Justice Gets Attacked In Marion, Indiana
This is a rather funny story, about a drone that went AWOL.
Zopa Goes Automatic
Zopa has introduced a product called Safeguard. Read what Which says about it here. Here’s the first paragraph.
Zopa, the UK’s leading peer-to-peer (P2P) site, has today announced it has created a ‘safeguard’ to pay out to lenders even if a borrower defaults on the money owed.
Having just put some money into the new product, it would appear that the process is now totally add money and accumulate the interest.
The most interesting thing about this product, is why if an independent company can give a rate of return of 5% or so, why can’t the banks?
Go figure!
Wonga Fraud Claims Grow
The BBC Watchdog programme is reporting increasing fraud based around Wonga. Here’s the introduction.
There’s been a growing number of complaints from victims about bank fraud, according to the BBC’s Watchdog programme.
It says it has heard from more than 350 people who claim their accounts have been raided for loans they didn’t take out.
They include 16-year-old student Simon Oliver from East Sussex.
“I was at Gatwick airport on a school trip and went to pay for some food and my card didn’t work,” he said.
It strikes me, that Wonga aren’t doing their checks correctly, as obviously, the sixteen year old, who was defrauded shouldn’t have been able to take out a long.
One point is that, the money has been loaned to a different bank account to the one where the payments are taken.
Surely, Wonga, do check bank accounts thoroughly! It looks like they don’t!
I just checked with a guy I know, who’s run finance companies and only in very rare circumstances, would you send the loan to one account and get the repayments for another. Usually, it was a commercial loan, where Director’s guarantees were involved.
I’ve not heard of this fraud being perpetrated on a reputable loan company.
The Cleanest Cash Point In The World?
I saw this cash point at the branch of Barclays in Rose Green on my trip to Bognor.
The Cleanest Cash Point In The World?
I’ve never seen one so clean. it was also very welcome, as I needed to get some money.
More Spanish Practices
This story from the Daily Mail, asks if it is the biggest scandal in doping history. Even Andy Murray is laying into the row, as the first paragraphs say.
Andy Murray last night hit out at a Spanish judge who ordered evidence relating to one of the biggest doping rings in history to be destroyed.
Britain’s No 1 tennis player called the decision to dump more than 200 blood bags from stars in a number of sports as ‘the biggest cover-up in sports history’ and said it was a ‘joke’.
Sometimes you think that there is one law for Spain and one law for everybody else.
Bognor Is Just Like Felixstowe
it was an uneventful trip to Bognor, except for the loss of the pen. And all at a ticket cost of just £14.75 in a very clean train.
The only excitement on the way down was two Dutch tourists, who in killing time changing planes at Gatwick, decided they’d visit Crawley. Surely, there must be something better to do at the Airport!
Here are some of the pictures I took.
It could all have been Felixstowe, as I remember it as a child.
That town wasn’t the best place to be a teenager. Especially, where you had no transport, buses were rare and there were about three trains a day.
At least Bognor had a bus to get me back to the train station, which seemed to run about every fifteen minutes. I needed the bus, as I’d probably walked about three miles.
Once off the sea-front, I only passed one pub. And I think, I only saw two in the first mile or so, whilst in the town centre.
Did King George V liked a drink, and couldn’t find any in the town? Hence his supposed remarks.
Perhaps, James Joyce went there to stay sober enough to write Finnegan’s Wake.
Is It Illegal To Sell Pens In Stations?
Yesterday, I dropped my pen on the way to Clapham Junction station.
So I thought, I’d buy one there!
But I couldn’t, despte trying about six of the many kiosks in the station.
I got no luck!
In fact, I don’t think I’ve managed to buy a nice standard-issue Bic biro in a station in perhaps the last ten years.
In the end, I bought two in a small general store in Bognor.
But that’s a long way to go for a pen!
I did ask the ticket collector on the train and he said he’d had to buy one himself before he started work. He certainly didn’t think that they were ever used for attacks on staff or other passengers.
I think the solution is to have pen dispensers on stations, where say for a pound or two, you can get a suitable pen. All profits could go to a charity like Railway Children.
Were The Pilgrim Fathers From Essex?
This story started in the Times yesterday and was repeated here in the Telegraph, which throws Grimsby into the mix.
So you can take your pick from any of a number of places!
The choice is yours!
The Anonymous Widower 