. 

Then having a supplementary sentence added on top, as the mugger had failed to lift as much from our persons as they had initially hoped.

But perhaps it's that skewed, cynical side of me that's been inhaling to much passing diesel fumes.

HFO services and unprofessional ethics

HFO is a company 'headquartered' in the UK with an office in gurgaon india.  With another two offices opening in 2009, mumbai  and sydney respectively; this is obviously a fast growing dynamic international company.

A company which, to all intents and purposes when you listen in on conversations, might have had many of its first and second tier employees taken from Fawlty Towers, if it had been a finishing school, and they had been forcibly ejected!

The thing about HFO (which you may discover if ever you have the misfortune to come into contact with them), is they're the bottom feeders - in the eyes of debtors and angelic sharks to creditors.

As a strapline quote on their website says...

An ever expanding client base
A global Distressed Debt Investment Company
A unique multicultural environment, with one overriding goal – SUCCESS

Yes a company that appears to be of the mind-set, that if you don't succumb after the first five minutes they'll progress to shouting at you. Use legal terminology to put the wind up. Threaten court as the next step. All in the hope the unlucky plucky person on the other end will say "bang to rights guv. I'll just pop over to the cayman islands and liquidate all my assets as i've seen the error of my ways!"  Hfo services, i presume, can then feel justified in placing another tick of success, into the book of commission whilst throwing the book of good business practice, into the bin. 

Just in time for that presentation to bigger company "a", and buy their debt for peanuts. All to begin the bullying tactics all over again.

Is this unacceptable behaviour? If not, it should be thus described. But what do I know, as an outsider looking on.

A quick bit of typing into any search engine will bring up streams of pages about the antics of this particular company.

But why would I bring this up?

Well the following is just one example of a conversation overheard:

"If you want you can record this conversation.

Legal proceedings have started which will add £80 to your account and when court proceedings occur it will add a further £32; and judgement will be passed against you.

Please do not waste our time or yours by offering to pay £1.

We're not regulated by the FSA and not bound to accept any payment.

Do not waste your paper or our time.  Your £1 will help you reach to the court.

You just need to wait, the calls will not stop and you will not stop the court proceedings"

Here is a link to the consumer action group and forum with experience of hfo and its practices.

Here is a link, in relation to call recording and your rights.

If you have or are been harassed by telephone calls from companies, then here is a link to a letter template that you can send them, to desist.

And finally, just to put the cat amongst the pigeons, here is a link to trading standards - in the uk

So, in summary. Don't sit back and take it. If they, or any other organisation (and there are sharks out there), attempt to force or bully you into doing anything, stick to your guns.  Know your rights, and don't be afraid to get help!

Now, just have to calm my friend down, and begin the process of hunting down the sharks!

Thanks for listening and reading.

Rambling missives - revisited

At 01:22hrs (GMT) watched the Constable Savage clip from youtube. Not on the official auntie channel, or any of the other "authorised" terrestrial, cable or satellite channels, but from a link posted on a comment read from the PC Pro website) and remembered just how comically excellent the "Not The Nine O'Clock News" series was.  Enjoyed it so much, I will now consider purchasing the series on DVD - if that is, they're out. 

It's little things like this which, over the years, enable people to remember things they've forgotten (have I just uttered a bushism?) - which those silly companies that wish to take people to court should consider is actually helping to keep their income streams flapping around in the breeze.  People will watch and see far more in the future from the interwebual than by simply sitting in front of a slivering television box watching the latest advert about henna hair. 

But then the television box will in turn become even more interactive and replace the noisy PC. We can simply wave our arms in the air (aka the Wii wave) and become even more athletically couch-potatoesque, by waving our arms in the air more vigorously (whilst sweating and obtaining a hernia) in a half-assed attempt to get even more complicated remote controls functions, to do what the old plastic wedge of a remote used to do, so simply and easily before.

In the meantime, the big companies with bosses who make whopping bonuses will instead of properly bearing down on those criminals who repackage the entire DVD for resale at t'pence ha'penny, continue turning their fire and brimstone lawyers onto those people who use these little memory aides to recapture such long lost moments.

So it's a yes to "go after those making millions illicitly copying dvd's/vids etc for resale" in pubs, clubs, on the street, down Mr Parokies cornershop. But think again about the others.  The many who will actually buy those overpriced shining tea coasters.  For those of us wondering what all the fuss is about, let's just hope we only get that fly on the wall experience by reading the headlines in a Sunday paper; that the judiciary or legislative/lawmakers have finally worked out, who the real cowboys are!

And then we have Alistair Darling saying that the government aren't sure yet about what to exactly do, to help those mortgage buyers suffering from the credit-crunch.  Doesn't know what to do? What have the government been doing since all this started so many months ago?  If they initially believed what was happening in the US wouldn't wing its way over here and then make plans for it then they don't deserve to be in power, neither do the conservative party as they didn't have anything much better in place or to say either.

"A return to family values", not quite sure how that equates to been better by doing without tv, internet access, mobile phones, consoles. Smacks more of a return to the buggy and cart, quill and parchment, with food been brought in by the servants period.  But then caravanning's on the up. More people realise we can do without the latest updated upgrade and it's so much more environmentally friendly.

The olympics... 3 days and counting.

A whole heap, of Chancellors doings

Well the first budget brought into existence by Alistair Darling is a roasted horse chestnuts load of landfill waste. Which will be made ever higher by his inaction.

I imbibe the odd drink and smoke way to much. So yes it's a crap budget for me. More taken out, as ever.

With 'stability' the new watchword replacing 'prudence'; they both appear like pantomime dames. All show but laddered and leaking stockings going as far as the eyes can see.

Can't wait until the next one. When things in the country really do start going downhill.

But on a good note, he's returned to using the old budgetary case that the old chancellor jettisoned. Good to see we're firmly heading back to good old tradition... Oh well boom and bust, here we come!

Bleeding foreigners

Every now and then you overhear the strangest of remarks...

"I'm a victim of those damned foreigners coming over here taking our jobs, forcing us native born folk to go out and seek work.

Life living off the dole's just not worth the effort of getting out of bed for in the mornings anymore. Unless of course you're a bloody foreigner coming over here with a bundle of kids, claiming housing, council plus a load of other benefits, whilst working cash in hand and renting out your own home to the same people you're getting the money from in the first place! It just ain't right.

Now, I just got to go check on my new villa been built in Cala Panizo. Make sure those workmen have put the right taps in. If they were your German foreigners, you know they'd do a proper job and you'd be looking at a finished build by now."

Overload. Input. BSOD. Super T!

With failing memory cells, sudden memory loss, and having to reboot at regular intervals during the morning, I often wonder why I bother getting out of bed.

Below is an image of my desktop. Fairly icon free, with Google desktop keeping me informed of the: time, temperature, appointments, events, many of the ups and downs occurring in the world, beyond my 23 walls.

To many of my friends, it just comes across as me being sad. "You're just stuck there in front of the computer, all day. No wonder you're getting fat!"

But to me, it's nothing more than a heavenly experience. Within the space of an hour I have digested the news circling the world, chatted with friends (whilst reading) around the world. Read many of the online papers, news stories and settled down to replying to emails; over a relaxing steaming cup of coffee, whilst listening to the plethora of streaming programming hitting my sound card from that doyen of tit-bits, BBC Radio 4. All the while retaining my slowly slipping sanity, by not been part of the rat-race.

I am now far beyond the need to risk life and limb skateboarding off a sky-scrapper or bungy jumping down the grand canyon. Those particular notions bring nothing more promising than a panoptic vista (no, not that one!) of all manner of broken painful lost bones, followed by those many months convalescing in hospital. And all for the sake of a shaky camera shot. No. If I require an adrenaline junkie rush, I'll fly solo in low-sec space of the MMORG game I play, eve-online. That and not getting mugged or shot at, whilst standing in a McDonalds queue are more than enough in the way of excitement, that I wish to experience during this particular moment in my lifeline.

So Super Tuesday is nearing an end, when we'll have more of an idea about who the next leader of the free world might be. And they do need change, badly!

After so many years of participating in the formulation of things like Outsourcing, Hedge Funds, burning the planet into oblivion etc., etc. It's time for a change in thinking. To come away from the 'me, me, me' culture that has been perversely corrosive over the past few decades. To think of all the species and planet as a symbiotic whole, and not just a hole for plundering and landfill.

House alerts

Caveat emptor indeed!

Yes, that golden rule that you ignore at your peril.

So what are the salient points of getting that housing yoke firmly around your neck?

• Never trust the seller - they are out to make as much money whilst glossing over the true state of the building and other associated undiscovered problems
• Always get at least three but preferably five estate agent valuations - yes even if you are buying
• Always get a full survey done of the property, including electrical's - otherwise you might find at some stage that your fuse box starts smoking and potentially going up in flames. At the very least it could be condemnable
• Never trust the seller
• If you are thinking of living in a vibrant energetic part of town, remember that as lovely as that is, when you want peace and quiet the noise will drive you insane
• Check to see if they have neighbours above, and if it's a conversion whether they have sufficient carpet and underlay down and not wooden flooring
• Never trust the seller
• Check all radiators, fittings, fixtures
• Find out what's hiding underneath that big painting or mirror, and been covered up by that artex* finish or polystyrene tiling - is it damp or will all the plaster work need re-doing?

With financial markets somewhat edgy, best wait a couple of weeks as the rate of repossessions increases and bargains will be out there to be had!

* Care should be exhibited when working with old Artex surfaces as the original formulation of Artex contained white (Chrysotile) asbestos which could release airborne asbestos fibers when worked upon. This practice ended some time around 1980, although reports vary