Month: November 2005

Banks

Saturday we went to the bank to put my wife’s name on the account. Can’t be too complicated can it? Can’t take more than a few minutes can it?

BZZZTTTTT – WRONG!!

The bank say that a passport, marriage certificate and payslips (with the same address on as me) are not acceptable as proof that she is who she says she is and that she lives where she says she lives.

To put my wife on the account the bank says it needs a utility bill or a credit card bill with my wifes name on it.

She has none of these – the bills are all in my name as are the credit cards (with her simply having secondary cards).

So for anyone out there who wants to put a partner on the account but she doesn’t get bills – dont try to do it with the Royal Bank of Scotland because its not possible.

So much for customer service

Hackers, crackers and other annoyances

My server was getting swamped the other day, checking into it I found that it was links from LiveJournal to a pic in my photo albums which someone had used to illustrate a tack poem. Livejournal users had then copied this poem round each other, and republished it – and every view was leeching the pic off my server.

Now I guess its a compliment that they liked my squirrel pic but it was used without permission and with no credit.

So I stopped it.. specifically that image cannot be accessed when the referrer URL is livejournal.

So then I started looking round and found lots of attempts to hijack awstats for hacking other servers. So I’ve put in a redirect based on IP to stop this happening.

I also tightened up my SSH logins – and record unauthorised accesses onto that (which populates the website black list).

Today I had some scum from Israel (specifically a user of Barak I.T.C) use a java application to post Viagra spam on my forum. So if you were on 85.65.58.1 a few minutes ago – I saw you, deleted your post and blocked your IP.

Its sad that the internet is now full of people who try to break into, hijack or otherwise misuse other peoples resources.

Still thats the way of the world I suppose.

Oddly enough its THIS blog entry that the spamming scum keep picking on. I wonder why.

Health Service?? Where does the Service come into it?

Saw the doctor the other week about a medical condition and he said he’d contact the hospital.

Letter arrived on Friday – I need to phone the hospital to make an appointment. Wife phoned the number before 5pm – no reply.

I have been trying almost continually for the past 3 hours to get through on their number but it is always busy.

What annoys me is the following statement on the letter:

YOU MUST CONTACT US WITHIN 2 WEEKS. IF WE DO NOT HEAR FROM YOU, WE WILL ASSUME YOU NO LONGER REQUIRE THE APPOINTMENT. YOUR NAME WILL BE REMOVED FROM OUR PENDING LIST AND YOUR GP INFORMED

And yes it really is in bold block capitals.

So they can be snotty with me and then provide a crap booking service.

I pay for this out of my Taxes – surely they can employ more than 1 person to answer the phone (which I think is the ONLY number to book appointments on for the entire Hospital Trust)