Personal: June 2005 Archives

Turns out the gypsies were a bit more keen on my phone than previously thought. My T-Mobile bill for £431.88 arrived this morning. There were 32 calls to Romania starting at 1 in the morning. Apparently, that's enough for T-Mobile to realise that something's not quite right.

Updates and related entries
December 11, 2005: Turns out the gypsies were a bit more keen on my phone than previously thought. My T-Mobile bill for £431.88 arrived this morning. There were 32 calls to Romania starting at 1 in the morning. Apparently, that's enough for T-Mobile...
December 11, 2005: I really wanted Orange to be good. After T-Mobile, how could it be anything but better? But while T-Mobile may be harsh, it is efficient. Orange is incompetent....
December 20, 2005: Now isn't that interesting? Turns out that network providers can detect when a call is likely to be fraudulent. T-Mobile claimed it couldn't spot that 30+ calls to Romania from Spain in the middle of the night might suggest...

Is it just me, or do banks seem to like technology only when it suits them? Take debit cards. How difficult would it be for debit card purchases to instantly debit an account? Not that hard, with a few web services or dedicated links between banks and card companies. Yet, strangely enough, it takes a day for the purchases to show up on your account, even though ATM withdrawals show up instantly.

What takes it so long? Could it be that if it arrives in your account at an unspecified point in the day, you might not have enough money in your account and you'll have to pay an extortionate overdraft charge?