postal

Payment methods ? . . .

/ Tony / Leave a comment

We had an invoice to pay to the Local Authority(LA). Not a problem I thought. Wrong!! There were several ways to pay, the most obvious one being a BACS transfer. It is safe and so easy that an 87 year can do it without an issue.

Not so in this case. Usually, I would go onto my banking website, enter the payee bank details, the amount and a reference number. On this occasion, the payee account was a collection service (whatever that means) with an account number consisting of simply zeros. I would also be required to email a “remittance advice” to the Local Authority showing the payment details. Not the kind of thing that should be sent by email. Also, I don’t remember receiving any “remittance advice” when I made payments before.

The next option was “Telephone Banking“. This was a 24/7 payment line, which meant it was an automated payment system. I have worked in the Local Authority and know that these automated systems often “misplace” payments. So that was out.

Option three was to visit the LA’s website and pay online, following the “… simple on-screen instructions …”. Unfortunately these instructions did not exist in the same format as on the invoice. Option four was to pay by cash at the Post Office which was another non-starter.

So we are left with a Postal option. I have to write a cheque, write the invoice number on it and post it. No pre-addressed envelope and certainly no pre-payment on the envelope. Given that technology has moved on so far over the past few years it seems very strange that the oldest payment method (that I have ever used) is the prime method. Looking for to paying in groats and shackles in the not so distant future

It’s that time again . . .

/ Tony / 5 Comments

That time of the year when the Politicos send forth their minions to fill our recycling bins with promises that most have no intention of keeping. Today it was the Green Party, whose candidate claims to be a local person. Last week it was the Conservative Party. Next week we get something from the Liberal Democrats together with some of the more niche or ‘weird’ parties, as I like to call them. If the last local elections are anything to go by, then there will little or even nothing from the local Labour Party.

This time, we have elected to have a postal vote. The polling station will be open but it will be easier to do it by post. I seem to remember reading about a local bye-election early last year where most of the voters had to queue, in the rain for an average of 40 minutes. Anyone I have mentioned this to have asked if I’m not worried about the postal vote. “They might get lost in the post!” was one comment. “How do you know it will get counted?” was another. How does anyone know that their vote at the polling station gets counted? If you’re not doing the counting then you don’t know and have to rely on the integrity of the counter. Then you get the ‘conspiracy theorists’ that warn you that “They will know who you are, where you are and who you voted for!” Do I really care? Not a jot! They have already sent me the voting instructions, so ‘they’ already know who and where I am, and I don’t really care if they know who I voted for.

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I gave myself a pat on the back for yesterdays post. Within a few minutes of posting, a message came up informing me that the post had been number 1000.🎉 I knew it was getting close, but I hadn’t looked at my stats page for a while, so it came as a pleasant surprise.

So this becomes the first post of the next 1000. Hope I make it 🤔.

Can’t keep shifting the blame …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

I don’t know what has happened to our postal service over the past few months. I know coronavirus has a lot to answer for, but twelve months down the line, you can’t keep blaming it for the current issues. We seem to have seen an increase in issues over the past two months.

Back in November, a parcel was delivered to the wrong address and annoyingly the people at that address moved house just a day or so after the parcel had been delivered. Since then two more, smaller parcels have gone astray. Last week three bank statements, all with the same address were delivered to three different addresses. One came to us and the other two went to neighbours at either side of us. The week before, K***’s new bank debit card was delivered to someone in the next street. We even had a letter from the DWP hand delivered by someone in the next village. It is not good.

On Friday, the post did not get delivered until just before 2pm. Now I’m old enough to remember when we used to get a second post, which was usually around mid-day, but that’s not really acceptable, considering how little is actually being delivered by the Royal Mail.

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I received a reply back from WordPress support regarding my ‘suggestions’ for the desktop app. I get the impression that it was a standard reply. Basically thanking me ‘for reaching out‘ and for my ‘feed-back‘. I am told that they ‘...can’t say whether or when they’d be implemented, but consider them noted…’ which is better than nothing. I do hope they consider them, as the app could be a great asset.

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Youngest son did come home for the weekend on Friday, which was great news. Because right up until his car and support worker pulled up outside the house, I had a very odd feeling that it may not come off. But he was in a happy mood when he got here and S**, his key support worker and friend, said that he was so happy that he could come home and see us. He will go back on Monday sometime and hopefully he will be home again in two weeks. His regular ‘home visit‘ pattern is to come to us every other Friday for three nights, but outbreaks of the virus at his care-home put paid to that again. So as long as there are no outbreaks on his unit and we stay clear, it could be back to normal(ish).