M&S AirFlex Shoes Cracked Sole AGAIN!!

So after i chucked my last pair of Marks & Spencers AirFlex Shoes in the bin when the rubber soles cracked, letting in water and making my feet wet, i stupidly bought another pair.

Big Mistake - its taken less than one year of normal office wear for the replacement shoes to crack.

Do M&S know about this problem i wonder? maybe i'll post the cracked shoes back to them.

One thing's for sure, i wont be buying M&S Airflex shoes ever again!!

"FGN Payment Limit" - HSBC £6 charge




HSBC FGN Payment Limit???

 
I was reviewing my HSBC Business banking statement over the weekend, when I noticed a £6 charge for "FGN Payment Limit". Not having a clue what this charge was, or what "FGN" stood for, I immediately phoned the bank to get some answers.
Once I managed to navigate the awful automated telephone banking system (press 1 for this, press 2 for that etc etc) I finally managed to reach a human operator.

The operator informed me that the FGN Payment Limit Charge was a newly introduced monthly fee of £6 to allow me to transfer up to £10k per transaction from my UK HSBC business bank account to international bank accounts via the internet – a service that until now had been included with internet banking for free!!

When I explained that I didn’t make international transfers, so didn’t need a £10k limit in place, and therefore didn’t want to pay the £6 fee, I was informed that if I didn’t pay the fee, I would not be able to transfer any money at all via the internet to international banks.

So, its either pay HSBC £6 per month for the ability to transfer money electronically to international banks, or don’t pay the £6 fee and have to resort to telephone banking to transfer money internationally. It’s a kind of “Internet Banking Tax”. If you wish to use the internet for moving money, you must pay HSBC a fee.

When I opened my HSBC business bank account, the promise of “Free banking for 18months” wasn’t entirely correct. What they seem to have neglected to mention was that during my 18 month free banking period, elements of the service that were free would quietly get charged for…

And I’m not alone! Having spoken to business contacts and fellow HSBC business account holders, they too have been charged £6 for "FGN Payment Limit", and they also don’t remember ever being notified that this previously free service would suddenly become a premium chargeable service. Can we really all be wrong? Can anyone else rememebr receiving a letter or email explaining that we would soon be charged for this servic??

I tried doing a search on the HSBC website for “FGN Payment Limit” – the result was zero results found (see screenshot)

Even though HSBC were “kind enough” to reverse the charge (and very quick to offer to do so, suggesting I wasn’t the first customer to complain) , I’ve now lost the ability to transfer money internationally. In my view, this is very poor service. For a bank that sells its self as “The worlds local bank”, to charge UK customers a fee for the privilege of using internet banking to transfer money out of the country is very bad.

But what really annoys me is the sneaky underhanded way they have implemented this charge. How many companies wont notice this fee? Its just like someone at HSBC as said, “Lets stick a six quid charge on everyone’s account for something that was previously free, hopefully the wont notice, but and if anyone complains, we’ll just refund them”.

And after all this, I still have no idea what “FGN Payment Limit" actually means…

HSBC – you have lost a lot of credibility with this little stunt…

My recent experience/review of the AA breakdown service

The other day i was driving along and my temperature gauge shot up so i stopped, popped the bonnet (hood) and sure enough clouds of steam were coming out - 'not good' I thought so called the AA.

I was told by the AA operator that all the AA men were busy so they would send a "local approved agent".
40mins later a guy arrived with a tow truck. I explained what had happened, and he started to take a look. This is where the fun started...

Given that it was a dark, moonless night, one of the most vital bits of equipment for a mechanic to carry would surely be a big powerful torch - But not this guy - the torch he had looked like one of those lights the doctor uses to look in your eyes to see if you're dead - not much light, and certainly not much use!

So by the dim light of his pencil torch he proceeded to look to see how much water was I had left... good plan, but he looked in the screen wash bottle and told me i had plenty of water left so there couldnt be a water leak! i didnt even comment....

It was at this point I started to realise what I was dealing with here... this guy obviously was not a mechanic, and had no intention of or ability to repair my car. No, his sole objective was to load my car onto the back of his truck and drop me off at the garage so that he could move onto his next breakdown. Obviosuly the AA's locally approved agents are simply paid by the number of cars they recover and not the number they fix!

So thats what we did. we loaded the car up and began the slow drive home....

Since i was pretty sure the problem was a simple issue with a water hose, i had the car dropped to my house, and when i eventually got rid of the tow truck guy, i called the AA and told them exactly what i thought of their incompetent "approved agent". I also insisted that they send one of their trained AA staff to diagnose the fault the next following morning in the light of day (a sunday) after all, the AA boast on their website that they fix one car every 12 seconds, and i pay my membership feed to have the car looked at by a trained mechanic not some local bloke with a tow truck!

So the following day at 10am i got a call from a lost AA man. He was trying to locate my house...conversation went a bit like this:

AA: "Hello im having problems finding your house"

Me: "ok where are you now?"

AA: "Road xyz... Southampton," 

Me: "ok, we i'm in Kent.... over 100 miles away..."

AA: "Oh...." 

So not only do they send untrained incompetent 'local agents', when they actually do send a proper AA man, they send him to an address i've not lived at for over 5 years!! great...

So my review of the AA - not worth the money. i've cancelled my direct debit, and they wont be seeing another penny from me again!!

Banned For Life from the WarriorForum

Banned from the WarriorForum

Well it looks like im another victim of the Warrior Forum's banning of innocent people.

Tonight i posted a thread, it got deleted, and next thing i know i get a message saying:

You have been banned for the following reasons:

Spamming WarriorForum - internet Marketing Forum

Date the ban will be lifted: Never.

So i guess thats it then. Banned for life!

I've send a helpdesk request to ask why i was banned, but i dont really expect an answer.

In the meantime, as a paid up member of the WarRoom ($37 lifetime membership) which i can no longer access, Ive filled a complaint with PayPal to get a refund, afterall what use is a lifetime subscription to a site i cant access!!??

This is the second time ive been banned now. It would seem the the mods over at the WarriorForum really are a little trigger happy with the Ban Button...

But nevermind.. Their loss, not mine. I can still browse the forum, take all the good bits and not feel any obligation whatsoever to contribute anything back.. Next time i see a post from a newbie strugling with something, i'll just have to let them suffer safe in the knowledge that i would have loved to help them out, had it not been for those pesky mods...