Are most of us Muppets?

[scottycelt]

scottycelt: if you are referring to the misselling of PPI I think you underestimate the degree of fraud. from the time of its introduction - then usually called accident/sickness/redundancy insurance or ASR - it was heavily missold, eg by use of opt-out tick-boxes instead of opt-in, verbal misrepresentation of coverage, making it look cheap by elaborate misstatements of the APR on the loans it accompanied... But the crucial issue was and still is that someone selling an insurance product is required to assess its suitability to the client's needs. many policies were sold to those it could not possibly benefit such as the self-employed. Companies have been forced to repay premiums in such circ's since the early 80s but that hasn't stopped the misselling. Far from it.

The many spam emails offering to get me compensation for missold PPI that I'm now getting make me rather sad that I never bought any of it. I could now be seriously rich

I don't think there is any serious underestimation on my part, LMP ...

I was offered similar insurance when arranging a mortgage over thirty years ago, read the small print, considered it was virtually useless, and declined. I'm sure many others did exactly the same.

Almost every time I purchase on the internet I have to either tick or untick a box. I agree that an already ticked box requiring the purchaser to read the sale and conditions very carefully, and "unticking" if required, can be annoying and gives one some idea of the sort of company involved. A similar practice is the advertising of a 'lowest price' for a CD only to later discover you are being charged £10 for it to be sent by first class post. I tend to avoid companies like that for future transactions, just in case I have a bad day and stupidly sign up.

I'm certainly not defending these sort of 'sharp practices', simply astonished by the apparent thousands of 'victims' who have claimed they were 'conned' ( ie too lazy or stupid not to read the 'terms and conditions') of any purchase, and are now being 'compensated' for it.

Sometimes, muppets aside, any 'conning' can work the other way as well!

[MrGongGong]

Given that you obviously use a computer Scotty
I'm more than a little amazed that you have managed to find time to do anything other than read the licence agreement AND understand every word of it for every piece of software you use and every transaction you do on the internet ........

Insurance IS mostly a con anyway, as someone who realised that PPI etc would never cover my circumstances i've always refused , sham as the compensation would be most useful now !

[scottycelt]

Given that you obviously use a computer Scotty
I'm more than a little amazed that you have managed to find time to do anything other than read the licence agreement AND understand every word of it for every piece of software you use and every transaction you do on the internet ........

I don't pay for or need to understand any of that, MrGG ... I use free (both as in 'beer' and 'speech') Linux software ... sorted!

[MrGongGong]

So do you read (and understand) ALL the documentation, release notes ?
how did you install Linux without having an OS (with the phone book sized documentation !)
and you NEVER buy anything online ?

[James Wonnacott]

how did you install Linux without having an OS

Linux is an OS.

[scottycelt]

So do you read (and understand) ALL the documentation, release notes ?
how did you install Linux without having an OS (with the phone book sized documentation !)
and you NEVER buy anything online ?

Linux is the OS ... there are scores of distributions and off-shoots. If it is open-source (which it is) I can do what I like with the software, as can anybody else. So there are no terms and conditions or any restrictions (at least that I would be the slightest interested in).

I've already indicated I purchase online and always read the terms and conditions when purchasing from a previously unknown company.

However, as I mostly purchase from Amazon, and tend to be generally delighted with both value and service received, this situation hardly ever arises.

Am I really that eccentric ... ?

[MrGongGong]

Linux is an OS.

I know that
BUT
did you BUY your computer with Linux ?

I used to have one of my machines as dual boot OSX / Linux but it was obviously OSX when I bought it