Pakistanis Using Fake Documents Try To Enter Great Britain

Five Pakistanis have been arrested while trying to fly to Manchester using fake documents.

They checked into Islamabad airport supposedly enroute to Dubai. Once at the airport, they exchanged documents with five other men who had documents for the Manchester flight. Raja Zia Ul Haq, Raja Fizal Ul Haq, Muhammed Usman, Imran Asgher and Abid Hussain were caught on CCTV and arrested, while the British 'nationals' went on to Dubai.

While we all know that Pakistan is a training ground for terrorism, Sky's home affairs correspondant, Mark Wright said:

"the arrests are unlikey to be terrorism related and are more likely related to an immigration offence"

Who is he trying to kid?

Bullshit Telecommunications

Bullshit Telecom

OK, it’s rant time and the recipient is British Telecom.

I have been with Sky for many years and as soon as they offered ‘phone line rental and broadband I signed up. I wanted to change my ‘phone number and was told by Sky that as they only rented the lines from BT, BT were the ones that had to change my number. BT told me Sky had to change it. I spent many wasted hours going from one to the other and in the end I gave up.

When I moved house a few months ago, I cancelled all my Sky products and signed up with BT. The reason was that after nearly 20 years of using them - Sky tv - they wanted to charge me £99 to enable my new ’phone line. What a disgraceful way to treat faithful customers.

I was told by a BT engineer that BT Vision plus ‘phone line rental and broadband was excellent. I found out it was a pile of shit.

BT Vision is basically Freeview with the added option of playing back a programme whenever you want it. Well, not really because you get half way through a series and it disappears leaving you moving onto the next series and feeling totally pissed off wondering what you’ve missed.

Every time I rang BT with a problem I was put through to India to someone I couldn’t understand, so I know damn well they couldn’t understand me. It’s a regional thing with us Brits. Since when has a broad Derbyshire person spoken like they have a plumb in their mouth? A simple word like ‘our’ comes out as ‘aaaa’. There’s not a cat in hell’s chance of having a normal conversation with a foreigner trying to speak the Queen’s English, so how the hell can they sort out something technical?

I would ask for someone who spoke English and be told ‘I speak very good English’. Not to bloody me, you don’t!

Anyway, I got sick to death of redialling and thought ‘sod this, I’m going back to Sky’. At least they have British people on the other end of the ‘phone.

So, after a dozen calls a day from BT and endless letters informing me I am still tied by a contract, which incidentally I never signed, I finally got my MAC code and off I toddles back to Sky. And very welcoming they were.

However, after only two months, my connection suddenly dipped form the 6.5Mb I usually get, to only 0.4Mb from the afternoon onwards.

My friend, lippy57, has been staying with me for the past few days and she must be horrified at my language. I’ve effed and blinded for the past two days because I may as well be on dial-up. In fact yesterday I was so pissed off I turned my laptop off altogether.

Tonight I rang Sky yet again, to be told by a technician that BT have recently put a cap on Sky connect customers from the afternoon onwards.

‘But I’m not on Sky connect’ I told him, ‘I’m on unlimited’.

‘No you’re not’ he replied, ‘unlimited isn’t in your area yet. We don’t even have our own equipment at your exchange and there are no plans at the moment for it‘.

Well, that did it. I’d been on the ‘phone just short of an hour and my fuse was well and truly lit. I tried to keep calm as I knew it wasn’t the technicians fault. I asked him if I could cancel my contract. Thank fully he said yes and put me through to the appropriate customer service department. One problem, there was a 15 minute wait and I had to listen not to music, but a message repeated over and over and over again.

Finally I was through and the lady informed me that as I am still in contract I have to email my cancellation through to head office. What bloody difference does it make ffs?

Lippy passes me another fag, she can see I’m beginning to lose it.

My mobile ‘phone is on Orange so after emailing the details through to Sky, I checked online to see what they have to offer and find they actually do line rental now. And they have their own equipment at my local exchange.

Great, I thought, I’ll sign up. Not so easy, I then have to ring bloody Sky again for a MAC code.

Here we go again, I thought.

I had just about had enough. I got the usual stupid robot asking the usual stupid questions. What is your postcode? I screamed it down the ‘phone and it told me ‘Sorry, I didn’t understand that’. Lippy passes me another fag.

I decided I wasn’t playing ball any longer and found that if I screamed ‘FUCK OFF’ to every question it put me straight through to someone.

I now sort of have it sorted. I have to wait five working days, but it’s Christmas / New year so it will be more likely two weeks by the time I get my MAC code, through the post of course. Why the hell they can’t just email it is beyond me.

I hope to God Orange provides a better service otherwise there will be a part two to this story.

Indian Call Centre Farce

I am sure all of you have experienced the joys of the Indian Call Centre at some point. Whether you are calling your broadband, telephone or television viewing provider you will have spent many frustrating hours trying to get something sorted but coming away feeling more confused than when you initially rang.

Earlier this week a BT representative called to inform me my bill hadn’t been paid. I grabbed my bank card and made a payment. The woman told me my card had not been accepted and said she’d call back later.

I rang my bank and was told the card was fine.

The woman didn't call back so I went online to register with BT thinking I’d be able to pay that way. No such luck. After going through the process of registering all my details TWICE, the site decided it was going to go down for maintenance. Brilliant! I’ll try tomorrow, I thought. By the next day any thought of paying that bill had gone completely out of my head.

Now onto today…

I’ve received a lovely letter from BT with the heading YOUR FINAL BILL.

My final bill? Why FINAL bill? And why is there a £21.73 (excluding vat) ‘BT Total Broadband Cease Charge’ added to it? And to add insult to injury an extra £7.83 (excluding Vat) for excess usage? I haven’t cancelled it; I’ve tried to pay the damn thing all week. And what’s this ‘fair usage’ lark. No one told me about that when I signed the dotted line.

So, I grabbed the phone, which by the way is now incoming calls only, and called BT. But, I wasn’t actually calling BT, you know the BRITISH telephone company. I was calling someone in India.

The, oh-so-polite, man I spoke to informed me that because I had cancelled broadband I had to pay a cancellation charge. I told him I hadn’t and that THEY had. I went through all the rigmarole of explaining how many times and HOW I had tried to pay.

He told me that if I paid the full amount (including the cancellation charge) my broadband would be reinstated free of charge (yeah right) and I would receive a refund of said cancellation charge on my next bill.

I told him I am not prepared to do that as it is not my fault and asked him why he couldn’t amend the bill and take off the charge. He said (even though he is supposed to be in the billing department) that he couldn’t do that and it was his way or no way.

I asked him to put me through to the manager and was told that the manager would tell me the same thing. I told him I didn’t care; I still wanted to speak to him. After 10 minutes of being on hold I put the phone down.

Thank God I hadn’t agreed to answer the questionnaire at the end of the call.

I spent the rest of the morning redialling and going through all the options in the hope of finally getting to speak to someone British who I could understand. It didn’t happen.

By this time I was getting rather hot under the collar. My face must have been beetroot red; I was sweating and finding it increasingly difficult not to scream. No way, not a chance in hell will I pay for something that is not my fault. If anything it should be ME that receives a payment for spending all fucking morning trying to talk to people I can understand.

So, I thought stuff BT, I’m going back to Sky.

I rang Sky, arranged for Sky TV, telephone and broadband to take effect as of next week. One problem… I needed a Mac code for the transfer. As soon as Sky customer service told me that I was filled with dread.

On no, not again!

I rang BT and you’ve guessed it, got another foreigner. I asked for the Mac code, he asked for my details and then said he would put me through to the person who could give it me. I was just thinking ‘RESULT’ when someone came on the line from ‘COLLECTIONS’.

The woman on the other end must have thought I was a nutter because I started to laugh hysterically. I’d finally got through to a REAL English speaking person, but only because that crafty little sod had diverted me through to the collections office.

Finally I had got through to someone who could understand me and I could understand her only to be told she doesn’t deal with Mac codes OR billing; just collections. She gave me a number to ring in a few days time so I can get the much needed Mac code.

Please God, PLEASE let that person be British, but somehow I just know they won’t be.