The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

[Snowy]

Elton Spunk, once again proving that he is an utter Edwin.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ght-racist

[Raid]

It's incredible how much propaganda the left is responsible for, isn't it? Just everything in the "non-fiction" category at your local library; all leftist propaganda! The right don't need evidence or facts, they're the side of the political spectrum that runs solely on vibes!

[Wrathbone]

Just had several minutes of someone nearby beeping their car horn incessantly, followed by someone hammering on my front door (with such aggression that I considered ignoring it out of concern). I answered and there was some straggly-haired bloke in a hi-vis shouting at me about whether I had a car with a particular reg number, because I'd blocked his van and he couldn't get out of the cul-de-sac.

I explained that I don't have a car, which didn't appease him much. I went out to have a look and yes, the parking on both sides of the road was atrocious. I tutted and wished him good luck before going back in and very quickly locking my door. He then went next door and started hammering again.

A dumb and preventable situtation, certainly, but also a demonstration that rage does absolutely nothing to help move a vehicle.

[Animalmother]

So I see you can no longer buy stuff from Amazon without creating an account first. It's been a while since I used it but you could always just use a guest account. Fuck that, going by what people have said here, they are a nightmare to deal with if even the slightest thing needs to change. I just want to get my dad a book for Xmas and Amazon is the only place selling it for a reasonable price. Cunts.

[Lenny Solidus]

Edit: Thinking on it this makes me look rather self-centred given the time of year, also I did just happen to find out that the lady went into Hospital just a few weeks ago though I have no idea why or if indeed she has returned home so if I can actively do my part to make things a little easier for her irrespective of how well I know her personally or not, I should do exactly that.

Bring on the deliveries. Having to take a few minutes out of your day ensuring someone's else is helped out is what this time of year is all about and not something I should be complaining about as some kind of hassle on a public forum.

[Sly Boots]

Mozilla getting a new CEO who then decides to make Firefox, the browser I've happily used for 20-odd years, AI-first - and as that can fuck all the way off, that in turn leading to me spending all morning migrating everything to a new browser...

[Maturin]

Fortunately, they've just promised to give full function to switch all AI elements off. So hopefully it won't have any impact in real terms.

[Sly Boots]

I just don't want to give my business to a company that plans to go in that direction, and I object to things like that being opt-out rather than opt-in. Fuck em.

[Raid]

Yeah, plus I have such a negative view of tech companies these days that I assume that stuff is optional for now, and at some point when they think fewer people will notice, they'll just make it mandatory without announcing it, or the control that turns it off will mysteriously stop working.

[Animalmother]

I use Firefox with Duckduckgo as the search engine. Both are pushing AI with the option to disable it. I'm a bit pissed off as these should have been the exact ones not to be fucking about with AI. The sooner the bubble pops on this shit the better.

[Wrathbone]

OVO Energy are taking the piss, though I expect most of the energy companies are doing similar. I reviewed my combined usage for 2025 (£80 a month on average) and my direct debit (£130 a month) and noted that I'm £200 in credit. Since I'm paying 62.5% extra a month than I need to and am well in credit, I decided to drop my direct debit to £100 a month and ask for a £100 refund, which I think is both reasonable and very conservative. However, the site told me that the minimum I could change my DD to was £162 a month - more than double my actual average usage.

I left it at £130 a month and emailed them, explaining the situation and asking for it to be manually reviewed and set as I would like, including the refund. Instead, I got an automated response telling me my DD has been set to £162 (no mention of a refund). What the actual fuck?

Currently going through the rigmarole of bothering them on X and waiting for them to respond to a DM, so a human may eventually look at it and acknowledge how utterly daft and predatory this is. I'm not a bank and they have no business using MY money as an interest-free loan. Total edwins.


EDIT - Turns out I'm not done ranting. Why is it that energy companies assume you need a build up of credit to survive the winter - i.e. an assumption of poverty? Why not make it the default that you pay what you use each month, like any other fucking business, based on smart meter readings and have an option to pay a fixed DD each month if you prefer?

[Sly Boots]

I left it at £130 a month and emailed them, explaining the situation and asking for it to be manually reviewed and set as I would like, including the refund. Instead, I got an automated response telling me my DD has been set to £162 (no mention of a refund). What the actual fuck?

"We have altered the deal. Pray we do not alter it any further."

[Mantis]

Every energy company I have ever used has been a similar experience to that barring Octopus. My DD was set incredibly low for a long time and I was just paying off the debt in blocks every six months (interest free loan for me, yay) until they eventually sent me an automated review saying they were increasing my monthly payment to £180. £180 probably isn't far off what I should pay during the winter as my flat isn't particularly energy efficient but I didn't want to build credit the rest of the year so I rang them and asked for it to be set to £80 instead. The chap on the phone didn't even question it and sorted it immediately for me. I think all I said was that £180 was far too high and could he set it to £80 instead and he was like "Sure, no problem, done" and the call lasted about three minutes.

[Wrathbone]

I left it at £130 a month and emailed them, explaining the situation and asking for it to be manually reviewed and set as I would like, including the refund. Instead, I got an automated response telling me my DD has been set to £162 (no mention of a refund). What the actual fuck?

"We have altered the deal. Pray we do not alter it any further."

It does feel very much like that.

[Raid]

EDIT - Turns out I'm not done ranting. Why is it that energy companies assume you need a build up of credit to survive the winter - i.e. an assumption of poverty? Why not make it the default that you pay what you use each month, like any other fucking business, based on smart meter readings and have an option to pay a fixed DD each month if you prefer?

It's odd isn't it. I suppose the answer you'd get if you asked is that winter tends to be an expensive month in this country, what with christmas and everything, and perhaps they had the data to support that charging more throughout the year was better for customers. But that doesn't really pass the reality check, does it? There's some logic in it, but no other business operates like that. Even the really scummy payday loan companies only claimed the costs of actually doing business with them, extortionate though they were.

I regularly have to check my account balance with Ovo, and I've had to reduce my DD several times. Only once have they increased it and I've not then immediately reduced it back to where it was before (I still reduced it, just not as much).