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Showing posts from August, 2022

Amazon have broken logging in to their wibble page

Who would have thought, 25 years ago, that in the future the main use of SMSs would be one-time codes issued by corporations? The SMS codes usually consist of random strings, which the recipient is to transfer and input in the form.  But Amazon's one, which is required for login to their web site, is now a URL.  It says "tap to respond".  This assumes the customer's phone is a smartphone, and that the smartphone is connected to the internet.  As well as the assumption that the customer happens to have that particular phone on them at the time.  Amazon are saying they're not interested in custom, unless this house of cards of assumptions all happens to hold true currently.  No real alternative is provided, other than contacting customer service to remove the linked number. The last four times I've gone travelling, I've wanted to order amazon stuff for when I got back, and failed every time, because of this.  The bar isn't that high for someone wanting t

differences between airpods pro and sony thingers

The user experience of Apple vs Sony wireless ear- / head-phones, as of 2022, differs in that the Apple experience is designed, whereas the Sony one is what some geeks did. The most jarring difference was that the Sonys randomly try to call, via bluetooth headset profile, random contacts from my phone's contacts.  So far, it hasn't managed to do it, and then it reads out an error message in robot voice thru the headphones.  The Apples don't try to call random contacts, and I've never heard an error message from them on their audio.  The Sonys sometimes try other things too, and error away into your ear when they can't.  As far as I know, they haven't so far succeeded in placing a call. When you take out an airpod pro, it pauses.  The Sonys, not. Both systems have annoying proprietary pairing.  The chap in the shop helped pair the Sonys over generic bluetooth, instead of using their proprietary crap.  The only documentation included said something like (i) downlo

easyjet bad online checkin, bad delay

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In a previous episode [0], I bought an Easy Jet ticket. [0] < https://wibblement.blogspot.com/2022/08/easyjet-still-unable-to-sell-tickets.html > Online checkin worked, but was bad.  Searching for easyjet checkin initially brought up a page about checking in where "app" was a link to an app, but "on the web" was not a link at all. Taking a different route in, I got to the online checkin page. At one point I thought I had another fake button, but it was just refusing to submit a form because I hadn't ticked a box.  There was no indication that that was the reason. If the web had been designed properly, it would not be possible to be in such a situation. I had to say no to adding bags, many times. The resulting PDF was sort of printable.  When I sent it to the printer, I had to confirm on the printer's screen to use paper from its tray.  This usually happens when a PDF is in legal (Markin) size instead of A4.  Are Easy Jet producing non-A4 PDFs?  I'l

easyjet still unable to sell tickets with web site (but INN ticket desk win)

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After previously failing to contact Barclays about a housy (CHAPS) payment [0], I realised the too-high-or-too-low-ness was not the only generic thing about the error message.  The contact number was also generic.  Using a so-called "premier" phone number got thru in reasonable time and out of hours, and resulted in confirmation that I must visit a UK branch to make a CHAPS payment.  For reference, the limits are 50k fiatz(2022) for online banking, and 15k fiatz(2022) for telephone banking. [0] < https://wibblement.blogspot.com/2022/08/barclays-uncontactable.html > Not being in the UK at the time, this then required flying.  I contacted the private flight broker I'd used for INN, but they said they had nothing.   Easyjet has a service out of tiny Innsbruck several days a week.  Of course, Easyjet have failed to sell me a ticket every time I've tried to buy one recently [1] [2] [3] , but maybe I could create a new account (again) or something.  This time, it fail

compliance: Kraken unable to receive requested source-of-funds documents

My name's Tom and I'm a full-time compliance officer. I have now encountered, with at least four firms, the following pattern: a firm asks for source-of-funds documents.  They may say you can send them via their web site -- but you can't.  They ask you to send them by plain-text email, apparently not caring about the systematic leakage thus performed.  They may, hilariously, declare their receiving address "secure", as tho this makes it so. The best case is that the firm simply accepts the documents on paper to their normal post address.  This was the case with Nidwaldner Kantonalbank.  Sadly, firms are dropping the ability to handle paper post properly, but without developing any competence in handling of electronic documents to compensate. An extreme example, with which I'm currently struggling, is Kraken, the digital currency exchange.  Despite its warts, it somewhat works, and they have so far put out the money, which is an important part of the service. A

Barclays: uncontactable

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There is a trend from large businesses to become uncontactable by customers.  A key element of becoming uncontactable is the "pretend contact web page", in which the business pretends to be contactable.  It is also necessary to ignore letters in the post, including letters by registered post to a company's registered office address.  If a telephone number is given, it should be handled with an automated system, designed to filter out as many callers as possible by sheer frustration.  If it's possible to speak to a person at all, waiting times should be in the hours.  Staff, if they are accidentally exposed to customers, should falsely claim that everything is possible via some "app", "portal", or even "web site". I've recently seen this from British Airways, an ex airline which stole money from me, and is determined to remain uncontactable.  More on that later. The latest example is Barclays.  It used to be possible to write to Barcla