I discovered today that I have an account with a company called Additions Direct and, although I don’t owe them any money, there is only £971 of the £1,000 credit limit available. This is because there is an unfulfilled order on the account – for an “X Factor Waistband Amplifier” which, at £25 (and looking like something utterly dreadful), is yet to be shipped – plus £3.95 delivery.

Except that I don’t have an account with them, having not used this company to purchase anything, and having not set up any such account.

Oh dear.

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Some of my family and their friends are currently on holiday in Spain and their return flight is – or, rather, was – scheduled for tonight. That return flight is with Easyjet – they always fly with Easyjet because Easyjet flies to where they always go. It’s a no-brainer.

Obviously, though, there is a bit of a problem at the moment – the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, which has been erupting, leading to an ash cloud which is disrupting flights. The flight my family and their friends were booked on, like many thousands of other flights, has been cancelled. And that’s fair enough – it’s far better to keep people grounded, albeit stranded overseas, than to take them up into the air when there is a risk that their aeroplane could be brought unceremoniously down.

However, being stranded overseas, they need to be accommodated until further notice, and that costs money, and not only that, at least one of the people in the group I’m talking about is self-employed, so he’s losing money while he’s stuck over there. (Again, quite probably like a great many people who are stranded overseas).

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Dec 142009

I wondered how long it would take – and the answer is one and a half to two months.

One and a half to two months, that is, before spammers found a new potential outlet for their rubbish: the comments section on this blog. (Not that there are very many people reading it!)

No spammer has actually tried using the comments to spread their garbage as yet, but today I received a user registration from a very spammy looking address.

Well, I have news for you Mr Potential-Spammer – any user’s first comment, and ALL comments including URLs have to be approved by me. Don’t bother.

I received the following invoice a few days ago from TeleBilling Ltd, showing a total amount payable of £39.50.

Scan of TeleBilling invoice

Scan of TeleBilling invoice

I didn’t recognise the name TeleBilling Ltd. I didn’t recognise the number supposedly called. I didn’t recognise the service that I was apparently being charged for. And I also didn’t recognise the number given as “my” telephone number: Continue reading »