Author: Mosh

eBay – what a bunch of useless ********

eBay Inc.

OK, time to rip into eBay. They’ve annoyed plenty of people over the last year or so with countless changes in policy, but I’m going to have a go at them for simply being inept. Thankfully I don’t really use the thing any more after I flogged all my old crap before I left the UK in 2006, as I think I’d go mad with them.

The story begins when I got a load of emails, seemingly from my own email account, directed at various sellers asking them questions on sales. Thing is, every person targeted was non-English and the question was in garbled English. I then started getting replies from the sellers, usually along the lines of “I don’t speak English, sorry”.

Now, I genuinely have no idea how anyone got my eBay password when I don’t think I’ve logged into it for months. Regardless, it’s not a big worry. I just log in and change my password, right?

Wrong.

By the time I tried to do that, eBay had already part-locked my account and I had to go through the “forgot password, set a new one” routine. In itself, not a problem.

Wrong.

Email arrives from eBay telling me I need to do this. Fine. I go to the site (which I can still log on to at this point), and click on “forgot password”. I then get taken to a screen that asks for my login name, and some other details (personal question, date of birth and the like). I fill these in and click the button. I duly get another mail with a further link in it. I guess for them to check the email address they have is correct. No use if the hacker had changed it, but never mind.

I click the new link and get to another page asking me to enter my username. OK, I enter it and click again. A message says another email with further instructions will be sent. It never arrived, despite my repeating this umpteen times. I am now completely locked out of the website.

I email eBay to explain the situation. It’s symptomatic of the system failing – it’s not sending the mails out and it’s redirecting to the wrong page. I also found that I couldn’t get to the “contact us” page – it was redirecting to their version of the “404 – Page Not Found” error. I’ve seen this before on eBay. They really should be more careful with their delete key.

So I gave up.

On Sunday I tried again and “lo” it worked. No problems. Whatever glitch there was had been cleared up. I got all the emails, clicked all the links, changed my password and the world was a better place. Finally.

Then I check my email on Monday morning and I have a reply from eBay relating to my message on Friday telling them I had problems. They’ve relocked my account as it’s been accessed since that first email – because their system started working. I now try to get in and I’m told my account is blocked, but it’s OK as they can verify me by phone.

Only the phone number they have is incorrect and I can’t change it as I can’t log in… it does let me go through the steps of changing, but then refuses to let me save the changes.

ARSE.

So I fired off the following email. Apologies for the lack of gratuitous swearing, but you never know if mails will be bounced for bad language these days. I’m just going to leave it till I’m at the folks next weekend and therefore near the phone line I have listed. That way I can just run through the system without involving the workshy lackies in whatever office my mail went to. Assuming the damn site’s working next weekend.

Oh FFS.

I finally managed to get into the account yesterday and changed my password to something new – two days after I started trying. Frankly, the problems I had seemed to stem from a broken website which was finally fixed.

Only now I can’t get in as you’ve eventually acted on the mail I sent on the 24th and *re*locked my account. I can’t get in via the front page as it wants to call my telephone for confirmation and I’m currently residing around 20 miles away from that phone line. I can’t update the phone number as *you’ve locked me out of my account again*.

If you’d actually paid attention to an email sent on Friday instead of waiting two whole days to actually do something about it – or, indeed if your website hadn’t sent me round in circles – this wouldn’t have happened.

Frankly, I can see why people are leaving eBay in droves. You seem to have less concern for customer care than a bank. And that really is saying something.

Look, forget it. Leave everything alone. You’re obviously not capable of dealing with a simple help request in a timely fashion. I’ll wait till the weekend when I’m *at* my parents, go through the system as it’s set up and just hope you’re web site doesn’t fall down again. It’s got to be better than involving a human again.

Yours,

(etc)

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Roy Keane – **** of the first order

Sunderland A.F.C.
mackem ********

So the filthy unwashed of sunderland beat us at home for the first time in 28.5 years. They celebrate by throwing coins and bottles at our substitute players, accosting our goalkeeper, invading their pitch and surging into the away end to beat up our fans. So how does their manager, react?

“We’ve finally defeated Newcastle on home turf for the first time in 28 years and I thought it was an excellent game. Nobody likes to see fans on the pitch, trust me, but hopefully the FA will go easy on us because the fans have to enjoy it.”
Sunderland boss Roy Keane

What a ******* tosspot. It’s OK that they were violent, thuggish, broke one policeman’s wrist and injured a police horse with a firework because they were enjoying themselves. Mind, we are quoting a man who thinks breaking an opponent’s leg is an acceptable way to help win a football match.

Roy, you’re a ****. A complete ******* ****. Just piss off and die, you dog-buggering freak.

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Bloody Rangers

Rangers F.C.

Normally I don’t give a crap about the Scottish Premier League. I mean, it’s just the same as the English Premier League, but exactly half the size – even down to having a Big Two instead of a Big Four. But right now it’s pissing me off.

One of the two most important games in the footbal calendar is on tomorrow with a 12:45 kickoff – the forces of filth and darkness v Newcastle United. It’s on Sky Sports 1, as it always is when the mackem scum actually surface into the Premiership for a brief period. Therefore every pub up and down the land should be showing it.

Only up here, they’re not. Because ******* Glasgow Rangers are playing ******* Hamilton Academicals at 12(*******)30.

This is the equivalent of Liverpool v Everton being ignored in favour of Manchester United vs Spurs. A foregone conclusion, no real history, a nothing match. Of no real consequence except to those directly involved. And for half of them it’s how much their goal difference will improve while the rest are worried about damage limitation.

Thankfully I’ve managed to find out that my auntie’s husband’s brother’s son has Sky and I’ve been told I can pop over there to watch it. It’s screwed around something rotten with my timetable for the weekend, but it’s one game I can’t miss.

Bloody SPL. It’s not like anyone really gives a **** about Third World Football anyway.

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1000mph car

Hammond in the Vampire Drag car moments before...

This is just nuts. After setting the World Land Speed record a couple of years back at 763mph (1228 km/h for you foreigners out there) the same team aim to increase that to 1000mph or Mach 1.4.

The BBC have all the details and a cool CGI video to go with it. I just love the bit where it compares the speed of the car (a rocket with a Eurofighter jet engine bolted to it and some wheels on the bottom) with that of a bullet fired from a Magnum .357. Top stuff.

I’d just suggest that they stick with their plan to have Andy Green drive it. Steer well clear of Richard Hammond. Well ******* clear.

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Girls (Scream) Aloud

R18 category symbol

An interesting court case begins today which could have an affect on freedom of speech, hence why I’m mentioning it. It centres on a civil servant from Newcastle, Darryn Walker, who posted a story entitled Girls (Scream) Aloud on a web site, which details the kidnap, torture and murder of the talentless group of windbags who call themselves what passes for a musical act in Britain these days.

I’ve not read it (yet), but it only took about 30 seconds on Google to find a link to a link to it (direct link is here) so go ahead and feel free to turn yourself into a blood-crazed celebrity stalker/killer. What worries me is that elsewhere on my blog I’m fairly certain I’ve detailed what I’d like to do with the Spice Girls (some of them in particular, especially that celebrity stick insect that passes for David Beckham‘s wife) and George W Bush. Maybe I’ve not gone past the invisible line that requires a court case.

Not that anyone knows what that line is as Mr Walker is being prosecuted under the Obscenity laws which are about as vague as a Labour Party policy statement. Essentially, he has to have written something that could offend any reasonable person. Or something. Of course, someone then has to decide what/who constitutes a reasonable person.

William Reese-Mogg? Mary Whitehouse? James Ferman?

Or John Carpenter? Hitler? Richard Laymon? Me?

I’ll need to dig more into the story. I’m curious to know who reported him, on what grounds he was arrested and how exactly he’s being prosecuted. Obviously it’s a public prosecution but why were charges brought? Was is Girls Aloud’s management, a fan, a random busybody…?

And what happens if he’s found guilty? I can see a lot of internet sites which focus purely on the porn side of the celebrity lifestyle becoming very worried indeed.

If there’s one plus side to this – and it’s a very small one – it’s that the author of the offending content is the one being taken to court. This, at least, is an improvement on the usual state where the publishing website could have been involved even though they may have had no knowledge of the individual post. This is always a worry when allowing comments on a blog, or when hosting a forum.

However, I don’t know if I’ll be able to follow the story or if it’s going to disappear like so many do. One headline and then no further details unless something outstanding happens, like the band themselves appear to defend him.

I guess we’ll have to see. In the meantime, I’m off to read what he wrote. Thing is, regardless of how depraved, sick, twisted or “obscene” I find it, the guy’s actually done no harm whatsoever in writing it. Hell, he’s probably only putting into writing what a lot of people feel about these overpaid, under-talented bimbos.

And, as ever, no matter whether I agree with him or not we’re a nation which claims to allow freedom of expression. A loss for him in this case could be one more nail in that coffin.

Update: OK, I’ve read it (although I notice it’s credited to someone with a different name than the guy on trial) and it’s pretty gruesome. It’s also rather repetitive. And I’ve also read novels which have as much violence and sadism in them, yet they’re still available in bookshops and libraries. I guess this is another one of those “internet is a bad place” trials, then.

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