Category: Journal

Last night I checked out my bank statement online. On Friday of last week a ?399 transaction was made in payment to BT Cellnet/Internet.

My mobile is a vodafone one, and although my internet service is provided by BT it costs ?385 a month less than the amount withdrawn. So I called BT this morning, then BT internet – both of whom denied taking the money from my account. So I called my bank and asked them to investigate the transaction.

At just after four pm they called me back and explained that my details had been used to purchase a couple of mobile phones from a BT Cellnet shop in Leeds.

I have never been to Leeds and I was freaked at this point.

Turns out that something in my rubbish was used – like a bill or a statement that has accidentally been thrown out. The fraudster called the shop and arranged payment over the phone, then turned up with the bill on them to prove their identity when they collected the purchase.

Pick holes in this plot if you like, but that’s the way my bank pieced it together.

Aside from being quite a cool crime, it’s something that could have gone undetected for almost a month if I did not have internet banking set up.

So, just to let you know, this is obviously a new-ish type of crime… get shredding your paper rubbish.

I’m suffering from a lack of time at the moment. Weekends seem to disappear in a blur, and the working week is almost over by the time I get a handle on things. Not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I need to slam the brakes on somehow and spare some time for stuff I want to do.

I have never been a genius at time-management, even getting a Palm personal organizer for my birthday last year has failed to cure what is a fairly seat of the pants life style. Not that I do much on a daily basis that I’d consider to be frantic. I just seem to run out of time and I cant quite explain why.

I’m thinking that a lot of it hinges on how tired I am. I spent most of last week in a daze due to insomnia, so even when I did have a couple of spare hours in the evening, I didn’t feel motivated to do anything other than sit in front of the TV. This week I’m going to try and take control by making myself go to bed at a sensible time. Perhaps a routine would help too, like, if I decide that Monday night was jogging night, Wednesday night is five-a-side night and Friday night is pub night, I can do the other stuff on the spare days in between.

Hmmm… but what about computer night, games night, skateboarding night… and other stuff. Wow – this is harder than it first seems.

I just received an e-mail from Paul Sowden of idontsmoke.co.uk which leaves me slightly dumbstruck. I was mistakenly under the impression that if you kept a weblog and you spent every single day on your soap box, that you actually invited comment from your audience.

Paul said on his site that he thinks that lower case stuff is “so 2001”. So I sent him a mail – and I swear I was just having a bit of fun, pointing out that his page title and a couple of other parts of his page were in lower case.

I wont paste his reply here, as it’s just… *sigh*, you know – I really should have guessed that someone so anal couldn’t possibly have a sense of humour. What the hell is the world coming to, I wonder? Answers on a validating e-mail, please.

Anyhow, I have been visiting Paul’s site every day now for months – I think I found it last October or something when he was mentioned on ALA. But over the last week or two he’s made some pretty rash remarks and my guage on the value of his comments has swung to the negative during that time. Fortunately I’ve found another journal that contains similar thoughtful content… but without the holey-er than thou’ posturing. Guess you’re back down to two visitors a day, Paul.