Cheques: does anybody still use them?

[MrGongGong]

Ah yes...using a mobile via wi-fi. Great in theory and probably brilliant in an area without ANY mobile signal. But unfortunately where I live the mobile signal depends. So Vodafone wifi calling will kick in and out and sometimes part way through a call. Basically the concept from my perspective is flakey as hell. It actually gets to the point where I will switch off the wi-fi on the phone and accept that the call might get cut off (but nowhere nearly as often if I have wifi calling as an option.

Said flakey mobile coverage also confuses the hell out of our security camera (a Nest cam) that has a nifty (in theory) Home/Away Assist that recognises when I leave home and will automatically turn the camera on. Only it relies heavily on triangulation based on signal strength of the mobile masts. Since that is a moveable feast here, I can take the phone into the garden and because it picks up a different set of triangulation data, thinks sometimes that I've gone Away.

Turn cellular data off ?
The "i'm going to Oslo and don't want my phone to connect to the internet via roaming" solution

[oddoneout]

Your mate needs a larger steam roller. Then the issue of filled parking slots becomes incidental

I share your concern re hands. Not sure I will have your fortitude as mine worsen.

You'd get a truly 'metalled' road surface that way, helped by the fact that there is an old boy further down the road who spends his days collecting scrap metal and selected other waste items...Would solve the problem of the road materials trundling down the gradient out onto the (surfaced) main road after heavy rain, blocking drains and making skiddy shingle banks - and the nearest tyre place is only two minutes away.What's not to like as they say?

Said OB is completely legit - licence(genuine) displayed in the cab of his truck - and very useful for dealing with defunct domestic appliances as the council charges an arm and a leg for its 'bulky waste service', and prices on 3 items being disposed of at once - so £30 to get rid of a washing machine for example - and they wonder why flytipping happens.

[MrGongGong]

Precisely my point. Systems designers rarely consider 'What if'...as in 'What if there is no paper'. As you say, it is a simple task to program but only if specified in the first place. I do have a very dim view of todays' Systems non-Designers.

You just reminded me of another beef...this time with Legal and General. If you apply online for life insurance one of the questions on the first page asks if you have ever been advised to cut down on alcohol consumption. If the answer is 'yes' then it is an automatic refusal. Only their system does not terminate the process at that point but makes you waste 20-30 minutes of your life entering all the other health question minutiae and only THEN tells you that they won't cover you. When you call to ask why don't they automatically decline up front, yo get a load of BS saying that their underwriting system has to know all the health details before it can make a decision. When you point out that a hypothetical application with a perfect health record marred only by the alcohol question still results in a refusal, they still continue with their BS. They've done this for two years now. No intention of changing their system as it will cost them money. Sod you, me and thousands of others wasting our time.

The one that makes me laugh is the insurance company with the red phone adverts. They are cheap because they refuse to have anything to do with people who are incolved in "entertainment" (most van hire companies exclude musicians, jockeys and folks involved in motorsport as well) but have endless adverts featuring actors whom they wouln't touch with a bargepole......

[LMcD]

On trying to extract cash from an ATM in our main shopping street, I was given the message: 'Your transaction has been declined. Please contact your card issuer'. Slightly perturbed, I reported this to our Nationwide branch a few doors down. It transpired that this particular machine is one of a number in the that throw 'wobblies' from time to time. I resent the implication in the on-screen message that there's a problem with my card when the problem is with the ATM.

[Anastasius]

Turn cellular data off ?
The "i'm going to Oslo and don't want my phone to connect to the internet via roaming" solution

No, turn the wifi off. What cellular data, anyway !

Human interaction IS important but I don't really get that from someone in a bank

I do. Perhaps you need to brush up your inter-personal skills ?

[Anastasius]

On trying to extract cash from an ATM in our main shopping street, I was given the message: 'Your transaction has been declined. Please contact your card issuer'. Slightly perturbed, I reported this to our Nationwide branch a few doors down. It transpired that this particular machine is one of a number in the that throw 'wobblies' from time to time. I resent the implication in the on-screen message that there's a problem with my card when the problem is with the ATM.

Ah that reminds me of the one in the building society below our offices in Covent Garden. IIRC a hamburger joint nearby with little sauce and mustard packets. About the same size as a credit card. Some clever eejits thought it was a good idea to feed said packets into the ATM. Which pulled it in but then because it couldn't read the non-existent bar code ejected said packet sans contents.

[ahinton]

No, turn the wifi off. What cellular data, anyway !



I do. Perhaps you need to brush up your inter-personal skills ?

I don't - but then that's not because I wouldn't get it but because my bank is more than 100 miles distant so I never visit it, which is why I do all my banking online - and, as I always use a PC rather than a mobile for that, I encounter no signal problems unless there's a fault at the local telephone exchage that prevents me from accessing the internet until is resolved and this, mercifully, is a very rare event indeed. I find it especially useful to receive an email alert every time a sum of at least £1 is credited to or debited from my account, with the balance following the transaction showing on it.

[Dave2002]

Human interaction IS important but I don't really get that from someone in a bank

You mentioned buying cheese earlier. Perhaps you’d get human interaction in a cheese shop. Would you prefer that?

https://youtu.be/uT3OQECSDoQ [this might not be quite the version you were expecting ...]

[Dave2002]

You cad, sir. You took the very words out of my mouth!

It is literally unbelievable that this thread has gone to 18 pages.

From February 2013.

Amazing! More than 6 years on, and now we’re up to 30 pages!

Some of us still use cheques - occasionally.

[Dave2002]

I do. Perhaps you need to brush up your inter-personal skills ?

Amazon has a Kindle Deal of the Day today- Dale Carnegie “How to win friends and influence people” for 99p.

[Anastasius]

I don't - but then that's not because I wouldn't get it but because my bank is more than 100 miles distant so I never visit it, which is why I do all my banking online - and, as I always use a PC rather than a mobile for that, I encounter no signal problems unless there's a fault at the local telephone exchage that prevents me from accessing the internet until is resolved and this, mercifully, is a very rare event indeed. I find it especially useful to receive an email alert every time a sum of at least £1 is credited to or debited from my account, with the balance following the transaction showing on it.

The ease of doing that will depend on your bank. If you have an account with a bank that uses one of those keycode generator gizmos - HSBC for example - then you'll (probably) continue to be fine. But all my various bank accounts are starting to say ...Make sure we have your mobile number as soon you'll blah blah blah.....

Fortunately, some more enlightened banks - Lloyds for instance - will also let you use a landline. The only problem then is you've got to get to the phone and back before anything times out.

[VodkaDilc]

So if you don't go to the shops then how do you buy stuff ? 'cos without a mobile signal there will come a time when you won't be able to buy online.

Having no reliable mobile phone signal at home, I have asked my bank several times about this proposed security improvement. The answer is that the bank is well aware of the thousands of people in my position and that sending authorisation for an online transaction to a landline number will be a satisfactory alternative - or that other options might be developed.