Mike Southby

I had the following message pop up on Skype a short while ago, I mean really, after all these years do people really think we are still stupid enough to fall for the same con? Aside from the jump to social media platforms instead of email, the old tactics are still the same.

Still, it made me chuckle.

Hello Southby,

I have been in search of someone with this last name.  Southby.  So when I saw your name I was pushed to contact you and see how best we can assist each other.  I am Mr. David Akoto, a Banker here in Kumasi, Ghana.  I believe it is the wish of God for me to come across you on skype now.  I am having an important business discussion I wish to share with you which I believe will interest you because, it is in connection with your last name and you are going to benefit from it.  One Late Albert M. Southby, a citizen of your country had a fixed deposit with my bank in 2004 for 36 calendar months; valued at (Three Million, Four Hundred Thousand US Dollars) the due date for this deposit contract was the 16 of January 2007.  Sadly Albert was among the death victims in the May 26 2006 Earthquake disaster in Jawa, Indonesia that killed over 5,000 people.  He was in Indonesia on a business trip and that was how he met his end.  My bank management is yet to know about his death, I knew about it because he was my friend and I am his account officer.  Albert did not mention any Next of Kin/ Heir when the account was opened, and he was not married and no children.  Last week my bank Management requested that Albert should give instructions on what to do about his funds, if to renew the contract.  I know this will happen and that is why I have been looking for a means to handle the situation, because if my Bank Directors happens to know that Albert is dead and do not have any Heir, they will take the funds for their personal use, so I don’t want such to happen.  That was why when I saw your name I was happy and I am now seeking your co-operation to present you as Next of Kin/ Heir to the account, since you have the same name with him and my bank head quarters will release the account to you.  There is no risk involved; the transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of law.  It is better that we claim the money, than allowing the Bank Directors to take it, they are rich already.  I am not a greedy person, so I am suggesting we share the funds equal, 50/50% to both parties, my share will assist me to start my own company which has been my dream.  Let me know your mind on this and please do treat this information as TOP SECRET.  We shall go over the details once I receive your urgent response strictly through my personal email address, davidakoto50@live.com

Regards,
Mr. David Akoto

Needless to say I won’t be contacting Mr Akoto anytime soon.

It seems only yesterday (almost 2 years in reality) that I wrote an article detailing my experiences with Club La Costa, the company who ring you up to tell you that you have ‘won’ a free holiday for 4.  Of course, this is clearly not true and in order to claim your prize you need to attend a rather long timeshare presentation here in the UK and then pay a number of surcharges towards your supposed prize.  Before you know it, the holiday that you ‘won’ costs you more than a last minute deal you could have picked up yourself and the relaxation you’d have hoped for and promised, overshadowed by the constant sales pitches.  I know I am not alone in feeling frustrations towards this kind of misleading marketing and hard selling thanks to all of your comments; they were appreciated.

Well, I was amazed to receive yet another cold call yesterday, again stemming from one of the call centres commissioned by CLC.  Now I know that since my last call, I have not given my details to any market research companies and most certainly have not entered any competitions so unquestionably my details have been recycled since they first made contact with me.

Club la Costa, if you’re reading this then please, get the hint.  I will NOT be buying into any of your timeshare deals so my advice would be to save yourself the cost of the phone call don’t call me again.

Like most, I was saddened yesterday to hear the reports of one the Red Arrows tragically crashing and it’s pilot, Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging loosing his life at the annual Bournemouth Air Festival.

I think it’s important before I start diversifying to pay a personal tribute to the pilot, whilst the details are still vague the general consensus is that he stayed with his aircraft to the point of no return to ensure that his aircraft did not crash into a populated area killing others; he must have known that in doing so the outcome personally was not going to be a good one, it’s split second selfless decisions like this that define true heroism.  Much respect Jon.

Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging tragically died in a crash following a Red Arrows display in Bournemouth. Photograph: MOD/PA

No doubt at one stage or another in our lives we have all seen the Red Arrows display whether in personal or on the television and there can be no doubt, they are without question one of the finest aerial display teams on the planet.  The pilots flying skills are a testament not only to themselves but to the world class training received by our armed forces.  It’s easy to forget that the pilots serving in the Red Arrows are front line fast jet RAF pilots first and foremost plying their trade with a smile of their faces.

However, given the state of the UK economy and our military activities overseas, especially considering the recent Defence Spending Review, I do have to question the place the Red Arrows have in the RAF; I want to stress though that my feelings are not aimed at the pilots, the crew or anyone associated directly with the team but with the system of decision making at a very high level.

Having a quick glance over the official website the Red Arrows have at their disposal a team of highly skilled and qualified personnel, a fleet of modern fast jet aircraft and a large support mechanism; it’s not just this that factors into my thoughts though, for every resource given to the Red Arrows, there is a resource denied or taken away from the front line, remember the pilots of the Red Arrows are active front line RAF pilots and whilst they are serving with the Red Arrows, they are away from the front line.  I’ve never been in the forces myself but I’m sure if I had of been, I’d have appreciated a few extra aircraft overheard watching my back.

At any given time, the team have the following (not a comprehensive list by any means) at their disposal:

• 9 highly trained, exceptional fast jet pilots.
• 9 experienced aircraft engineers, each working on a specific aircraft alongside it’s pilot.
• A large engineering team and engineering support team.
• Management and base staff, including the base itself of course.
• Public relations team.

On top of this they also have a fleet of BAE Systems Hawk T1 aircraft, including the 9 actual display aircraft I believe this totals 13 aircraft in all.

I haven’t taken the time to look into how much this all costs in any detail and how much we as tax payers contribute to this but let’s be realistic, it’s not cheap.  According to the Red Arrows official website we do not contribute to foreign displays as this cost is met in the most part by sponsors such as BAE, but of course as I mentioned above this is only part of the story; we are still taking front line pilots away from protecting our troops currently serving in dangerous situations, Afghanistan for example.  The material cost of the team is only half the story.

“The benefits of the Red Arrows far outweigh the cost, promoting British interests and acting as an international ambassador for British industry. Further information relating to budgets should be directed to Royal Air Force 22 Group.

The Ministry of Defence considers that British tax payers should not bear the cost of overseas tours. The Red Arrows overseas tours, representing and demonstrating the very best of British excellence, are largely met by sponsors.”

The above is a quote from the FAQ section of the official website, the very fact that they feel the need to mention this tells me that a lot of people must be questioning the costs, especially the cost to us, the British taxpayer.  It’s not what is said that I find the most interesting, it’s what’s not said.  Clearly the powers that be do not want to publicise how much money it costs to run the team.  A little bit of research on Google turned up this freedom of information act request from the beginning of last year which helps to fill in the blanks a little.

I’m certainly not against the Red Arrows, I have seen them on a number of occasions and there is no question they are an awe inspiring sight; but the glory days are gone, it’s time to face hard realities and I wonder if the public purse should be continuing to fund them in their current capacity.  At the very least, why not return the pilots and engineers to front line duties during times of conflict and allow the team to take a break.  I’m not against us displaying what a great nation we are but I don’t think we are in a position to do this as a matter of course any more.  I think questions need to be asked.

I think it’s only right to end this post in a similar way to how it started.  The Red Arrows only recruit pilots who have proved themselves on the front line, all Red Arrow pilots have seen active duty and have put themselves in harms way to preserve our way of life.  The pilot in yesterdays tragic accident was no exception, seeing action in Afghanistan piloting a Harrier GR9 prior to joining the team and it’s for that I feel he should be remembered along with all the other servicemen and women who have lost their lives in conflicts to date.

My condolences go out to his family and friends.

It would seem that manufacturers are not happy any more simply selling you a product; instead they engineer in ways to try and retain your business and force you into buying their own brand consumables and/or replacement parts.  In fairness, this makes for good business practice but for the cost conscious consumer, it’s not exactly good news.  It wasn’t so long ago that I wrote a blog post regarding Lenovo and batteries.  The Lenovo software will constantly remind you that you do not have a genuine battery if you replace yours with an aftermarket model and at the most inappropriate moment, redirect you to one of their sales sites in the hope that you will buy another genuine one.  In fact, they’ll even give you a warning that your laptop may spontaneously combust if you continue to use an aftermarket one; the fact they are made by the same manufacturer in the same factory has nothing to do with it of course, they simply want your money at their inflated prices.  It’s not just the once though, the pop ups and reminders happen time and time again.

We have an aging Canon MP140 Pixma inkjet printer.  In fairness it didn’t cost a lot and it doesn’t get much use but its ideal as a second printer for printing off draft copies of documents; of course it also acts as a scanner and photocopier which are useful features.  It was originally bought for printing photographs and actually for the cost, the results are quite impressive.  The problem comes when it’s time to replace the consumables, its astonishing the difference in price between a full set of genuine Canon ink cartridges and a set of cheap (refilled) aftermarket equivalents from the likes of ASDA or Tesco.  Of course this is all part of the master plan over at Canon (and in fairness, all the other printer manufacturers too; yes, I am referring to you Dell/Lexmark), you’re sold a relatively complex piece of kit that actually performs really well at a rock bottom price; the catch? Well the consumables are going to cost you more than the printer itself.

The printer will of course run perfectly well with non-genuine cartridges, however the printing software (both on your machine installed as part of the driver package and on the hardware controls on the printer itself) will refuse to acknowledge the presence of the new cartridges and will constantly remind you as with the Lenovo software above, that you are not using genuine Canon consumables.  In this case, every time you print you are told that your ink has run out which clearly is not the case.  It’s more frustrating than anything else, of course had I installed genuine Canon cartridges the ink level monitor would have automatically reset but now, no matter how many times I reinstall the cartridges or reset the printer; it simply keeps telling me I am out of ink even though they are new cartridges.  The same would be true if I had taken a set of empty genuine Canon cartridges to the likes of Cartridge World to be refilled; the printer is clever enough to recognise the exact cartridges and will remember that it has run out of ink.

Well I am sorry Canon; I will not be buying your cartridges because I know a way around this problem.  It’s actually quite simple all you need to do is perform a factory reset as would take place if you sent your printer back for service to fool the printer, then the levels reset and it is happy to use much cheaper, after-market consumables.

Just do the following:

• Disconnect the power supply to the printer by removing the power lead from the back
• Press and hold the Power Button whilst plugging the power lead back in, then whilst continuing to hold the button down press the Reset Button (the one with the red triangle inside the circle) twice
• Release the Power Button and after around 10 seconds the display will show ‘0’
• Press the + Button to change the value from ‘0’ to ‘1’
• Press the Colour Button; you’ll notice that both the A4 Plain Paper and A4 Photo Paper LEDs will now be on
• Make sure that there is some paper in the paper feeder
• Press the Power Button twice; the printer will now print some random information which you can discard
• Now open the printer cover (not the scanner cover) and remove the cartridges.  With the printer still open, remove the power lead from the back of the printer once again
• Close the printer cover
• Replace the power lead and press the Power Button to turn the printer back on
• Now replace the cartridges and the ink level monitor will be reset

It’s about time that manufacturers acknowledged that owing to their inflated prices buying genuine consumables are simply too prohibitive for a lot of people.  If they were to lower the cost (and let us be frank, does it really cost them that much to produce?) then I would not have an issue with them engineering in ways to try and manipulate you into buying their own consumables.  But if they insist on keeping their prices so high, stop the nagging; we aren’t fooled and we aren’t going to buy from you anyhow.  Remember a happy customer is a customer for life and above all else, the customer is always right!

I hope you find this useful.

As those of you who follow me on Twitter (@mikesouthby) will no doubt have noticed, I have been having some issues over the past month with my BT Broadband service. I’ve had BT Broadband for some time now and usually, it just works. Perhaps it’s not the cheapest solution, but having the convenience of simply having my usage charged directly to my BT account is convenient; and I’ve simply stuck with it. Of course another reason if the inclusion of the Home Hub for free which saves having to go out and purchase a router independently, the Home Hub itself isn’t a bad piece of kit and once you delve into the settings, can do most things; specification wise it even has 802.11n which is an added bonus for home networking.

The service until recently has been OK, being that I live close to my local Exchange (perhaps no more than 600m) I achieve a reasonable download speed of around 6.5Mbps off peak, although this does of course drop owing to contention during the busy periods. Recently however, the problems began.

I noticed around a month ago that randomly, my connection would disconnect and reconnect automatically, sometimes just the once and sometimes 3 or 4 times in a row. There is not particular pattern to when the problem occurs; sometimes it’s in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon and sometimes in the middle of the night. At first I simply put it down to ‘one of those things’, I mean once it had reconnected the service was again stable and would resync at the same speed so no harm done. But after a few days the novelty soon wore off, especially as I am often working over a remote connection.

It was then that I started to make a few comments on Twitter and not long after, was contacted (via Twitter) by BT Care (@BTCare). Now before I go any further, let me just say that I think it’s great that a company like BT are moving with the times and communicating with their customers through modern channels such as Twitter, but as I have learnt over the last few weeks, they let themselves down miserably by not keeping me (or others like me) informed as to what is going on, or even more frustrating, give standard responses that in no way make any sense in relation to the thread of conversation that preceded; it’s almost as if they do not read all of the messages that you send, or that they do not have the ability to group them together into conversational threads and thus, making it easier for them to help.

Back to the problem.

After a few tweets to and fro, I was told that an engineer would need to visit my house to investigate the issue – I already had a good idea what the issue may be but understand that an engineer visit was required – and was given a PM slot on Tues 3rd August. Tuesday comes, Tuesday goes. No engineer arrives and the disconnect/reconnect cycles continue. So I contact BT Care again through Twitter:

• Me: (03/08 18:12) @BTCare Thanks for organising appt. just a shame no-one turned up. Wasted afternoon off work. Still, it’s only money hey? #frustrated
• Me: (03/08 20:06) @BTCare So no visit from engineer today as promised and connection still dropping. Please advise
• Me: (03/03 22:25) @BTCare More drops tonight guys, can this PLEASE be sorted
• BTCare: (04/03 12:27) @mikesouthby That’s not good. I have checked the fault today and another engineer visit is required. Can you tweet me when would be convenient

Another engineer visit is required? No mention of the one who never arrived funnily enough. Still, I need the issue resolved so again, say that I will make myself available at any time convenient for the next engineer to visit.

• Me: (04/03 12:48) @BTCare Another? What happened to the one who DIDN’T turn up yesterday? Again, I am flexible for rebooking.
• BTCare: (04/03 15:15) @mikesouthby I am really sorry the engineer didn’t show yesterday. When would be best for you for the visit. Let me know and I will get on it

Well, it’s good that I finally get an acknowledgement about the engineer not arriving, but surely if they had read my previous tweet they would have read that I am flexible for an appointment instead of having to ask again when I am available. Do they read all my tweets I wonder.

• Me: (04/03 15:25) @BTCare As mentioned in my tweet this morning, I am flexible so to suit
• BTCare: (04/03 15:45) @mikesouthby I have booked an engineer visit for tomorrow between 8am and 1pm. Drop me a tweet to let me know if this doesn’t suit
• Me: (04/03 18:23) @BTCare OK thanks, let’s hope they remember to come this time lol
• BTCare: (05/08 09:36) @mikesouthby I’m sure they will :) Keep me posted

So later on the 5th, a BT Openreach engineer arrives as promised. He asks me what the issue is and I explain it to him, I also say that I think it is most likely a dodgy leg on the line card (having worked on many ADSL installations, I have encountered this a few times); he agrees. However, to be sure he runs all of the various tests that he can on my installation and heads off to the Exchange satisfied that there are no issues here and that the line card is the most likely problem. We’d already discussed changing my routing and moving my connection onto another line card, he said that he would have to contact my provider (BT ironically, you’d have thought it would have been simple, left hand talking to right hand and all) from the Exchange and ask permission to move me. He says he’ll call me with the outcome. Back to Twitter:

• Me: (05/08 10:55) @BTCare Engineer has been, suspected line card issue, as thought. At Exchange now seeking permission to change routing from powers that be

A while later he calls and says that my provider would not allow him to move the connection but was already aware of my problem and had been monitoring the disconnections for a while (like no really, thanks, although I would have preferred you to have done something about it instead of just being ‘aware’ of it waiting to see if I would notice and complain), he went on to say that they would change the latency on my line and see if that made a difference, and would continue to monitor the line for a few days. Back to Twitter once more:

• Me: (05/08 12:08) @BTCare Update. Provider says no to change of routing, instead is reducing speed to compensate for drops. Not best outcome! Will monitor…

Sure enough, later that day during another disconnect and reconnect I notice that my latency changed from Fastpath to Interleaved.

The engineer says that there is nothing else he can do although we both ‘agree’ that changing to another line card would have been a better option; line cards do occasionally cause issues and moving connections onto another so it can be rebuilt is the right way to solve the problem. Let me try and explain it by using an analogy. Imagine driving down the road in your car and out of the blue the engine starts making noises; remembering that until that moment in time the car has been reliable, and hasn’t made any noises that it shouldn’t have done. You’re now faced with two options, you either get your car fixed (obviously the best choice as it shouldn’t be making noises) or alternatively, you overcome the problem by turning the stereo up so you can’t hear it anymore. Of course this essentially is what BT have done, changing the latency will have the effect of making the line less sensitive to error and – they were hoping – stop the disconnections.

Let me try and explain Latency for those who may not fully understand it. There are 2 types of error correction on ADSL; normal forward error correction or FEC, which is based on a set algorithm and Interleaving, which is set on longer lines (by distance) if the line has noise above a prerequisite level. Interleaving complements FEC. During showtime, Fastpath is up to level 2, anything required above level 2 to keep FEC working properly and interleaving will be applied automatically at varying levels up to level 32. High levels of interleaving plus the FEC can cause latency (decrease in speed), even though in theory this will only be in milliseconds.

On a long and/or noisy connection turning off Interleaving (or changing latency type to Fastpath) can cause disconnections. Frequent disconnections can result in the reduction of your IP Profile and throughput/download speeds.

In my case, I live what is deemed to be close to my Exchange (around 600m) and my house is less than 2 years old on one of the many new housing developments in North Swindon. The engineer who visited ironically said he remembered working on installing some of the copper in and around the estate, certainly he said I should have no distance or copper quality issues where I live. What does this prove? Well, coupled with the fact that until now I have had a fast, stable connection with latency set to Fastpath, it means that I should not need my latency changed to Interleave; the distance to the exchange is not long enough, the installation in my house is new enough and neither distance nor age should have a detrimental issue on my connection causing noise or error. The problem didn’t develop, it appeared overnight. In essence, it means that the ‘solution’ given to the engineer by the provider is like turning the stereo up in the example above. The proper solution would be to identify and remedy the problem; the most likely cause would be a developing fault on the line card.

So later that evening, the Twitter thread continues:

• Me: (05/08 19:08) @BTCare More drops. Latency has been changed from Fastpath to Interleaved this evening. Fixing, not overcoming would be preferred
• BTCare: (05/08 19:49) @mikesouthby Hi I checked with our suppliers and they have confirmed everything is now fixed. Tweet me to let me know if this is the case
• Me: (05/08 19:51) @BTCare Not so. Was told they would monitor and leave open. Also, line dropped 45mins ago! What time did they say it was resolved?

Next day and no response, this is where I found the lack of communication start to become frustrating. If a company is to use social media such as Twitter, then it has to do it correctly, not to do so will have a negative effect on what they are trying to achieve; it would have been quicker and less stressful to revert back to the old method at this stage and use the phone (well it is good to talk, right?)

• Me: (06/08 10:03) @BTCare More drops already this morning, and sluggish connectivity. Becoming more frustrating by the day #btbroadband #fail
• BTCare: (06/08 10:24) @mikesouthby Hmm strange, the fault has been closed & all looks good from this end. Are you still experiencing drop outs? Let me know

Evidently, they did not read my tweet less than 20 minutes previously where I clearly stated I was continuing to have issues.

• Me: (06/08 10:36) @BTCare Please READ my tweets before furnishing me with generic responses. If you had, you’d have read ‘more drops already this morning’…

I must have upset them at this stage as they chose to ignore me for the rest of the day. The random disconnections persist and using BTs own speed check test, I get random results, often dropping down as low as 0.69Mbps which on a line with a downstream sync of 8,128kbps is pretty poor. I get my next contact on Saturday morning, again via Twitter:

• BTCare: (07/08 09:54) @mikesouthby I have let the engineers know the problem still exits, updates to come, also if you haven’t used an i-plate,see tiny.cc/1zftp
• Me: (07/08 11:07) @BTCare No, not used an i-plate. Lots of drops today already
• BTCare: (07/08 13:58) @mikesouthby Hey, i tested it and seen the dropouts, i want to get an engineer out to look at it, when would be suitable?

I found this quite funny. So they test my line from their end and can clearly see all of the disconnections, would this not have been a good idea a few nights before when they were happy to close the case; surely it would have made sense to have run a quick check then to make sure for themselves that they were being given good information. Another engineer? I wonder if this one will arrive. Trying to remain positive, I again give them total flexibility in the dates so that I am not causing a delay by not being available.

• Me: (07/08 18:15) @BTCare Anytime I am flexible, just let me know
• Me: (07/08 19:09) @BTCare Can I pre-request a switch to another line card at the Exchange, I suspect this to be the issue. Perhaps it needs rebuilding…
• BTCare: (08/08 16:25) @mikesouthby Hi I have booked an engineer visit for tomorrow between 1 pm and 6 pm. Drop me a tweet if this doesn’t suit
• BTCare: (09/08 11:57) @mikesouthby The engineer will decide during the visit how best to resolve the issue. I’ll tweet you this evening to see how it went :)

I thought it would be good to mention the line card issue directly to BT Care, whether they made a note of this in the case notes I’m not sure, but surely by now they would want to do whatever they could to resolve the issue and get me off their case! Monday comes, Monday goes. No engineer.

At this point I start to get quite angry. I know for a fact if I had not been available when an engineer arrived at a pre-booked time I would have been given the standard £50 invoice for wasting their time, well guess what BT, my time is valuable too and I have already taken 3 half days off by now to wait in for engineers, of which 2 have not arrived. I’d charge business clients £45 an hour so I’m sure you can imagine what’s next:

• Me: (09/08 18:03) @BTCare So yet again the engineer has not turned up. Not happy. Who do I send the invoice to for MY time? #btbroadband #btcare#bt #fail

I get no response.

• Me: (10/08 10:08) @BTCare Still awaiting a response re: yesterdays engineer who didn’t turn up, again. You also said you would contact be last night & didn’t
• BTCare: (10/08 11:24) @mikesouthby Hi our suppliers are currently working on this at the moment. I will tweet you later today once I know more
• Me: (10/08 11:51) @BTCare More drops, expect progress 2day or complaint being filed with #ofcom. This has been going on far 2 long with 2 many false promises
• BTCare: (10/08 15:56) @mikesouthby Hi another engineer appointment is required.Slots are Monday-Friday either AM8:00-13:00 or PM13:00-18:00 let me know what suits
• Me: (10/08 16:37) @BTCare Anytime. I expect them to arrive this time. You still haven’t let me know where to send the invoice for my time for the 2 non shows
• Me: (10/08 16:41) @BTCare Can you also DM me an email address for your complaints dept., and the names of the people who have been dealing with this, thanks
• Me: (10/08 19:04) @BTCare Can you please confirm the appointment details, thanks
• Me: (10/08 22:04) @BTCare Still waiting on an update for engineer booking please?

Finally I get a response this afternoon.

• BTCare: (11/08 13:47) @mikesouthby I’ve booked engineer appointment for tomorrow 12/08/10 PM (13:00-18:00) Let me know if this doesn’t suit. Thanks
• Me: (11/08 14:05) @BTCare No, that’s fine thank you

So there we are; I wonder if the engineer will turn up tomorrow.

My experiences with BT Care over the last couple of weeks have highlighted to me an inherent issue with the way companies are embracing new technologies, Twitter in particular. It seems to be the ‘cool’ thing for companies to complement their online presence with Twitter, Facebook and other similar forms of communication. It’s great; but only if it’s done right.

The moral of the story is that if you do not have the resources or manpower to effectively use Twitter, then don’t. At first I was singing BT’s praises for approaching me about my problem after tweeting, but this has now been tarnished into a frustration that will be hard to shift. I find it hard to praise their efforts when my tweets often go unnoticed or unread. As for not giving me the details of who I need to complain to when asked, that’s inexcusable for such a large company (well, any company actually).

I guess I’ll find out tomorrow if my problem is going to be fixed as it should have been on the very first engineers visit, but regardless, BT you must do better. Either put more people on the BT Care team to work with Twitter if understaffing is the issue, develop a better system of working or educate your staff to better their Customer Service skills.

Rant over.