NatWest

NatWest has issued me with their "Final Response"

Basically it says "Tough Luck, we have lost your stuff and you have to live with that!"

I have spoken to the Financial Ombudsman and it appears that they do not think there is much they can do unless I have documentary evidence of financial loss due to the banks actions, this I do not have, apart from my time.

I have also spoken to the Information Commissioners office. It appears that NatWest have a duty of care to my information (I believe that is rule 7) and it does not look like they have been taking any care, as they have lost it twice! I will have to ponder weather it is worth the agro to pursue this. I do have a month to make my mind up.

NatWest

A reply, at last...

 

Well I finally, after sending another email, have a reply from Elisabeth Mann.

 

Basically they are saying "like it or lump it".  I have turned down the £250 so they are calling my bluff to see if I will go to the banking Ombudsman.

 

The fact is that they have wasted a lot of my time, have lost my documents and have failed to give me a reasonable explanation or even an apology!  For the sake of £250 I think I will call their bluff and take it to the Ombudsman.  This should be interesting.

Greenwich Council

Bins Removed!

 

Well After much aggravation, phone calls and gnashing of teeth they have finally removed the bins, The local paper were interested in doing a story, but they wanted me to dump the rubbish in front of the council offices, I guess that would have been a story, but I was just interested in having the bins cleared.

 

We now understand the new "system" let's hope all stays well....

 

The End??

Greenwich Council

Greenwich's new waste disposal Cockup - 4 Weeks without a garbage collection

Letter to local paper

Hi,

Am I the only one that is suffering because of Greenwich councils messed up "new" garbage collection system?

For 4 weeks now they have failed to pick our bin up. I believe that it is because the bin is "contaminated", if that is the case they are supposed to put a notice through my door or put a sticker on the bin. This has not been done.

I have been on the phone every day since last Tuesday trying to get them to collect the bin. I am willing to say we may have messed up, but there is no way forward other than them taking away and us getting it right in the future.

I have been keeping track of the events (most of them) here http://cosmap.blogspot.com/

I refuse to go through the bin and sort the rubbish as it is now 4 weeks old and that would be unhygienic. I am tempted to deposit the whole bin on their doorstep!

Greenwich Council

Lost for words.......

After all the promises and assurances they still have not picked up the BIN!!!

They are telling me it WILL get done. For some reason I do not believe them.

Greenwich Council

A Call Back...

 

What a shocker!  I have been called back by Celia Johnson.  Poor lady sounded somewhat beleaguered.  I guess she is having to take all the flack for the rubbish rubbish service we have.   She has promised a special pickup today so we can go forward with a clean slate, so to speak.

 

Again I have no choice but to wait and see....

 

Seems to be the story of my life.

 

NatWest

Progress??...

 

So i called Elisabeth to find out what her reaction to my last email was.  Clearly I have shocked her as she has decided to go away for a week.  I, again, requested that the branch manager from Eastbourne contact me.  and Guess what??  He did!!

 

I repeated the whole sorry saga again and he has said he will look into it.  I remain to be convinced.

 

Greenwich Council

Another week Begins...

 

Having had no joy over the weekend I am on the phone again.

 

1st called the "Help" desk.  As usual everybody is in a meeting and all they would do is take my details.

2nd, Called the Chief exec's office.  Spoke to lady who is Mary Ney's PA.  She wanted to put me thought to Celia Johnson, who is supposed to be dealing with these issues (They have so many issues that they have to have a specific named person to deal with them).  I have been promised she will call me today.

 

What a complete shower they are.  We had a working waste disposal system in place and in an attempt to "improve" it, they have messed the whole thing up.

 

And London is to host the world for the Olympics!  ho ho bloody ho!

NatWest

FAO: Elisabeth Mann

Dear Elisabeth,

I actually feel quite insulted by your offer. £250 is approximately 3 hours of my time. I have spent more than 3 hours trying to deal with this.

You have still failed to answer some basic questions.

1, I came to the Eastbourne Branch and filled in some forms and gave some one some ID. This has all vanished. How?
2, I filled in some more forms (as did my sister and mother) and gave you copies of my ID. This was lost. How?
3, I filled in some more forms (as did my sister and mother) and gave you copies of my ID. It transpires that we were sent all the wrong forms and I am not on the account correctly! Why?
4, I have requested that the manager from the Eastbourne branch call me to discuss this. You are not sure if he will, why is that?

What is with the adverts "There is another way" It is just a cynical advertising ploy! How are NatWest different to any other bank? I am still dealing with a call center.

Additionally to this it took you from January 18th to get back to me following our last call.

Greenwich Council

Three weeks without a garbage collection!

Some background....

A short while ago Greenwich Council changed the waste disposal system. We used to have a simple system that any fool (me??) could understand. Rubbish went in to the bin (in the house) and was then transferred to the bin outside the house. Recycling went in to the recycling bin. Two bins, Two purposes, no problem.

Now...

Recycling goes in to the Recycling bin.. Great, I understand that... Nappy's go in to Orange nappy sacks.. Hmmm.. OK, but where are my nappy sacks? I ordered them quite a while ago... A month to be precise! Then these bags get put on top of the other bins, Oooohhh... that will be smelly in the summer. OK, I can deal with that. Garden waste goes in to the other bin (green top), OK, I can deal with that. Food waste goes in to the green top bin, still OK.... What about the other general waste? Put it in black black bags, but not just any old black bag, a "compostable" one, fine and?? put it in the green top bin? Nope. Just pile it up with the nappy bags on the floor!

So outside my house I have...

A Full blue topped bin for Recycling... OK
A Slightly full green topped bin for Food and garden... OK
A pile of orange bags full off smelly nappy's... NOT OK!
A pile of black bags full of... The rest... NOT OK!

The only real difference here is that the general rubbish is moved out to black bags and the nappy's to orange ones, the green bin will be empty most of the time as I do not do much gardening and we do not have that much food waste.

Would it not have made more sense to have the garden waste in the bags and the general waste and nappy's in the bin, away from fox's and, when it comes, heat.

The Problem

For the last 3 weeks they have not collected my rubbish, I have called repeatedly and been told they would do a missed collection, but it has never happened. We do not throw that much away, but the bin is now full! They have not deemed to tell us why they will not collect it. I suspect that this is because of the nappies, but no one will confirm this. It would be nice if they would send us the orange sacks so we can conform to the grand plan.

The thing is that they will not pick the bin up.
I will not climb into it to resort it.

So we have an impasse....

Right this minute I feel like taking the bin to Greenwich Councils offices and depositing the contents on their doorstep!

I have spoken to several Greenwich residents about this, some of them work at the council, would you believe, and they all agree that this is a silly system and whoever thought of it needs a slap with a wet kipper. Apparently they had a very high volume of calls initially, this has now dropped to a constant rumble, so I cannot be the only one suffering from this foul-up.

At last, after me calling them 10 million times I have had a call back from the directors office and a very nice lady, who's name I will not mention as it is not her fault, has said she will see what she can do. It is a bit late in the day for this (literally), but I have been trying all day...

NatWest

Called Elisabeth!!!!

Finally got through to her.
Apparently her number has changed to 020 8236 8119.

The bottom line is that although NatWest have dropped the ball repeatedly on this, it still falls to me to fill in all the bloody forms again! from scratch and go to the bank and give them my identity information AGAIN! so they can loose it AGAIN!

They are going to offer me some "compensation" let's see if this is anywhere near the cost of the amount of time I have wasted on this.

I am furious at their incompetence and inability to show some basic customer service and rectify the issue.

I will be considering where to take this from here, I may have the bit between my teeth will push this all the way. Then there is always TV, Newspapers.

She has offered to give me the information for the banking ombudsman...

NatWest

Called Elisabeth!!!!

No call since the last time, which was so long ago that I forget so I called her.

She is not there, but I have left a message for her to call me.

 

Apparently she gets in at 10:00 am.  We shall see.

 

This is getting really tedious.  The Ads say "there is another way"  Yes there is, it's called another bank!

Bathomatic, The Automated Bathtub Filler, Hits ISE

A unique integrated device that Connects to AMX and Crestron control systems for automatic bathtub filling.

read more | digg story

Integrated Systems Europe

The final day!   It has been a great show so far.

 

We have made many contacts and have many promises.  Now we have to see if they will turn to something real.

 

We have a couple of journalists threatening to come and put us in some magazines…  Oh the tension!  I will have to go and make myself look beautiful (this could take some time). 

 

Thanks to AMX for the party last night.

 

OK, so it is 8:30 and I am not up to speed yet.  I am going for a coffee and may add some more after normality has been returned.

 

Integrated Systems Europe

So here we are.  Second day of the show.  Lots of great feedback and interest in the product.

 

There seems to be a lot of potential in Russian and all of the former Soviet countries.  We have had lots of interest from Hungary, Poland, and all points east.   Actually we have also had interest from Kuwait and some Far Eastern locations.  Very exotic, I shall look forward to going there to “Supervise” the initial installations.

 

These two pictures show our arrival at Rai in Amsterdam and the stand before the mayhem began.

 

I will post more pictures to Flickr when I get to a better internet connection.

 

NatWest

Finally get hold of Elisabeth!!!!

Well I waited till 14:30 for a call and did not get one, so I called her.  Found here on the 1st try!

 

Apparently, though I am on the account I am down as an addition not a regular user!  No cheque book, card or access (unless I go in to the branch in Eastbourne).  This is useless.

 

I cannot even get Internet Access!

 

Elisabeth is going to call the branch to see what is going on.

 

I did mention that I have not been sent back the identification papers that I explicitly requested back.  She will investigate.

 

I also mentioned I am BLogging all this, she was not interested.

 

I have an email address I can use.  It is not hers, but it goes in to a pool and I may get a response in 24 hours!  Welcome to the dark ages.

 

In case you are interested...   customer.relations@natwest.com

 

 

NatWest

I am on the Account.  Nice of them to tell me! NOT!!!!

My sister went to the branch yesterday, apparently I am on the account, but no one has deemed to let me know or to give me any details of how I can access it!

 

Call to Jackie to try and put this to bed

 

• Start at 10:40  Surprise Surprise I am on hold..
• Apparently she is expecting my call.  I have given her the account details and she will call me back.
• 15:00  A call back.  Apparently I am only allowed to talk to Elisabeth Mann.  020 8236 8140.
• I left a message for her to call me tomorrow.  I will not hold my breath.

 

Westminster Council Cave

I have received a letter from Westminster Council.  The long, tall and short of it is that they have cancelled the Ticket! (PCN).

 

The lectured me about parking, and did not apologise for ticketing a disabled vehicle, but they did cave.

 

So take heed all you disabled people out there.

 

WESTMINSTER COUNCIL DO NOT WANT YOU ON THEIR TERF!

 

Basically they do not recognise disabled badges and do not give parking concessions.

 

Heartless gits!

 

NatWest

Still Waiting........

So it has now been 18 days since my mum and sister signed the allegedly final piece of paper to get me added to this blasted account.

Guess what?? Nothing has been heard from Eastbourne.

I am now trying to get hold of Jackie to see where we can go with this.

20 mins on the phone talking to Amy Burgess. All she did was stonewall. I did not have the account number to hand and she would not connect me to Jackie without it. She would not even book a call back.

Finally she has booked a call back between 9 and 12 tomorrow morning.

I will believe that when I get it!

NatWest

An Update..........

After an extended hiatus (our fault) My Mother and sister finally managed to get the forms signed. My sister went 1st, as my mother had already done here part, but, after over an hour in the bank filling things in, she was told that there was more for my mum to do!

The pair of them returned last week and spent anther 2 HOURS! in the bank. We have now been told that it is all done.

It has been over a week with no update, so I am not sure. I will chase next week.

On point of information. My last communication with them requested that they confirm reception of the paperwork and that they return my identification documents when they are done. IN the light of last weeks Government cock-up you would think that they would be extra careful. This does not appear to be the case as they have done neither of my requests!

Not happy.

Lets see if they can finish!