THE HULME TUNE

As I was looking to make ends meet, I decided to pop into Tesco Metro, on Market Street, and look for some of them offers that saves me benefit money from running out. When I got to the drinks range, I noticed an offer that I just had to refuse. That Tesco was offering a bottle of Sparkling Vimpto 95p for 1 or 2 for £2.00.

In this day of credit crunching tighter budgets and supermarket price wars, do they really want to charge me more for buying extra? I think it was a mistake in the pricing of the product at the store, rather than Tesco wanting more profit. I pointed this out to the supervisor, who went as bright red as her Tesco fleece and then disappeared with the label to the stock room apologising. Maybe I should have told her that I was not from Trading Standards…sshh!

Satisfied that I helped both shopper and Tesco Metro, I treated myself to four bottles of Sparkling Vimpto Light.. no, not really, not at that price offer!

Why should we pay for Experian or other CS company mistakes in giving credit risk assessments that are wrong?

I just opened a Barclays Bank account and put money into it. Then I went and contacted the people who pay money into my account and those that take some out every month.

A month later, I went back to Barclays Bank, Market Street, Manchester, and asked for a DEBIT card and cheque book. Fair enough. I have these services at LloydsTSB. So, I would imagine that Barclays would give me the same. Right? Wrong!

The bank did a credit check.. hold on! A ‘credit check’, not for “credit” or a loan or a credit card or a mortgage.. but for me to use MY MONEY in a useful way to shop online and send money by post to love ones.

I felt really humiliated that Barclays Bank refused me on the grounds of a credit check at Experian. WHAT? I explained to the man that I AM NOT BORROWING MONEY AND LLOYDS TSB ALREADY GIVE ME THOSE SERVICES.

I didn’t want to borrow money, buy on credit, pay over a time period, take a mortgage out, have a credit card or arrange a large overdraft. I just wanted to use my account like I have at LloydsTSB.

He did suggest that I PAY to have my ‘credit score’ checked. I told him what he could do with his bank, in a nice way of course. Pay? For what? So, Barclays Bank want me to pay the company, Experian in this case, that said “No” unreasonably? Barclays Bank must be joking? Barclays don’t want my money then? Then Barclays say I must take it up with Experian myself and pay for their misjudgment.

A credit score to open an account at Barclays Bank and use the services? A few years ago all you needed was a £1 to open an account and get the services you need. It’s the basic requirements. I’m changing bank asap! Maybe stay with LloydsTSB if the other 2 are just as bad.

How do you avoid this? Well, find out if you are black listed by any company. Go into different banks or stores that use credit scoring and tell them that you want to take a service but not sure if you’ll score. This service is then free as the bank or store will pay for this, to do it yourself will cost you. Ask which one it is. Then you’ll know for sure and this will save you time and keep a note of the stores that do use them.

The easiest way to pay is to save up and buy it straight away, you won’t have to pay interest then and you could bag a bargain if there’s a sale on or barter for cash payment. The store should not need to ask you for sensitive information then or be embarrassed when it says “no”.

Before you open an account or use a service or purchase an item, ask them which credit scoring company they use. If they say the one you that has black listed you, you can then walk out and go to a number of others - you can choose.

Better still, go to the CAB and get good advice about credit scoring.

You could write to the credit scoring company and pay to have your good name cleared. But, if they have black listed you, then why pay for their error? Why can we not take such a company to court for defamation of character, this is what it really boils down to; they’re saying in effect that you are not trustworthy and bad with money, a high risk - even though you’ve paid every bill and never been to court over finances?

Yet, another credit scoring company will give me the thumbs up. Tough, Barclays, you used the wrong one and I’m taking my money somewhere else.

Off-shore banking is better if you have loadsa dosh. I’ve been disgusted with British banks and their rip-off illegal high charges.

To be fair Barcalys Bank say they are to reduce their overdraft fee.

Yesterday, regulars of Afflecks came and offered their support of this icon of cheaper fashionable alternative clothing. Each were given the chance to pen their opinion and petition to keep the Palace running.

This old city centre building with five floors of over 40 stalls had been a place where up & coming designers and entrepreneurs sold their wears to young fashionable peeps. It opened in 1982 and was the brainchild of James Walsh, a local hairdresser.

The future of Afflecks Palace is still unsure, maybe this celebration was to test to see if it’s still what young people want in fashion shopping 26 years on.

 www.thehulmetune.co.uk

Paul Ridyard

You pay £100 for a modem from ‘3′. Read the box “System Requirements… Mac OS X” and “Features.. Auto installation and easy to use” All you have to do is to plug it in and away you go, right? Not if its a Mac!

It seems that ‘3′ charge £100 for PAYG broadband dongles and cannot be bothered to put the Mac drivers on a CD for the Mac users.

Wait, there’s more… inside on the instructions they say, “For Mac OS X software.. visit three.co.uk/usbmodem to download mac drivers and installation guide.”

OK, seems simple to me.. just go online and download the drivers. Errm.. hang on a minute, did I read that right.. “visit three.co.uk/usbmodem to…” They want me to go online and download.

How dumb can ‘3′ be? That’s why the modem was bought in the first place!

So now I have to find a pc and the page to download these Mac drivers. I went to three.co.uk/usbmodem and the page changes to something else.

No ‘3′ I don’t want to buy another stupid b/b dongle as I already bought one and would like to use it TODAY on my MAC.

Oh, yes.. I did a search for “e220 mac drivers” while I was there and found that ‘3′ never heard of it.

Here are your search results for “e220 mac drivers“. Some of the results may take you through to other 3 sites. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, try widening your search.

Search this site Search all 3 sites No results found for “e220 mac drivers“

No reference to it. What? So, where are they?

Orange leaflet.. “three.co.uk/usbhelp”… which brings me back to the same page.

Eventually, after a Google search, I found the drivers on a blog and Huawei’s own website. But when I tried downloading them from Huawei.. I got an unknown file. Unknown? Maybe I was using the wrong browser, so I tried it with IE. Sure enough. Not only did Firefox not allow me to login to My3, but didn’t download the .iso file.

To save you the hassle I went through, here are the drivers for the Huawei E220 Mobile modem.

Don’t use Firefox to download drivers

This is the PDF for powermacs (G4) OS X

Config Guide USBModem Mac. PDF

One day these companies will get a bright innovative idea to make life easier for their customers and thus, not only attract new ones, but keep the ones they’ve got already.

5 hours later… and i’ve gone to three.co.uk to seek out these mysterious mac drivers/software ‘whatever’. Amongst all that advertising USB Dongles there’s a button “more info” - you’d think that would be for more about the products. Then on the right, after clicking it… “mac software drivers” - I have to pinch myself. Hidden away on 3’s website are the drivers. All under the heading:

What is Mobile Broadband?

Well, I now know the answer to that one! On ‘3′ in Hulme it’s slow download speed, seeing that they boast in ‘Turbo Speeds’, and a lot of hassle with hard to find mac drivers and you need another Internet Connection to download them. Do me a favour. Up to 2.8megs .. the speed today was 0.5 MB. In fact, the upload speed was faster at one stage than the download speed. Source was www.speedtest.net & Sunrise ADSL.

They should change the term for 3 from ‘Turbo speed’ to ‘Slow trickle’.

Then i go to three.co.uk/my3 and find that they send a “text message” with my “password” on it.. What planet are they on? They know very well that the dongle on a mac cannot receive text messages. Unless they are on my3 then I’ll just have to login with the password they send me by text. Dumb, dumb, dumb..dah-de dumb.

Is this a too harder thing to ask for that ‘3′ make it easier on their customers and that we have the speed we paid for? When they say “up to 2.8MB” I at least expect it to be over 1.5MB and not .5!!!