A Proven Scam: Engineering and Consultancy Services
I few days ago I had an e-mail purporting to come from a Bryan Green at this company.
Hello,
It’s Bryan Green, ENGINEERING & CONSULTANCY SERVICES, HR manager.
We found your e-mail in the base of applicants for a job. If you are not in search of a job and not interested in extra earnings, ignore this letter please and I’m sorry for mistake. If you need a job, you have a good chance to work in our company.
We are searching for:
– Financial Department Associate.
ENGINEERING & CONSULTANCY SERVICES (U.K.) LIMITED is connected to many technology purchases and sales, global distribution, manufacturing and consulting. We are concentrated on buying and selling technology in Europe and United States. We offer generous salary for our part-time employees and also some discounts and benefits.
Get in touch with us and join our company. E-mail : hr@engineering-and-consultancy.co.uk
Yours respectfully,
Bryan Green,
HR manager
It had all the hallmarks of a scam, especially as I haven’t applied for any jobs lately.
I have now found out that it is a proven scam, with at least one person having had money stolen from their credit card. The UK Police have been informed.
For that reason the original post has been protected with a password. This is so the police can have access to the original post.
Google 10th Anniversary Awards Centre
I received an e-mail saying I’d won.
It’s a scam.
If you don’t believe me! Just think why it’s not been on the news!
Terrorism Arrests at Sellafield
There have been arrests under the Terrorism Act at Sellafield.
I have been over nuclear facilities in both the UK and the United States and am pretty sure, that untrained people without the right technical background could learn anything of use, that they couldn’t get from something like Wikipedia or Google. They certainly wouldn’t get inside.
In fact all they’ve done is draw attention to themselves and get arrested.
I’d do them for wasting Police time.
Ipswich Town Supporters in London
I’ve just set up a web site for Ipswich Town supporters, who live and/or work in London.
I have used WordPress to set it up and it can be viewed at ipswichtownlondon.wordpress.com.
In some ways it is showing how you can use WordPress to create a Blog-Based Small Business. Although this isn’t a business, we’re trying to attract Ipswich Town supporters and create a source of useful information.
The Great Storm
I’m posting this because of the horrendous storms in the United States. It actually comes from my old blog, which I no longer update.
On the 16th October 1987, we experienced one of the worst storms in the UK. Contrary to popular belief, it was not a hurricane, but it caused more damage than any storm for 300 years.
At the time we lived at Debach, north of Ipswich and we were without electricity for nearly two weeks. Luckily we cooked on a gas AGA and surprisingly the phones kept going.
It is also the time, when I had the narrowest escape of my life.
I’ve always got up early in the morning to work, as it is the best time, when you don’t get interrupted by phone calls or family. But that morning although I was up, I wasn’t in the office as luckily there was no power. At about six-thirty the chimney blew over, came through the roof and went right through where I normally sat.
We’d also turned out two horses in the field that night for the first time. One was an old racehorse, who’d been confined to his box for two years with leg problems and the other was a newly-weaned foal.
They had no problems, as instinct kept them to the safe place in the middle of the field, with their backsides to the wind.
So does the Internet help?
Hopefully the warnings and the weather forecasts would be better. But I suspect that the chaos might actually be worse, as many people would be unable to connect and would be suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms.
Olympic Ticket Problems
I had no problems with getting my places in the Olympic auction for tickets. But then I reserved them three weeks ago.
When will people learn, that the deadline is not the day you actually do something? With the Internet, you can set transactions up early, so they happen at the right time!
Illustrated Computing
I just had to post this video of a computer bubble-sort algorithm, illustrated by Hungarian folk dancers.
There are more here.
Do Large Organisations Cut Themselves Off From the Internet?
I sometimes criticise (and praise) companies and organisations on this blog. Here are a few examples.
- Dixons
- First Great Western
- John Lewis
- Leon Restaurants
- Runners Need
- Towneley Park and Hall
- Virgin Trains
Most of those comments are positive, as I don’t want to get a reputation for not being fair. However, the really interesting one is about John Lewis, where I didn’t hold back in criticising their performance. If you read the comments on the post, you’ll see that Customer Support at John Lewis found it and asked me to e-mail them. The problem I had been having was resolved.
So if say you are the manager of the Islington Upper Street branch of the Midland Bank, other than being immortal, do you check what is being said about your branch on the Internet? And if you do, do you check blogs and forums?
I have a feeling that John Lewis might be an exception here. But surely, any business interested in what its customers think about it should be searching what is on the Internet, even if some of it is perhaps abusive or badly-written. To take my bank example, it is very easy to set up a Google Alert for Midland Bank, Upper Street, Islington.
I have a feeling that companies often spend fortunes on market research finding out what customers and others think of them. But do they need to, when with a bit of training and perhaps some affordable software, of the sort I can write, it’s all out there waiting to be delivered?
The Non-Arrival of a Refund from East Coast
On the 3rd of February, I travelled down from York on the 19:35 East Coast train from York. The train was about ninety minutes late into King’s Cross and forms were given out to claim a refund. I filled the form in the next day and posted it to Newcastle in the envelope provided.
I have not heard anything since.
It could be a malfunction of the postal service, but since I have moved, I regularly send letters to my old house in Suffolk and know that they arrive the next day, when I put them in the box opposite my house here.
On Sunday, I tried to report this non-arrival of the refund through the East Coast web site. I got a server error, asking me to submit it again. I didn’t as it was quite a long form and after all, it’s not that much money in the greater scheme of things.
But I tried again to submit the e-mail and still got a server error.
I also tried to send a simple e-mail saying that I was getting server errors and got another server error.
It really isn’t good enough!
So I put a letter in the post.
