ANZ Banking Corporation - Taking incompetence to new heights!

This proves beyond all doubt that you can still post record profits, even if your corporation is staffed by idiots!

After the debacle with my loan extension last xmas, I've had a particularly low opinion of ANZ and their shifty business practices.  Now, they've excelled themselves again over the cancellation of my Merchant Services account and associated EFTPOS terminal machine.  Back in October, before I closed my business, I contacted Merchant Services, arranged the cancellation of the account and organised to return the terminal to the local branch.  After I closed, I dropped the terminal off, gave the guy the reference number and asked him to arrange for the machine to be returned to Merchant Services.  At that point, I considered the matter closed and promptly forgot about it.

About a week ago, I got an account statement from Merchant Services, showing that the account was still open and I was still being charged a monthly fee for the terminal.  To cut a very long story short, apparently the branch didn't bother to have the terminal collected.  I lodged a complaint about the failure of that process and I've just been contacted by a guy from their complaints department who told me they've been unable to locate the terminal and that I would have to pay several hundred dollars for it!  I said "Wait a minute.....I dropped the machine off at the local branch.  They've lost it and now you want to charge me for it?  Surely you can't be serious?!?"  Apparently he was.  I informed him that I would now be placing the matter in the hands of the Financial Ombudsman Service, at which point he asked me if I would like him to escalate the matter to a higher internal department to have it investigated more thoroughly.  I kid you not.  I said "I would have expected that to have been done already, before deciding to just lump me with the charges!!"  I told him to go right ahead, but I've lodged a complaint with the FOS anyway.

Mind you, this is only the final part of a whole host of customer service failures.  Simply trying to contact these people by phone sucked up 45minutes of my life that I will never get back, during which time I was disconnected twice, transferred to another department 3 times and then told that it was up to me to follow it up with the branch personally anyway.  I said "I am following it up....I'm speaking to you, so sort it out!!"  The excuse for why she couldn't contact the branch?  "I'm sorry sir, this is an incoming call centre....I don't have a queue to put an outgoing call into."  Seriously.  I indelicately suggested that she find a piece of paper and a pen and simply write it down, but by that stage it was already obvious that I was dealing with someone of truly awesome ineptitude and I wasn't going to get anywhere.  That's when I gave up and called their complaints number.

If I could extricate myself from any further involvement with ANZ, I'd do it without a second thought.....customer service?  What a joke!

It's good to be back :)

After spending the last couple of months sitting in front of a keyboard, I can honestly say it feels good to be working as a programmer again.  I'd forgotten how thoroughly satisfying this type of work can be.  The intellectual stimulation is something I have really missed.  So, fingers crossed....hopefully they like my work and want me to stay.  I'm on holidays for xmas now......what a novelty :)

Moving right along.......

Isn't it amazing how your state of mind has the ability to warp your perception of time?  I often hear people cite that old adage "Time flies when you're having fun", but I always think to myself "Yep, but I bet you've never thought about what happens when you're not."  After trying to run a hobby shop in a small rural town for the last 3 years, I can tell you.  You know those fucked up dreams, where you're trying to catch (or run away from) something, but it feels like you're running through quicksand and you just can't seem to get there, no matter how hard you try?  Well, that's what it's like.  It's like I imagine trying to ride a pushbike through molasses would be, but without the entertainment factor.  Time seems to take on this horrible, boggy quality and drags along like it's got absolutely nothing better to do. 

However, I'm happy to say that I think the bog is drying up (and yes, I do realise that, for the small number of people who follow this blog, it's become a very negative place these days).  I've been offered the opportunity to go back to what I like to do best (computer programming), so I'm taking it.

Henceforth, I shall make the effort to post at least *some* positive entries between my rants.

Please wish me luck.  I have no idea whether I'll need it or not, but it can't hurt now can it? :-)

Government assistance? Yeah right......

So much for the offer of assistance for small businesses after the floods.  I was unable to trade between xmas and new year, which is normally my biggest week of the whole year, but apparently that's just bad luck.  I don't qualify for any form of assistance and my bank doesn't give a shit either.

On the first day back after xmas, the water was on the way up and it appeared likely it would reach my shop.  I was advised to remove my stock from the shop, so I did that.  The water eventually peaked about 30m from the door, blocking access to one end of the street.  The other end was blocked by emergency services.  Then the power went off for a couple of days.  So, even though I had no stock, no access to the shop and no electricity, I still don't get any help.  According to the 'fact sheet' for the govt assistance, "The scheme is not intended to compensate for loss of business income."  So, I phoned the bank to ask if I could maybe skip a month on my payments on my business loan, so that I could at least pay some bills and buy some stock after the loss of that week's trade.  Nope.  No joy there either.  Not even prepared to discuss it.  I then decided to see about one of the 'low interest loans' being offered by the govt.  Nope.  Can't get one of those either.

So, thanks for nothing guys.  You've been a big fkn help!

Social decay

I noticed a story in the news this morning about the potential banning of the serving of energy drinks mixed with alcohol.  The cited reason was that it would help to curb the steadily increasing level of 'street violence'.  Oh really?  That's a bit like saying we can eliminate forest fires by cutting down all the trees!  Honestly, where does this shit originate??  Any person (and I use that term very loosely) with a propensity for engaging in 'street violence' will continue to do so, regardless of the method they employed to become intoxicated.  Hell, some of these dickheads don't even need to be drunk!  Let's face it, the real problem here is that the shit end of society is (and has been for too many years) in an out of control breeding frenzy.  If you really want to stop the problem, introduce a 'procreation licence' instead.  Stop the grubs and bogans from breeding in the first place!  But, alas, it would be too little, too late.  Worse than ever now, society is straining under the collective weight of multiple generations of worthless, unemployable, oxygen thieving wretches.  I weep for the future, I really do.....

I'm over it.

I'm over ignorant people who think the rest of the world owes them a favour.  I'm over commodore driving bogans who have no respect for people on push bikes.  I'm over people who expect free help with cheap crap they bought on e-bay or at crime converters.  I'm over people who waste hours of my time asking questions about products they have no intention of purchasing from me, simply so they can go and buy them online cheaper.  I'm over distributors who won't back their product when it fails.  I'm over the spectacularly bad level of driving skill in this fkd up town.  I'm over being broke.

Basically, I'm just over this whole fkd up ride and I'd like to get off now......

Smooth sailing

I did some of the nicest glider flying I've done so far on Sunday.  It was totally overcast, so there wasn't a spec of lift around, but it meant that the air was as smooth as silk......extremely nice conditions for flying :-)  Off the winch, trim for 40kts and just cruise.  The flights are short, but man oh man is it nice while it lasts!

A couple of weekends ago I got to do the hangar flight.  The hangar flight is the last flight of the day and we had been taking off from the Southern end of the main strip, so in order to get the glider back to the hangar, you simply fly it up the strip and land it at that end.  The awesome part about that is the fact that you're cruising up the strip at 50+kts and only a few metres off the ground in 'ground effect'.  Very, very cool :-)