The grumpy thread

[castros_bro]

Just had my AA renewal, gone up from £6 a month to £15.90! How the fekk do they justify that. I know that I can get it for the new customer rate, but that is still £9.60. 50% increase.  Seems bloody ridiculous to me.

 

Doesn't help that I haven't slept at all since Thursday and I'm buggered and a bit grumpy.

 

You could try going through a cashback website like

 

*http://www.topcashback.co.uk/aa_uk_breakdown/

 

I got  36GBP back from a 102GBP annual renewal

 

 

 

 

 

*Other websites are available but may contain porn or Citroens.

[r.welfare]

Just ring 'em up and tell them you'll renew for the same price a new member would get the same level of cover for, which is on their website. It'll drop the price by 50% or so.

 

I've been doing this every single year I've been an AA member. They rely on folk not to check the small print or read the renewal letter.

[Ratdat]

What's on with the AA? They wanted to put Mrs Ratdat's insurance up by 50% despite absolutely no changes in her status or vehicle. Or at least they would have done had they not got told to poke it up their backside. Because they were also such dicks about it, I'm going to tell them to shove their breakdown cover come renewal time too. I'll be sure to let them know why as well. Greedy bastards.

[Lankytim]

Rossenfails "professional" debt collectors have sent me another begging letter regarding an unpaid sorn fine. This one says pretty much the same as the other 6 or so but this time they've used a larger font with some words in capitals and in red ink. They must have got a colour printer now. The wife opened this one so now i'm getting earache over it. I can't wait for a so called debt collector to knock on so I can tell him to refer it back to the DVLA as its in dispute.

[Cavcraft]

My old workmate chinned a cocky debt collector once, they never chased him for the money after that. This might/not work in your situation.

[Sloth in a bowl]

My Skoda has an SD card slot for the sound system and I look at the book to see what size card I can throw at it.

The book says SDXC (i.e. 64GB card so I can have all my CDs on one card) so I buy a 64GB card (£7 off e-bay) and does it work, does it bollocks.

 

Now doing a low level reformat of the card to NTFS to see if that will fool the system into working.

Me and my first world problems.

 

 

Also clearing the front garden for the arrival of the Sunday Spannering team this afternoon and found a dead rat in the foliage, nice.

[Lacquer Peel]

Do you think the £7 eBay  SD card might be a knock-off?

[Sloth in a bowl]

Well the PC can read the card and add files to it and play files off it, so it works to some extent.

but I will agree that it is not exactly branded with any manufacturers marks

[chaseracer]

The AA is a small part of a global 'financial services' organisation, which happens to have an inefficient breakdown outfit loosely attached as a hook for your personal data.

[HH-R]

I got AA breakdown free with my home insurance. First time I've ever broken down but I phoned them and they said it would be about 40 minutes. Almost TWO HOURS later they sent a contractor. They rang to see if I was happy and I said the service I got was fine, but the waiting in the freezing cold in a broken down car from 11pm to 1am wasn't the best. The neighbours weren't exactly jumping for joy either when a loud truck drops a car off at nearly 2am. Ever since I've been hounded by them for pay extra for AA Relay. I broke down about five miles from home and told them I don't drive very far but still the texts and phone calls continue. They can get lost.

[michael1703]

Cars...

 

My cars that are falling apart

 

Customers moaning about how much their car owes them

 

Storage of too many cars

 

Cars....

[michael1703]

Hit a bird while out in the vectra.

Felt it hit, then the bulb warning light illuminated - n/s fog light inoperative.

Bulb was £7, you can only get to the light by partially dropping the underbelly panel - just as well i had to go looking as the wires to the light had chafed very badly on the panel - i had to get the electrical tape out.

I would'nt have been as keen except that the MOT is due on Monday.

Not a testable item

[overrun]

Boring twats in bloated, plastic moderns ruining every decent road, by driving like scared bitches and being unable to stay on their own side of the road.

[dave21478]

So yesterday was spent shearing half a dozen sheep for a friend - no thats not a euphemism. Now, while sheep look nice and soft and fluffy as you drive past the field, the reality is that their wool is very oily and it stinks, I mean proper stinks.

Once done, I flung my boilersuit into the washing machine and I put it on today with plenty of soap on a hot wash. It would seem the the sheep oils, soap, hot water and churning have combined to create a vast amount of foam which my washing machine has jizzed all over the floor. The pantry now looks like an Ibiza foam party happened.

However, the foam has a definite whiff of mutton about it, which when combined with the perfume smell of the detergent gives a proper "Essex minge" smell for the full Club 18-30 effect.

 

The sooner boffins invent 3d printed lamb chops the better - sheep can FRO.

[rml2345]

Rossenfails "professional" debt collectors have sent me another begging letter regarding an unpaid sorn fine. This one says pretty much the same as the other 6 or so but this time they've used a larger font with some words in capitals and in red ink. They must have got a colour printer now. The wife opened this one so now i'm getting earache over it. I can't wait for a so called debt collector to knock on so I can tell him to refer it back to the DVLA as its in dispute.

If they send someone to the door for £80 I'd be massively impressed as it'll cost them that just to send the guy round. I call baws on their threat.

[Negative Creep]

I had them chasing me years ago, sent this letter and never heard from them again

 

 

 

Dear Sir/Madam

This matter is in dispute with the DVLA as I was not the owner of this vehicle at the time the alleged offence occurred. I previously contacted the DVLA on xxxx explaining this and requiring them to prove liability in court. They have not yet done so.

 

Because of this, you must now return the matter to the DVLA immediately for them to establish liability. By law you have no legal powers to demand a debt without an accompanying court order. Until and unless liability is established in court, any further correspondence from you, Inter Credit Limited or whichever organisation claims to be recovering the alleged debt will not be answered but will be filed as evidence of harassment as defined in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. I will also report this matter to the Solicitors Regulation Authority as breaches of rules 1 (Core Duties) and 10 (Relations With Third Parties) of the Solicitor’s Code of Conduct.

[The Moog]

New tapatalk is rubbish. Really liked the old one ..

[xtriple]

Just had to take my little lass to the vets again, she's got 'wandering lameness'.  She loses a leg for a day or two, then a different one for a day or two and so on. Had a terrible time with her over the weekend where she was crying every time she moved. The situation is very complicated by the fact that she is TERRIFIED of everyone, and that she was really ill a couple of years ago and had peritonitus and lost loads of bits from her insides (spleen, kidney, half her stomach and bowels etc) and there's only so many risks we want to take withe her.

 

I always take her to see the same vet (Claire) that saved her life and nursed her for three weeks solid - even coming in over weekends to look after her and she knows Phoebe well. She reckons it's either a bacterial infection or auto-immune. She's put her on 4 weeks of anti-biotics and the drugs alone just cost £147 for those 4 weeks. More to come as it's a 6 week course.

 

Bloody dogs are chuffing expensive, especially when all she cost in the first place was a shotgun cartridge! Cruel man needed threatening.....

[nigel bickle]

Heart goes out X triple. My Gt Dane/Alsation needs metacam & Diazepam in huge doses -to keep his autism under control; greatly exacerbated by the recent loss of his long temr Guardian, when cancer finally got her.

 

They break your heart, ravage your wallet- but life without?  Empty.

 

Good luck. I hope it all goes well. 

[Ratdat]

Peritonitis is quite nasty in both cats and dogs. We had a lovely Burmese cat who contracted Feline Infectious Peritonitis and sadly had to be put down. It was heartbreaking watching him wasting away. Unfortunately in cats it's always eventually fatal. RIP Tiggy

 

[Negative Creep]

Vet bills do terrify me. As much as I love mine I know he's one injury or illness away from vomiting on the great carpet in the sky.

[Bobthebeard]

Vet bills do terrify me. As much as I love mine I know he's one injury or illness away from vomiting on the great carpet in the sky.

Pet insurance may be your friend.... Providing you meet all the stupidly restrictive T&C of course.....

[xtriple]

When Pheebs had peritonitus, they didn't think she'd make it. The vast majority of dogs, cats and people don't, it was purely down to the care she received at the vets and at home (being fed every two hours day and night by syringe as she wouldn't eat and apparently, the stomach receives no nutrients from the blood, solely from the food eaten, so no eating results in the stomach dying!) and she nearly snuffed it several times. The bill was HORRENDEOUS! Fortunately she was insured for up to £3000 for a single claim (Sainsburys) and we still had to pay another couple on top of that. Sainsburys were brilliant and just coffed up without a quibble... they didn't seem very keen to renew her insurance the next year though!

 

So far, she's had her first dose and seems... better? Claire said not to expect any dramatic improvement for a couple of weeks so I'm obviously deluding myself, but I really hope we can get this sorted out.

 

Choice between the dogs and the Bentley? I'll be walking!

[dave21478]

Man, that makes me appreciate even more how lucky I am with the local vet here.

 

Quite a few times I had to take my clumsy dog to him for various "stood on something spiky" injuries and once for quite a large operation when she sprouted a big lump on her tits. Having a little knowledge of vets pricing from UK, I expected a bill for several hundred, but each time he would tap away at his calculator, muttering under his breath and come up with a total of anywhere from 50 to 90 euros. I was always gobsmacked each time.

 

Apparently, since this is a hillbilly farming area and he spends most of his time with his arm up a cows arse or treating injured hunting dogs, which are generally kept in terrible conditions, its such a pleasure for him to work on an obviously loved pet that he only ever charges his materials costs.

 

A true gentleman. He is from Madagascar and sadly will be retiring and going home in a couple of years.

 

 

Here she is, looking less than pleased after coming home from getting her tits chopped off.

 

[dollywobbler]

Today, I have been battling sodding technology. I've been getting on quite nicely with Linux, but have finally reached the stage that I've encountered enough compatibility issues to have me running back to Microsoft.

 

Which is bloody hopeless. So far today, my laptop has crashed more times that it has done all year, and it picked up some nasty virus before I got the anti-virus programmes lined up. Also, I backed up my files with encryption on Linux and now can't access them. Gah!

 

I thought I'd be clever and re-install Linux as a second operating system, but the install keeps crashing and I've had enough of technology for one day. 

 

It's ok though as I can read Jeffery Deaver's James Bond novel. Which is a shame as it's crap. I want to be back at yesterday's music festival. Just great music, often spontaneous and acoustic, and lots of lovely hippy chicks. What more do you need?

[tooSavvy]

Win7 = FTW

 

TS

[dollywobbler]

It is Windows 7. Takes sooooo long to boot up and I'm having to frantically update all drivers to try and stop it crashing. Rubbish.

[fordperv]

No one local sells the cages that go behind your letterbox to catch your post what an utter pee take, now I have to order one online and wait

[drum]

I H9 Win7. I need a brain upgrade.

[Pillock]

wolly, try leaving Win7 on there but using a live Linux boot CD to see if that gets you access to your files. If you only need one last hurrah for Linux it saves multi-booting because that never seems to work out in the long run.

 

As for the pet thing, agreed that they're a sinkhole of time and money - but would never be without. Looks like someone has taken a pot-shot at our cat recently, he's been acting a bit weird for a couple of days but stroking him today found quite a deep gouge on his neck. Too wide to be a cat claw through fighting. Doesn't feel like there's anything under the skin, but this wouldn't be the first time one of the cats here has been targetted.  Or second, or third. Last time we even got to keep the pellet as a souvenir. 

 

As a coincidence, the guy three doors up has an air rifle and does target practice in his garden. Not saying nuffink.....