Maribyrnong’s underwater park: an update
Do you remember the pics of the brand new Maribyrnong playground from a couple of weeks ago, showing severe drainage problems?
On Saturday night there was heavy rain in the area, but evidently the City of Maribyrnong’s drainage experts have been busy, because on Sunday morning the park was almost dry — and certainly not underwater.
I like the way the notices made it clear they weren’t totally oblivious to the problems.
Tags: City of Maribyrnong, parks, water
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The prepaid phone saga
A while back I gave eldest son my old (but quite capable) mobile phone, and got him a SIM card that looked to be a reasonable cheap basic prepaid phone service: Woolworths Everyday Mobile.
This worked fine until early October when the phone stopped working.
Or to be precise, the SIM stopped working. We tried the usual stuff: turning the phone off then on again, trying the SIM in a different phone, trying a different SIM in the phone. It was clear the SIM didn’t work.
I should note that this company has all its Call Centre people in Australia. While in an ideal world this shouldn’t make a difference, of course in reality it can. But in this case there was no issue with communications problems due to bad phone lines and people struggling to understand each other.
So on Sunday 9/10, I rang them up. Of course the gatekeepers to the real technical support staff tried to deflect me, only letting me get through after I had explained that we had tried turning the phone off then on again, trying the SIM in a different phone, and trying a different SIM in the phone.
They said they’d check some things on their end, give me a call back within two days.
No call back, so on Thursday 13/10, I rang back. Once again I had to explain that we had tried turning the phone off then on again, trying the SIM in a different phone, and trying a different SIM in the phone. They said nobody from technical support was available, because it was after 8:30pm. I said I’d ring back the next day.
I rang back on Friday 14/10 at lunchtime. Explained that we had tried turning the phone off then on again, trying the SIM in a different phone, and trying a different SIM in the phone. They said the relevant person isn’t available, but they would ring or email back later in day.
Yeah. Sure they would.
Nothing, of course, so just after 6pm I rang back. Explained that we had tried turning the phone off then on again, trying the SIM in a different phone, and trying a different SIM in the phone. They said the relevant person isn’t available, and apologised that I hadn’t been contacted.
And a key bit of information finally came to light: I already knew the service is closing down and being replaced by a different Woolworths mobile phone service. What I didn’t know was that this will be run by a different company. (It’s clear now that these operations are effectively franchise users of the Woolworths name). For this reason the lady said they were having problems simply sending out a new SIM.
I asked for a refund. She said she couldn’t do that. She said it would be referred to their IT group, and someone would ring the next day to discuss other options.
Well if you can’t provide the service, and you won’t give me a refund, what other options are there that don’t involve me being ripped-off? I was suddenly grateful that there was only $20 credit on the account.
But it sounded like this miracle-working IT group might be able to wangle another SIM.
Needless to say, there was no phone call back the next day.
Rang back again on Sunday 16/10. Explained yet again that we had tried turning the phone off then on again, trying the SIM in a different phone, and trying a different SIM in the phone. Also explained that I had originally rung them a week before, and nothing had happened.
They said — unbelievably — that the original problem had never been referred to IT.
I was pretty narky at this point, emphasising that it wasn’t this particular guy’s fault, but asking how it was possible that after such a long period of them being unable to provide me a service, nothing had been done to resolve it.
The guy was very apologetic, and assured me things would happen.
At about 4:15pm on Tuesday 18/10, they actually rang me. Wow. An actual call back. For once I didn’t have to explain again that we had tried turning the phone off then on again, trying the SIM in a different phone, and trying a different SIM in the phone. They already knew I needed a replacement SIM. And they said they did have some spares, and they’d be sending one out Express Post to me straight away.
Friday 21/10, a new SIM arrived in plain brown envelope. The letter is dated 18/10, but it very clearly did not go via Express Post. Luckily however it works fine.
The conclusion from all this is: steer clear of Woolworths’ mobile phone operation. It works fine as long as everything goes smoothly, but if you have a problem, even accounting for the fact that they are closing down, it’s very difficult to get them to take action. OK, maybe their replacement service will be better, but I’d not be willing to take that risk again.
Thankfully the phone’s new owner has been very patient throughout this saga.
The postscript
I knew before the first call that Everyday Mobile were closing down, and wondered if they would end up giving me a refund. Either way, knowing we’d have to port off them by early next year, I took the opportunity to order a new SIM from another provider. I looked around for a bit and for some unknown reason, decided I liked the look of Amaysim. So on 13/10 I ordered a SIM from them through their web site, with some credit on it.
To this day, that SIM has not arrived.
On Sunday I emailed them to ask them where it was. They got back to me on Tuesday to apologise and say their system messed up on my delivery address (odd, it’s a fairly conventional post office box, no weirdness like apostrophes) and it should now arrive in a few days.
Are all prepaid mobile companies like this?
I know they’d probably prefer to lock you into a contract on a postpaid plan, but surely they should be treating prepaid customers (many of whom spend considerable amounts of money) with better care.
Video: Talking to the chickens
Online vs Retail
Another online vs retail comparison. Component cables for a Nintendo Wii, so I could plug it into the new TV.
Nintendo official product: $47.99 (JB Hifi and others). Around $41.00 online, from an Australian online seller.
Futuretronics clone product: $29.94 (Dick Smith).
Dick Smith also had the cables included in a “Wii Starter Kit” with some other stuff I didn’t need, for $39.94. I’m doubly glad I didn’t buy those, as they’ve now been recalled due to the remote charger overheating.
EBay clone product: $8.00 including postage.
I went for the latter, as I was not in a huge rush to get it. This is from an Australian seller, so my assumption would be that GST is being paid on it.
Note that this is an apples and oranges comparison. The product purchased is not identical, but the eBay offering has not been a disappointment… and given the price difference, I figured it was worth the risk.
(And what a difference it made!)
Conclusion: it’s not just an offshore vs local thing, it’s also a question of retail vs etail, and of course Genuine name brand products vs no-name clone products.
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Over the holidays
Over the holidays, I became a bikie:
… discovered the truth about Roger Ramjet:
… and took a ride in a harvester:
Tags: farms, motorbike, Roger Ramjet
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Server admin again
Fiddling with the server.
Hold your thoughts until I’m done and I re-open comments.
3pm. Move done, re-delegating. (When you see this, it’s reached you.)
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Muckup day FAIL
It seems some students at Xavier went over-the-top in their end of school celebrations, ties used as G-strings, with one student injured, food fights on trams, jumping on cars, firecrackers let off at Balaclava Station, and all year 12 classes cancelled. (Some newspaper reports say the entire year level was suspended, but the principal was on radio on Wednesday morning saying this wasn’t strictly true.)
I don’t think it’s really that difficult to come up with pranks that are highly amusing, yet don’t injure anybody and cause no permanent damage to anything. Longtime readers may recall I wrote about the Year 12 prank I participated in, dumping loads of bean bag beans around the school hall… which when we were caught, resulted in us having to vaccuum them up.
Other stunts I saw and heard about from my time at high school in the 80s were using traffic cones to divert traffic through the school; various banners flown from nearby buildings; a fake school newsletter issued to all classes (I still have my copy somewhere); shaving cream liberally applied to buildings, clothes and on cars; and apparently once at Melbourne Grammar a teacher’s car was disassembled, moved to an upstairs room and put together again. Though that last one may be merely urban legend.
All it takes is a little imagination, and a wish to amuse, rather than annoy.
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Twitter Updates for 2008-05-04
- BEHOLD! I AM CREATOR OF WORLDS! (for kid’s school project) #
- Looking forward to seeing tomorrow’s paper. #
- New road cash five times funding of rail http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/05/04/1209839456871.html #
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