Self reflection.

Taking stock of the past few days, it is important to me to make sure I am fully aware of what has happened across the board, and the impact my actions may have had on others. And maybe others should too?

I don't like to be told what to do, never have, never will. Nor do I like being spoken down to. If anyone puts me in such a position, they will generally receive a response of sorts, and in some cases it can be knee jerk, and possibly a little excessive. Emotions are a powerful driver.

Sadly, when things like this happen, people who have no role in the situation sometimes get caught up in the moment, and for this I am sorry. For example, my other half choosing to leave the local forum, due to her being dragged into things. On this occasion, not by myself, but instead the admin of the forum. Contacting her, suggesting her account was being used to access information on threads, which they were then called out on.

Unfortunately, the tone of the emails took its toll on Ann, making her angry and upset at how she was being treated, and she made the decision to leave the forum. Requesting her account be deleted.
Strangely, I do not yet know the reason why, but her posts were also deleted from the forum. Not that this is a bad thing, but it is different to how my request was handled. Strange, but hey.... I'm sure there is a little game involved in there somewhere.

Now I know this sounds a little bit like a willy wave, but it is not. It is simply a fact, but one others may dispute.
The number of people who have contacted me (double figures) and either said they have received similar treatment, and felt too bullied to do anything about it. Or have simply stated they see the same issues I do, with the way people get treated for not conforming to the requirements of forum membership, is quite shocking.

I knew there were one or two who questioned the hierarchy, but the response to the blog has been quite the eye opener. And quite a relief too.

As some know, I can be a little bit nutty at times, and get too caught up in things. Blurred lines, over reacting, and suffering mentally for it.  So when I become embroiled in a cock fight on the internet, I can really make myself suffer. The bad outweighing the good on most occasions. A fact some have taken advantage of in the past.
It is a tough battle with my inner self, do I get treated like dirt, or do I stand up for myself (and others) and suffer the consequences of what it does to my state of mind. Usually the latter wins.

Over the weekend I received many threats of legal action, reports to the authorities, and other such things, as a way of making me panic and edit or remove the blog entry I posted. Initially I had to take a long hard look at things, and wonder if I was indeed in hot water. However as I did more digging, fact checking and research, I realised it was not all as it seemed.

The comments I made in the post were, to the best of my knowledge, factual. Having been involved in all matters I had raised, my recollection was supported by written and published forum posts, on various local forums. In fact, on doing a little research, I was quite astounded at some of the things I was reading. From suggesting people were not ready to have children as they received a form of financial support, from the eradication of local foxes. Detailed personal opinions on local people of influence, something I found quite amusing, given that I was in the middle of receiving threats to make me stop doing exactly that....Hmmm.

Another thing that tickled me was a post on a local forum where someone had divulged information about a private meeting which was due to take place. Using quotes from a private conversation to bolster the facts that this meeting would indeed take place.
Unfortunately, the other party had had no desire for this meeting to have been made public, and the repercussions of this revelation were quite damaging. Although part of me things this may have been the plan all along, in order to destabilise things, in order to make a move.

A move which would subsequently fail.

 There are questions to be asked about the actual intentions of some, with their actions not matching up with their comments of intent. Looking at things in a broader scope, alarm bells start to ring. In one arena the same topic is discussed in a very different manner. From harmless interest, to a desire of dominance, the messages are very mixed.
That in itself is very telling on some levels. Any person who has the need to have different personas in order to remain in certain circles gets my hackles up immediately.  That said, I too confess to having different personas, however most are aware of both. Polite and articulate on one hand, brash and a total prick on the other. Both sides of me are on display to all people I know, depending on the situation. I would say brash prick has been hanging around lately, but polite guy has kept him in check for the main part.

For me it works well, being able to make my point without being too polite or intimidated to leave anything out. Sadly for others, especially a couple of people I have spoken to, this has not been the case. Personally I find it outrageous that any person who desires to hold a position of any kind of trust in a local environment, should conduct themselves in a threatening and intimidating way. Especially on the basis that they simply do not like what another person thinks or has said. People like that really get on my nerves, and I will not stand by idle and watch someone be treated like that!

Sadly, some are blinkered to this behaviour, and refuse to accept that any wrong doing is taking place. Deciding to fully back the initial aggressor, rather than fact checking the situation, or taking a little time to actually ponder over the fact. Or of course, they just agree, even when presented with all the facts. Each to their own.
However, when the majority agree with the unwarranted behaviour are in a shared position of power, and able to almost decide the fate of someone, without any right to reply or appeal, then it becomes a much bigger problem. For some at least. If you play nicely, and say the right things of course, you would be none the wiser.

This was pretty much the reason I eventually decided to leave the forum. That is not to say that all were of the same mindset. This is NOT the case, and I want to be completely clear on this. However, with just enough support and goading, as well as assistance in mud slinging, anything is achievable, especially if you hold all the aces. Open and blatant "threats" about how people will get their comeuppance in time are tolerated because..... well because they can! When those who govern need governing, things go bad.

When other people of influence tell you they too feel something is wrong, you are clearly not barking up the wrong tree. I have received messages on a couple of platforms from such people, expressing their sadness at how things have evolved, and suggesting that things need to change. It is good to be in agreement, even if it is from within the silence.

Some walk the line to be respectful, included and remain involved. Then there are people like me, who walk along the line, scuffing it with our soles, blurring it, so others are not restricted by it.

Well done Wonga.com ..... Almost !

After my last rant about Wonga.com and their failures to bother to contact me or respond to my emails... They did !!
Imagine my surprise when Andrew from Wonga called up and said he was aware of a serious issue and complaint I had made, and he would like to look into it to get it sorted and stop me having any more problems with my payment.
We spoke about the issue, how it had been escalated to him, and what the cause seemed to be. Andrew told me he would like to get some information then have time to look into it, and get back to me with the fix. I agreed.
As we spoke, it became apparent for a while that he thought it might be a problem with my bank account or card, and not an issue at their end. So after collecting some information from me he started to tie up the call. Before he could continue I asked him if he could take the payment there and then to stop me having to go through the hassle of sorting it out later. He agreed but with the added line that it might be a problem with the card, so a payment might not be successful.

Having spoken with my bank earlier in the day, and confirming that there was NO issue with my card, account etc, I was positive it was an issue with Wonga.
Sure enough, seconds after agreeing to 'try' and take the payment, a somewhat surprised Andrew came back on the line and confirmed the payment had gone through, no issues, and it must indeed be an issue with the system their end. No shit Sherlock !

With my mind at ease, and with the payment made, we ended the call there and agreed that he would call back later that evening after he had heard back from the IT dept.

7pm came around, and as promised the phone rang and it was Wonga again. From the offset it was made clear that there had been an issue with their system, and it was explained that my card, even though the ONLY card on file, was not set as the 'primary' card, therefore was not being used to collect payment. So in reality, rather than all the stupid emails I was getting, someone could have checked and spotted this months ago, or the system could have just spat out a 'no primary card' error. But instead its always better to blame and harass the customer, of course !

With that resolved, I was assured that it had been corrected now, and that the future payments would not have issue with them, as long as my funds were available and card didn't change. Once again rushing to end the call, Andrew again apologised and started to say his goodbye's. Stopping him in his tracks I asked if I could have the contents of our discussion in an email, as written confirmation of what had actually happened, and of the action they had taken to prevent it happening again.  This was agreed to.

20 mins later the email came through, and indeed stated all the required information for my own records.
Problem solved....................... but not the end of it.

On the day all the emails were sent to Wonga I had received the automated 'thank you' email, but none of the patronising 'better to call us' rubbish that they seem to send out when they just don't want to deal with the matter themselves. At least that's how it comes across. Every email I sent that day had all the information they usually ask for, name, email, DOB and address. Given that I had supplied all this, and received a call back, I assumed that was that.
So imagine my surprise, when 2 days later I get two more of the 'we don't know who you are, please call us' emails.

From this I can only assume that the left hand doesn't have a CLUE what the right hand is doing. Notes are not put on customers accounts, and information is not shared. All this comes together to make quite simply a piss poor customer experience.

So... Wonga, thanks for starting to sort my issue out, now maybe take a deeper look at how your contact system works, and stop sending stupid emails for no reason. Especially when you are asking for information which was contained in the email you are replying to ! DUH !

We shall tell next month if the issue is REALLY resolved or not. Watch this space on Dec 18th.

Dear Wonga.... YOU FAILED !

I would like to openly discuss my experiences with Wonga, and go into some more detail about how its all worked out.

Many months back, in desperate need of a quick injection of cash, I resorted to Wonga. A friend had kindly helped me out of the bog of financial despair with them once, but I fucked up, plain and simple. Even more stupidly I missed my payment / renewal date, and was faced with paying it all off in one hit, or entering a 'payment agreement'.
Settling for the payment agreement I spoke with the team about it, and was very pleased with the experience setting it up. 2 months down the line my debit card was renewed and I screwed up and forgot to tell Wonga, so the payment failed.
I contacted them, apologised and gave them the new card details. Crisis averted, or so I though. The following month I recevied an email saying the payment had failed. I called up again, the agent had forgotten to save the card details. No big deal.
The next month, payment failed email again, I call up, this time its a system outage and the payment HAD gone through, but one system didn't tell another, so the email was sent.
Next month, payment failed, month after, payment failed.... I tried in vain to contact them to sort this out, emails, phone calls etc all covered in previous blog entries, but nothing worked.
On calling last month the agent took a payment over the phone without my authorisation, I complained but Wonga failed to get back to me, so with this I approached the Financial Ombudsman who have taken the matter on.

This month  I decided to be proactive, and called Wonga a week before the payment was due. Went through it all with the agent, and confirmed they had all the right details to take the payment on the due date.... This morning I get an email... PAYMENT FAILED! So this time, paranoid that something was wrong at the banks end, I called the bank.

First up  THANK YOU NatWest for having such a coherent bunch on both Twitter and phone banking, they are amazing to deal with and answered all my questions faultlessly and promptly.

In this conversation with NatWest it was confirmed to me that not only had no payment failed, but no payment has even been presented to them for authorisation.
Seriously Wonga, you are hassling, harassing, and upsetting me with emails saying I have in some way failed to keep up my end of the bargain, and YOU have not even asked my bank for the money.

As per my emails, YOUR MOVE !! I have called you, emailed you, tried to work with you to give you my money, the money I agreed to pay you after my own slip up..... Now its up to you. I will make NO further efforts to make payment this month until YOU contact me. I realise that you will probably ignore my emails about the matter like you did last month, and that the next things I will get are emails or letters saying you have cancelled the agreement, are going to add interest, and all other sorts of financial threats. Thats fine. IF you can't be bothered to engage with a customer to resolve matters of you OWN failures I will quite happily wait for this to reach County Court level, then explain to them the poor levels of customer contact you have, and produce the emails, and call logs of when I have tried to make payment and resolve the matter.

As a matter of principal I am no longer willing to waste my time trying to sort the matter out, and if it does require any further input from me, other than answering a call or email from yourselves, I will start to add admin fees.

So Wonga..... YOUR MOVE! I look forwards to hearing from you.