A Contactless Card Explosion
According to Becky Barrow in the Sunday Times, it not yet ten years since contactless cards were introduced.
She says that during the first six months of this year, we spent £9.3billion using the cards.
In the same period of 2009, we spent just £315,953 and half of that was Patsy and Edina in Harvey Nicks.
That is some increase.
When contactless cards were introduced on London’s buses, after listening to quite a few idiot techophobe politicians, I set up a very tight Internet trawl about ticketing problems on London’s transport.
I have not found a single problem reported in a newspaper or web-site.
My problem with contactless cards, is that I can’t use them for small train or tram trips outside London. Every train company and local authority seems to be reinventing London’s wheel.
No wonder London gets all the tourists!
I also had a small problem where a branch of a well-known store set up their tills incorrectly and AMEX thought it was fraud and refunded my purchases.
The Bank That Keeps On Losing
This article on the BBC is entitled RBS blames legacy issues for £2bn loss.
This is the first paragraph.
Royal Bank of Scotland has reported a £2bn loss for the first six months of the year, which the chief executive blamed on “legacy issues”.
The only legacy issue that matters, is that Gordon Brown was stupid enough to rescue it with £45.5billion of the UK’s money, instead of let it go bust.
But then it was all about Scottish votes, as was the two aircraft carriers, that may not be what the navy needs in this increasingly dangerous world of terrorists and rogue states.
Thank you, Gordon!
How can I claim my share back, like I did with PPI?
London’s Bouncebackability
Some worry about the ability of the City of London to survive after Brexit.
I don’t and this picture gives a clue!
St. Pauls in the Blitz
London and the City periodically suffer disasters and annoyances.
- The Great Fire in 1666
- The Great Stink of the 1850s
- The Blitz of 1940
- The Great Smog of 1952
- The IRA Bombings in Bishopsgate and other London locations.
- The Tube Attacks of 7th July 2005
- The Financial Crisis of 2007-2008
After every one of these, London showed an impressive ability to bounce back from something that was unexpected. You coud argue that after all these events, London recovered to a higher level.
The first two, threw up two of London’s great creators; Christopher Wren and Joseph Bazalgette. Bazalgette was the grandson of a French Protestant immigrant.
Will London throw up another great creator and thinker because of Brexit?
I wouldn’t be surprised!
They might even be like Bazalgette and a descendent of a recent immigrant. London has always benefited from troubles in the rest of the world!
No-one can know what will happen to the City and its financial industry and expertise. A vindictive Europe could put in regulations to try to cut London’s market share.
But I doubt it will have much affect, as London has every expertise you could need, speaks English, is in the right time zone and quite frankly is London, where real and assimilated Londoners duck-and-dive for the best opportunity.
London will undoubtedly change, but is there any reason to suspect, that it won’t do things that make itself more successful and more powerful still?
London was the capital of the world in the Victorian Age and I can see this happening again!
Inaccurate Marks And Spencer Contactless Payments
I use contactless payments regularly in Marks and Spencer and I’ve never had a payment problem, but some of the transactions end up with very strange locations on my credit card statement.
I’ve found.
- Cambridge Station, Cambridge
- Birmingham New Street, Birmingham
- Reading Station, SSP Reading
- Euston Scot, Euston Station
- Piccadilly Station, Manc
- Heathrow Airport SSP
I know these are all Marks and Spencer despite no indication, as they are for between seven and eight pounds, which is a typical price for a pack of gluten-free sandwiches, a drink and perhaps a biscuit or fruit.
I also know, that in the last month, I’ve bought sandwiches in Marylebone station and I can’t find the transaction.
So did my credit card company reject it, as someone had put some total garbage in the contactless card system in the otlet in the station?
With contactless payments, becoming very much the norm for many customers, they must get this right.
I certainly, haven’t lost out, but I think there’s at least two payments, that seem to have gone missing in cyberspace.
I think the lesson of this tale, is that if you are a small owner-managed store or a large chain, you must set up your contactless system correctly, as it at one level might be an irritance to customers and at a higher one, it might cost you money.
A Curious Problem With My Credit Cards
A few months ago, I tried to order some goods from IKEA for my kitchen. They weren’t delivered and my credit card wasn’t debited, so the only harm done was I waited in for a whole day for a non-delivery.
Over the next couple of months, I tried several times to repeat the order, but in no cases was it ever completed. Immediately, When I entered the details of either of my credit cards, the order disappeared.
To solve the problem, I took a bus to IKEA in Tottenham and placed the order personally, paying with my American Express card at the check-out. I also got the direct e-mail address of the Kitchen Department and sent them a couple of e-mails to assure them, that if they didn’t deliver, they’d be deep in the doodah.
The goods were eventually delivered on the day, but the driver’s sat-nav got him lost in the mews at the back of my house.
I put it down to some form of problem with the delivery system, that checks the credit rating of the purchaser. But as Experian have confirmed, my credit rating is good and the only problem, is that I’m not correctly on the Electoral Roll. And that’s not for dint of trying, but for some reason they seem incapable to get it right!
However, today I needed to buy a coach ticket from National Express for the Ipswich-QPR match on Boxing Day.
So I entered my details to buy the ticket and tried to pay by credit czrds. Both were rejected.
I phoned both credit card suppliers and there was no problem with either card.
As a last resort, I phoned National Express direct and bought the ticket traditionally from the Call Centre at the cost of a long phone call and a booking fee.
But it wasn’t without trouble.
Both my credit cards were rejected by the system used by the very patient Colin in the Call Centre, as was my debit card.
Their system knew about me from my previous four failed attempts to buy tickets on-line and I wondered if it was rejecting them because of my address, which was on some sort of blacklist.
I’ve often thought this, as my house was tenanted for several years before I bought it and the tenants did runners leaving piles of debts to several companies.
In the end, Colin and I felt this was all rather silly, so I thought about trying an alternative e-mail address, as this was probably the key used to access my address on their computer.
It worked and I got my ticket.
Intriguingly in both cases, I got my goods or tickets, when I broke the link between debit/credit card address and the address for the card.
In IKEA, this was by putting the AMEX card through a till and with National Express, it was by giving them an e-mail address for which they had no physical address details.
I am drawn to the inevitable conclusion, that software checks my address against County Court Judgements. And I think there could be a lot of them, due to the history of the property!
Surely, if I can’t purchase on-line, because of the debts of previous owners or their tenants, who lived here, before I bought the house, then that is illegal!
The only way to lose them, would be the same way to get rid of bindweed from your garden. Move!
Unless of course, someone reading this knows better?
I Wouldn’t Trust Santander’s Banking
Yesterday and today, I received two letters from Santander, correctly addressed to someone I’d never heard of at my address.
I should say, that I get a lot of junk mail addressed to previous tenants and I’d never seen the name before.
These are the two letters.
Two Letters From Santander
I suspect that if I’d been dishonest, I could have got access to their money, so they are now safely in a letter to Santander.
I have other reasons for not banking with Santander, like the fact that I will not bank with an organisation, that is not domiciled in the UK and preferably England.
But after this, I wouldn’t trust them to keep a brass farthing safe!
I think what is more important here, is that surely a bank would check you lived at the address you gave. Or at least had permission to collect mail from there!
Battery Trains In Japan
Some think I’m wrong about battery trains and believe they will never catch on! But none of the doubters are engineers or physicists, and perhaps more importantly none rode the amazing Class 379 BEMU, when it was being trialled last year in Essex.
I have just searched for battery trains and found this article on the Rail Journal web site entitled Battery-Electric Trains For Japan’s Oga Line. This is said.
EAST Japan Railway Company (JR East) has announced plans to carry out trials with ac battery-electric multiple units (BEMUs) on the 26.6km Oga Line in Japan’s northern Akita prefecture from Spring 2017.
But this is not an experiment, as this is said later.
The Oga Line will be the second line on the JR east network to benefit from BEMU operation, following the introduction of EV-E301 series trains on the Karasuyama Line in Tochigi Prefecture in March 2014.
If the Japanese use BEMU (IPEMU in the UK!) technology in daily service, it can’t be their version of Mickey Mouse! The train is called an EV-E301, and looks a professional train, even if a bit spartan for use in the UK.
I just wonder when George Osborne makes his Autumn Statement today, will he be announcing new battery-electric trains or IPEMUs for all?
In my view, it’s the only way to electrify large parts of the UK and reduce the costs of electrification!
Torotrak Share Price Rises
On of my Google Alerts picked up this article from www.financialmagazin.com which is entitled How Analysts Feel About Torotrak plc After Today’s Huge Increase?
Torotrak is an engineering company behind some kinetic energy recovery systems, that are seen in motor sport like Formula One. But the technology also has applications in the general motor industry to save fuel and we all know the hole VW has dug for itself.
But could the rise in the share price be driver by the big event happening tomorrow – The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement?
Probably not, but Torotrak’s system might be part of a suitable energy storage system for an Independently Powered Electrical Multiple Unit or IPEMU.
One of George Osborne’s biggest problems is funding the electrification of the railways, as if we are to modernise this country, then most rail lines need to be electrified or at least provided with modern trains.
I believe that the IPEMU is one solution to reduce costs, by avoiding the horrendous problems and costs of putting up the wires.
So will George go for it?
My Useless John Lewis Credit Card Statement
I recently bought a winter coat in Marks and Spencer. The zip has gone, so I want to find the store, where I bought it, as I use several of the large ones in London regularly. I probably bought it with my John Lewis credit card, so all I need to find is a transaction at over a £100 for Marks and Spencer to get a date and store.
But I can only get the last statement as a spreadsheet, which just gives dates, values and not the store. It’s not even formatted to the sort of level, that a child of six could program.
Quite frankly it’s utter crap!
Unlike with Amex, which gives you everything you need to trace purchases, in an easy-to-read clickable format.
Do John Lewis expect me to keep paper copies of all my purchases?
Paper is so Nineteenth Century!
Thoughts On Credit Cards
I have recently been trying to buy something on IKEA using my John Lewis Partnership Card, which is managed by HSBC.
Twice it has gone through IKEA’s site, but then HSBC have deemed the transaction to be fraudulent and have cancelled it. In one case I waited in all day for a non-existent delivery.
My other preferred on-line card is American Express, which seems to have developed a clever way of card checking. They ask if they can look up your location using your connection, as obviously, if that corresponds to the card and delivery addresses, there is a high chance that the transaction is genuine.
But IKEA doesn’t take Amex and as I don’t use my Visa card on-line because of the dreaded Verified-by-Visa waste of time and space, I was a bit stumped on how to order the next phase of my kitchen.
Then this morning, I tried the Visa and guess what? The Verified-by-Visa didn’t kick in. So perhaps, Nationwide and IKEA have come to my conclusion, that it is a hindrance to business against their joint interest.
Let’s hope the delivery gets through this time!
The Anonymous Widower 