Scammers | The Gremlins Umbrella Authority

Vodafone: Bad Business

December 14, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: Advice, My Views, Reviews, Scammers | Comments (0)

It has been a while since I have posted anything of merit. I will try my hardest to start producing some more informative content.

Independent of where you originate from, you will have more than likely heard of Vodafone: the mobile phone carrier originally set up within the UK in the eighties.
Over the years they have gone from strength to strength, last tax year earning a post tax profit in excess of £3 billion. Running businesses within 20 different countries, and employing 79,000 worldwide gives off a general aura of a well run business. Wrong.

Now I appreciate wholly that I am a tiny fish in the grand scheme of things, however a sample of ‘me’ suggested that 100% of Vodafone customers were extremely disappointed. Stats do not lie !

I have been a Vodafone contract customer for the past 18 months. Prior to that, I had previous contracts with them. My family all have mobile contracts, and the majority of them are with Vodafone. We give them a few thousand quid a year, so logically they would want our custom right? Nope.

Having lost my phone, I decided to get a new contract. My previous contract expired in 3 months, so compared to what it could have been, it was a minimal financial loss.
Thus, knowing I could not cancel my contract I went into Vodafone to change my contract to a lower tariff. I.E Rather than spend £35 a month on a phone I did not have, simply spend £15: a saving of £20 monthly for 3 months.
After ‘a period of time which made the effort not worth it’ the woman told me I could only reduce my contract by £5 a month. I stated that with previous contracts we had reduced the contract in one lump, but she was having none of it. Essentially Vodafone wanted to make £30 extra out of me over a 3 month period by making ‘me saving money’ excessively complicated.

What Vodafone in fact did is make me decide that I did not in fact want to take out another contract with them. On the assumption I would have taken out a £30 monthly contract for 18 months, they lost a whopping £510 for having no business sense. Further to this, I have informed all family members to stay away from Vodafone when getting a new contract. We can multiply that number by 5, and state that Vodafone will essentially lose £2,500 bi-anually (minimum), and it is all their fault.

I am ridiculously stubborn, and business acumen influenced. Vodafone have ticked every box for me as a company NEVER to deal with.

ACS Law: Manipulative Cons.

September 5, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: Scammers | Comments (0)

There are an abundance of online scams going on, ranging from the tedious ‘Nigerian Lottery’ emails, to the increasingly more common ‘Domain Appraisal Scam’. Given that I do quite a bit online, I have been made aware of these scams. Fortunately for me I tend not to fall for them.

Admittedly there are also a lot of offline scams. I, however, have never experienced one apart from on the box in the form of TV Show ‘Watchdog’ (here in Britain). That was up until, well, about 2 months ago.

My father received a letter from ACS Law. It went along the lines of ‘We want £500 from you because on random date you downloaded a Scooter song from a P2P Network’. The first clarification that needs to be made here is that no-one in my family has ever used a P2P network. The second clarification is that when we do BUY music through Itunes, nowhere in our playlists would you find ‘Scooter’. Do people actually listen to Scooter?!

I took a look on google, and there are a lot of threads at various problem about this ‘offline spam’. I am unsure how names, and addresses have been acquired, but there does seem to be some serious automation going on here such that in our A4 envelope, we actually had the exact same letter with a different name on it!

Unfortunately it seems people are getting scared, and paying these fines. This seemed absolutely preposterous to me.. why pay for something you did not do. None the less, as the claims were false we simply ignored the letter.

Today we got another letter along the lines of ‘We are still pursuing our false claims, and want to damage any reputation we have left’. We were given a lowdown of 7 days to pay or be taken to court.

Father wanted to reply along the lines of ‘Go away, we didn’t do nothin !’. I, being the diplomat, went on google again, and looked up suggested responses. We downloaded a template letter from Being Threatened, and will pop it in the post tomorrow. Then it is a waiting game to see what happens. Kudos to whoever set that site up as it saved me a lot of time, and effort.

The letters they sent out are legally binding, it would have been foolish to ignore it once again. Just imagine if somehow, someone was allowed to spam.. and it was legal.

Media companies, fair play to want to defend your rights, but hiring companies like this with their disgusting scare tactics only does you damage, and destroys your credibility. Who on earth will support an industry that threatens the innocent? No-one.

Just Sport and Leisure Review: Scammers !

March 23, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: Scammers | Comments (1)

In preparation for my travels around the world, I embarked on the difficult task of purchasing any kit which could be of use.

I bought (amongst other things): a backpack, a mosquito net, a travel towel, a portable safe (don’t ask), and a wallet.

I bought from a variety of well known companies, and a few smaller companies with a good reputation on ebay. The wallet I wanted was unfortunately only available from one UK store: ‘Just Sport and Leisure‘ (www.justsportandleisure.com). I thus purchased the item, and paid with my debit card on 12th March 2009. This was actually the first thing I ordered.

For the rest of the week, I continued researching products, and bought some. They all promptly arrived: 2,3 days maximum. Some companies surprised me, and delivered my orders within 12 hours !

As I had so many orders with so many companies I to some extent lost track. On Saturday 21st March, I confirmed that i had received everything EXCEPT the wallet from ‘Just Sport and Leisure’. I promptly phoned them, the lines were closed. I thus sent an email, I did not receive a reply. What I did however receive was a rude, and abrupt phone call this morning.

From what I managed to decipher, the gentlemen on the phone essentially said that they had not started processing my order. They said that they had started it today, and payment had not gone through. I pointed out in a stern manner I had been waiting 2 weeks ! and that it was too late now. He replied in a snarly manner it has ONLY been 11 days ! The cheek !

I thus pointed out I no longer had any use for the product. He confirmed that I wanted to cancel the order, and hung up ! I was shocked.

The lowdown of the situation is that if you buy from ‘Just Sport and Leisure’ (www.justsportandleisure.com), you can expect to wait in excess of 2 weeks before they actually start processing your order ! They will of course charge a ridiculous fee for package, and postage, yet they don’t seem to actually have any intention of packing and sending your products.
Their staff are rude, and snide. There is a feeling that you are literally dealing with 3, 40 or so men, in a basement, who honestly could not give a crap.

Avoid ‘Just Sport and Leisure’ at all costs !

Rocco Mancini: None paying bidder.

March 21, 2009 | Written by -GRUMBA- | Topic: Scammers | Comments (0)

This is the first post in the new ‘Scammers’ category.

There are too many unprofessional people in the business. We need to increase awareness, and get rid of these people.
Any, and all people who don’t act professionally will have their information documented in this category.

Google likes my blog, and ranks well. Thus these posts should easily make the top page of google for the respective name.
We can stop these people hurting the industry further.

Please forward any information regarding ‘Scammers’ via our contact page.

Rocco Mancini purchased two domain names from me via ebay. He then proceeded not to pay for them, after stating that he would.
After 10 days of none payment I politely requested payment, and explained the repercussions associated with non-payment. So far I have waited 15 days without reply.

Rocco Mancini
110 Rockland Ave.
Waterbury, CT 06708
United States
rocco.mancini@snet.net
+1 2037537222

Avoid at all costs !