paperlessfinance

[Fergus Hogarth]

Comrades
Are you as sick as I am of receiving paper bills and all of the other crap from banks etc? Help me http://www.pledgebank.com/paperlessfinance
Hope you are all well. Blog post and pics soon
F

[Mark Briggs]

Fortunately, I have organised myself that I now receive everything on line. No paper, however I am inundated with crap from the various financial institutions.

 

MARK BRIGGS
Internal Review Officer
Legal Aid Queensland
Ph: 07 3238 3447
Fax: 07 3238 3014
Email: mbr...@legalaid.qld.gov.au

 

---

From: brains...@googlegroups.com [mailto:brains...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Fergus Hogarth
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 7:28 AM
To: brains...@googlegroups.com
Subject: paperlessfinance

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[Fiona Sinnamon]

... Hi Guys,

I do this for most things but will not do it for my credit card.  Reason is, that it gets awkward when you want to have a barney with the bank and they have BLOCKED YOUR viewing privileges to your own credit card account on the internet!!  Believe it or not, this has happened to me (thanks, Commonworst!).  I cannot go down to my local branch to have a chat....

 

I have just (possibly, nothing is certain with these cretins) wound up a 6 month barney with CW, which started with some fraudulent activity on my CC account IN jUNE 2008.  Old card cancelled, new credit card issued, investigation blah blah blah... 6 weeeks later, all sorted...... OR SO WE THOUGHT.  For 6 months, I kid you not, this bank has continued to charge me

• late payment fees
• interest
• over limit charges

EVERY SINGLE MONTH...all charges associated with the fraudulent activity (to give you an idea, the interest charges in one month added up to about $450).  So every month, for 6 months, I have, at my expense, called them and explained the whole sorry saga to yet another nice person in the call centre, who then promised to sort it out.  After a few months of that not working, I asked to move up to the next level, and got the "Customer Service" group.... same promises, same stuff-up the next month.  I also was treated to some of the most patronising correspondence from the "customer service" experts, including the suggestion that, despite me not having bought a single item using the card for 6 months, if I "used the card in accordance with the agreed terms, no further charges would be levied....???WTF??"

 

Anyway, my point is that my only ammunition in this war of attrition was that I had all their fucked up correspondence to use against them.

 

Does it seem to you that a little more therapy is required before I get all this shit off my liver??  Sorry, guys, but it is either blurt it out to my friends, or go quietly mad in a small room up here.

 

On another note, Fergus, your namesake Fergus Christie is coming to stay here is a couple of days, once the snow melts in London and he and Robyn can fly out.  Two Ferguses (or is it Fergi?) in twelve months... I am truly blessed.

love

Fiona

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[Fiona Sinnamon]

Can you believe it?  Evidence attached.

----- Original Message -----

From: Fergus Hogarth

To: brains...@googlegroups.com

---------------------------------------------------------- This email has been scanned for viruses by StarHub e.Scan.

[Fergus Hogarth]

and clearly a chick magnet! good on ya, son!

2009/2/3 Fiona Sinnamon <sinn...@starhub.net.sg>

[Fergus Hogarth]

I recall that great line from one of the Tony Martin/Rob Stich ABC comedies of the 1980's with the drought stricken farmers being shoved off their land - 'It's the banks I feel sorry for...' NOT! complete bastards. how could they possibly not make huge profits year after year is a mystery, don't they see how much they get back on my farking mortgage?! Fi, that is indeed a sorry tale - you would have loved visiting the Completebastard Bank in Adelaide last week which had the customer service staff draped in Australian flags!?! 

 

Briggsy, thanks for signing up!

 

Good old Fergus Christie, lovely chap. And Robyn too. My hugs to them both. Interestingly, some nearby friends were on the cusp of calling their new son Fergus however i shared my childhood experiences of being regularly teased for having a 'stupid' name and  being nicknamed Fungus (yeah, like, i so bashed up those f*ckers...). They went with Angus. I think i wanted something like Michael, but rather like Fergus nowadays. 

 

Hooroo

F 

2009/2/3 Fiona Sinnamon <sinn...@starhub.net.sg>

[Fiona Sinnamon]

... I did kinda encourage the girls to kiss him for the photos.. it makes for better Facebook entries!!

[Fiona Sinnamon]

... isn't it weird how you react differently to your own name?  I have always thought Fergus is one of the best names on Earth, and Angus and Declan etc come pretty close also.  Of course it wasn't easy being even fractionally different in the playground at Ironside - one can only imagine what it must have been like at Woodridge or Inala!

 

I always cringed at my surname as a kid.  Different!  And the "cinnamon bun/ doughnut/ cookie" jokes from the Ironside comics cemented my fears.  There was a song in the 70's (Cat Stevens...?) that went "... oh, Sinner Man, where you gonna run to?  Oh Sinner Man, where you gonna run to....?".  For the duration of the Tallebudgera Grade 7 Camp I seemed to be hiding from some smart-arse who wanted to sing it AT me, not TO me, top-note.  I could've died of shame.  Now, people think my name is interesting.

----- Original Message -----

[Mark Briggs]

I saw Neil Young last week and his version of Cinnamon Girl was outstanding!! I thought of you Fi!

 

Briggsy

 

MARK BRIGGS
Internal Review Officer
Legal Aid Queensland
Ph: 07 3238 3447
Fax: 07 3238 3014
Email: mbr...@legalaid.qld.gov.au

 

---

From: brains...@googlegroups.com [mailto:brains...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Fiona Sinnamon
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 1:41 PM
To: brains...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: paperlessfinance

[Fiona Sinnamon]

...I had forgotten that one!  Another Cinnamon classic!  God, I love Neil Young! How was that concert?

[Mark Briggs]

BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!! I am just an old hippy at heart! Off to The Who in March.

 

MARK BRIGGS
Internal Review Officer
Legal Aid Queensland
Ph: 07 3238 3447
Fax: 07 3238 3014
Email: mbr...@legalaid.qld.gov.au

 

From: brains...@googlegroups.com [mailto:brains...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Fiona Sinnamon

Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 10:57 AM

[Fiona Sinnamon]

... My my!  We are really going the whole hog on rock nostalgia this year!  Neil Young is still cool, but wasn't Pete Townshend caught with a whole lot of kiddy porn on his computer, which he claimed was for "research"?

[Mark Briggs]

He was never charged with any offences. Pete Townshend is my hero!!

 

MARK BRIGGS
Internal Review Officer
Legal Aid Queensland
Ph: 07 3238 3447
Fax: 07 3238 3014
Email: mbr...@legalaid.qld.gov.au

 

From: brains...@googlegroups.com [mailto:brains...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Fiona Sinnamon

Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 12:48 PM

[Fiona Sinnamon]

....that's the spirit!!

[Mark Briggs]

Hey Fi, we don't hear from you for months and we all of a sudden receive a plethora of emails!!! What is happening?

 

Are you coming home soon?

 

MARK BRIGGS
Internal Review Officer
Legal Aid Queensland
Ph: 07 3238 3447
Fax: 07 3238 3014
Email: mbr...@legalaid.qld.gov.au

 

From: brains...@googlegroups.com [mailto:brains...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Fiona Sinnamon

Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 3:13 PM

[Fiona Sinnamon]

No reason.  I am an unreliable correspondent.

Not coming home soon, as far as I know.  However, it is only Wednesday, let's see what the end of the week brings!  Things have changed pretty rapidly for a lot of people in SG, given that the four main international industries here are banking, oil, I.T and shipping.  They are all taking a pounding, and there have been a few unexpected and rapid departures by Aussie and other expat families.  We seem to be okay for now, but I figure there will be Round 2 and Round 3 of retrenchments, belt-tightening etc as the ramifications of the financial crisis move through to secondary and tertiary areas of the economy.  I guess none of us will be retiring any time soon, what with the shrinkage of our Q-Super!!

I am teaching English here.  Very interesting activity, as I get to meet all sorts of interesting people.  I am about to start a private lesson for a little Swiss girl who lives around the corner.  She is the exception: I generally like to teach adults rather than kids.  I am about to start tutoring a Serbian lawyer-woman who is going to sit her exams here in SG in May.  She must dramatically improve her writing skills or she will fail - but two years ago she couldn't speak a word of English.  I admire my students very much: I don't know if I could be as brave as they are, coming to a country where they don't speak the language....  The rest of my teaching is classes, and they are lots of fun.

HOw about you?  Apart from spending your nest-egg at Ticketek, what are you doing?

cheers

fiona