Dave Thorp's Blog

Last night saw the final of the second series of Channel 4′s live gameshow “the bank job” and the final has been causing major outrage on Twitter and Facebook after Stacey stole £100k from four time winner Scott who had already previously won £198k. Even Duncan “I cannae see this making me any money I’m oooooot” Bannatyne (the grumpy one from Dragon’s Den) has been sticking his oar in.

Normally I totally disapprove of the steal option in this show and shows that have used the same endgame format in the past such as Goldenballs. Certainly in Goldenballs the steal ball was not provided for the benefit of the contestants but as a cost saving exercise in order to save the production company having to pay out money. The bank job works slightly differently as if contestants both choose to steal the money is shared by the contestants who didn’t make the final. The fact still remains that if you start messing about with the steal option, one if not both of you will be leaving with nothing.

There was a rather unique situation that arose in one episode of Goldenballs where there was someone who was well off already and a student playing for a comparatively low jackpot and the well off person used the talking time they have before making their decision to beg the student to steal the money from them which they did. It was the only time a steal/split ending was a happy ending for the show.

As soon as the prize fund was announced as being just the money the contestants brought through in the last round, which was a nice round £100k (which was just 21.4% of the series 1 jackpot) I said to my other half that if I were Scott and had already won close to £200k and I was playing for just an extra £50k on top of that I would tell the contestant who as yet hadn’t won anything to steal from me. My conversation before the decision making would have been along these lines

“Look, I’ve already won close to £200k, you’ve not won anything yet. I’m picking the split option. If you want to split that’s fine. But if you want to take the whole £100k that’s fine too as an extra £50k would probably mean more to you than it does to me”

Which I suspect is one reason (along with the fact I am far too old and ugly) why I’d never be selected as a contestant for this show as it wouldn’t make for as exciting TV if the whole excitement of the split/steal ending is reduced to “do what you want it really doesn’t matter”. Although due to the loss of the live feed right at the end so we didn’t see many reactions to the outcome, the excitement of the moment was lost to all anyway, with the possible exception of Mr Bannatyne!

Well this one is quite a simple way to mess up the launch of a phone. Fail to deliver it on launch day but instead 3 days late and after performing 2 credit checks. The following email has been sent to 3′s executive office but should summarise the situation

Dear Sir/Madam,

I write with regards the above referenced mobile number and the saga I have had to endure in upgrading my sim only one plan sim to the recently announced iPhone 4S.

Having switched to you from O2 in July this year to benefit from your all you can eat data I was excited when the new iPhone 4S was announced and you announced you would be stocking it and taking pre orders. Whilst I was considering both you and O2 with a slight bias to you given I won a free iPad off you earlier this year, the fact that O2 wanted me to queue up in the cold and rain for my phone made my decision between yourselves and O2 quite easy however after all the problems I have experienced I am beginning to wonder if I made the right decision.

On 07/10/11 you opened pre orders and I telephoned to place my order for a 32GB White iPhone 4S on your £40 a month one plan. Having got through to upgrades to place my order at approx 12:30 I am advised that their systems hadn’t updated for the iPhone 4S but I would be called back before 14:00 to place my order. At 14:05 with no callback having appeared and being aware of how in demand this phone would be I called back and my order was taken with a promised delivery date of 14/10/11 which is launch day. At 15:22 I received the callback I was promised before 14:00 and advised that I had called back and placed an order.

On 10/10/11 I receive an SMS survey which I filled out mentioning I never received a callback at the time I was promised.

On 13/10/11 a number of people expressed concerns on your twitter feeds about the status of their pre orders. I therefore enquired as to the status of my order and was told that all phone orders were fine, I would get a SMS message that evening letting me know it had been dispatched and a further SMS on delivery day informing me the approximate time I would receive my order. At 18:01 I receive a phone call which claimed to be in response to the survey I have filled out. During this phone call the person I spoke to stated she would have to credit check me again. Having already undergone a credit check the previous week alarm bells started ringing and I terminated the call but sent a tweet to your twitter feed who had sadly closed for the night. I received no SMS message advising me of dispatch of the order and send further tweets clarifying my concerns and advising I’d received no dispatch or delivery SMS

Today, the day my order was supposed to be delivered, I awoke from a very disturbed nights sleep due the anxiety which I suffer from starting to kick in and found no SMS advising me when my phone would be coming. Shortly after my tweets were picked up and a callback arranged. During this callback it is confirmed that the first time I ordered, I was credit checked for an iPhone 4 and not a 4S. Why this should make any difference and prevent the sending of my order is beyond me as end of day I was credit checked for a pay monthly contract. A further credit check is carried out and it is now arranged that my phone will be delivered on Monday. Having already let me down once, I am reluctant to get my hopes up again only for them to be dashed again but I am assured by your support twitter that my order will be dispatched this time.

Needless to say I am not happy that you failed to get the phone to me on launch day and despite an issue with my order, I receive no contact from you with the exception of a phone call from a foreign lady who initially wanted to discuss a survey but moved on to wanting to credit check me which would ring alarm bells for anyone from a cold call as it could well have been “someone called George calling from my bank”. I am also not happy that I have been subjected to two credit checks for the phone when I should have only had one and the presence of additional credit searches in a short period of time can have an adverse affect on my credit rating.

I hope you will enter into a sincere dialogue with me with regards the issues I have raised and give me some reason to remain with 3 as any good graces granted by my free iPad are long gone following this experience. I must also insist under section 10 of the data protection act that any data you are processing with the credit reference agencies with regards the incorrect search carried out on 07/10/11 is removed for the credit reference agencies and all records of the search eliminated on the grounds that processing of it is unwarranted and is causing me damage. Failure to comply with this section 10 notice will result in a complaint being filed with the information commissioner. I trust this will not be necessary.

I look forward to hearing from you and hope that I am not forced to consider cancelling my upgrade and returning to O2 and that our relationship can continue without any further issues.

Kind Regards

Me

Sent from my iPad

Not happy to say the least!

It’s that time of the year again where the networks demonstrate complete ineptitude in handling the launch of arguably the most important handset launch of the year, the recently announced iPhone 4S. Now this year I’ll forgive the 3 day delay in getting pricing information out to us which was a major improvement on last year but instead I’ll be talking about O2′s inexplicable policy of not allowing pre-orders and cancelling their fast track upgrade program for all but the very highest spenders.

On Friday 7th October every major network announced their pricing for the iPhone 4S and opened up pre ordering for new and existing customers to order the phone for either store pickup or delivery on launch day. Every network except O2 that is. Not only were they last to announce pricing but they have also made it only available to existing customers (which in itself isn’t a bad thing) but they are also treating those existing customers like second class citizens by making them queue up in the cold and rain at stupid O’Clock to be able to guarantee getting the handset on launch day and even then it isn’t guaranteed when every single other UK network will happily post one out to you. O2′s twitter feed have been bombarded with complaints about this with their response basically being that doing it this way ensure the maximum number of people can get it on launch day which frankly is complete and utter bollocks!

We then move on to the fast track upgrade issue. Over the course of this weekend a number of O2 customers who have obtained quotes to upgrade early have suddenly found themselves no longer eligible to upgrade. After doing some digging it seems that these customers are no longer eligible due to a change in the terms of upgrading early now requiring customers to be on a £40 or higher tariff. This is another example of O2 altering terms and conditions to suit themselves on a whim such as when they removed unlimited data from tariffs and tried to retroactively alter the terms of existing customers to prevent them from changing tariff. It’s also an example of O2′s short sightedness as to who counts as a high spender as my monthly spend with them is over £40 but is spread over 4 accounts.

Thankfully this is one O2 customer who won’t be queuing in the rain for my iPhone 4S. Three have already confirmed my pre-order with them will be arriving on Friday on launch day. As for O2, despite having bought every iPhone from them since iPhone 3G, they will not be getting a sale from me for 4S. Plus over the course of the next 8 months I’ll be terminating all but one of my accounts with them. Which is a pity as if they hadn’t started to lose their way over the last year or so they would still have many happy customers and not the horde of customers ready to jump ship they currently have.