The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

Jackmydad

I'm with Plusnet. £36 a month
Costs a bit more in this area, (forget what they call it officially, but outside towns costs more generally.)
Unlimited fibre. Line rental. Unlimited landline calls. I pay a couple of quid in that for mobile minutes, to keep in touch with an old mate who only has a mobile.

PasturesNew

10 minutes into the online chat and all she's managed to go is say she's there/will be back shortly .. then ask me name/address.

My bill at the moment is about £50/month. If I'd been asked to guess I'd have said "dunno, about £30 or so".

Jackmydad wrote: »

Passwords are a pain to keep track of.

I use software called Efficient Password Manager, which is linked to a USB stick I have. So I have to get the stick out, put it in, then launch the software and log in, then find the password I want.

I have about 950 in there.

Each time I use one or log in, or change a password, I update the record with a note as to why I logged in, or that I did ... and/if why I changed a PW.

PasturesNew

The trouble with speaking to furreners and online chats is ... they don't actually understand what you're saying.

I'm saying: My broadband is slow; I want to know what package I have and what packages I could choose instead.

So far it's gone:
16:44 I'm here/will get back to you in a moment
16:49 What is your name/address
16:58 Sorry it's slow for you I will see how I can solve this.
17:03 Request for descriptive information about my OpenReach master socket and ports.
17:12 We sent you a text, click on the link. My phone isn't that sort, so I took the phone outside and wrote down the URL, then came back in and typed it into the browser.
17:17 The speed test finished running and I now have to tell Online Chat that it's finished... and wait.
17:23 Told me to go to the hub advanced settings.
Trouble is, it wanted my password and I have no idea. And I can't reset the hub else I will lose the chat session.... Doh.
I worked it out (she was no help). The password was on a plastic card in the back of the hub .... I was told to go to 5GHz and click to unsync with 2.4GHz
17:38 done to that point. I bet this is a wild goose chase.
17:40 Only then did she tell me to wait - and I'd see two SSID numbers in my list.... trouble was, she didn't say that before I'd followed the instructions and so I'd overwritten/reused the original SSID name... so now awaiting her (non English) response to my actions

ONE HOUR: Over an hour and what have we achieved? Logging into the hub and clicking one radio button. And I'm still sure she's on the wrong track as this isn't actually what I was asking for ... although it if "magically" speeds it up, that's fine.

17:49 Her "BT Infinity is available on your line. It's our next generation super-fast fibre service. Would you like to upgrade to BT Infinity?"
Eh? I don't bl00dy know - you're not listening to what my problem was, you're not answering my questions, I'm mid-way "stuck" in the middle of some process you lead me into .... and now randomly do I want to switch to a service you've told me nothing about, no speed, no costs, no contract.... and you seriously expect an answer?
We've a saying in Britain: Don't let the bar stewards grind you down.
Try again love!

17:51 She gave up. "As I can see I have failed to solve the matter here and have wasted both of our time here. I will open a complaint on your account and will see if that can fix the problem. Someone from our team will call you back."

Grrr.... !!!!!! .... we never got CLOSE to what I was asking.... not close. And I wasted a whole hour to do what ...? And my hub admin is still open and my last question to her unanswered.....

THE END. ... oh no it wasn't.

Pfft. What a load of old cobblers.

.....
17:56 She then asked me to stay on the chat.
18:00 She asked for my landline number (it's BT, on this broadband account I am chatting about, how come you don't HAVE that??)
I wonder if that will actually ring ... or if she was just cross-checking... now I have to carry that phone round the house in case it rings....

Jackmydad

PasturesNew wrote: »

10 minutes into the online chat and all she's managed to go is say she's there/will be back shortly .. then ask me name/address.

My bill at the moment is about £50/month. If I'd been asked to guess I'd have said "dunno, about £30 or so".



I use software called Efficient Password Manager, which is linked to a USB stick I have. So I have to get the stick out, put it in, then launch the software and log in, then find the password I want.

I have about 950 in there.

Each time I use one or log in, or change a password, I update the record with a note as to why I logged in, or that I did ... and/if why I changed a PW.

Mine was getting on for £50. I phoned them up and asked (I was obviously out of contract)
Good result, and told to phone when this contract expires.

You can link Keepass to a data stick if you like. (I hope you keep a backup!)
Or pretty well anywhere.
You can run it from a data stick as well. https://keepass.info/features.html#lnksec
The associated file is well encrypted. So TBH I don't worry too much about someone getting access to that. The password is strong as well.
Oh, and you can search the database.

silvercar

I use software called Efficient Password Manager, which is linked to a USB stick I have. So I have to get the stick out, put it in, then launch the software and log in, then find the password I want.

I have graduated from a little book with passwords noted down alphabetically by website to allowing chrome to remember my passwords.

I get stuck when I'm without my laptop as the iPad is remembering old passwords that have been changed!

chris_m

silvercar wrote: »

I have graduated from a little book with passwords noted down alphabetically by website to allowing chrome to remember my passwords.

Ditto - except my browser of choice is Seamonkey.

I keep all my various financial login details in the same spreadsheet that I use to keep track of all the shekels themselves - although I rarely need to refer to them since I also use AccountUnity which can log me in to any one automatically or, even, call up all of them and give me a single page display of all my balances.

PasturesNew

I am still spitting feathers about the stupid bint.... so I just did a full reboot of hub and PC, then cleared out all the cache and everything - and re-ran my broadband speed test, in case I were being disingenuous.

1.30 Mbps download
0.35 Mbps upload
Latency: 86 ms
Server: London

Verdict: Stupid, pointless, waste of space, bint wasted over an hour of my time through ...... being useless.

I wasn't even asking her to "improve my cr4ppy service", as I thought I had "that's what you get on that package" ... I wanted somebody to say "You've got ... you could get XYZ for £0 more, or even less than you're paying". And without any contract in case I move and am without a house between this and the next.

Jackmydad

At £50 a month for that I'd start making a lot of noise.
I'd write to all the papers.
Computer mags.
Soshul Meeja.
And be bloody rude about the service too!

The oily wheel gets squeaked after all!

PasturesNew

Jackmydad wrote: »

At £50 a month for that I'd start making a lot of noise.
I'd write to all the papers.
Computer mags.
Soshul Meeja.
And be bloody rude about the service too!

The oily wheel gets squeaked after all!

I can't go gobbing off without facts.... no idea, still, what package name I'm even on.

The BT "choosing packages" page is SOOOOOO content heavy it barely loads, then it's all over the place (not a neat/easy table) with all fancy words using their in-house marketing name gimmicks... and I'm far head-spud over what's what.

The £50 (inc VAT) is for:
1.3MB d/l broadband.
Landline
Unlimited phone calls (which I could probably cull now if only I could find any comparison page of how much calls would cost and how much that "added extra" costs me). Or is that a "deal" or a "bundle" or a "package", or was it a "special", or is it .... any manner of other names and confusions they wrap these things into.

So, really, I'm back to square one in that: I still have no idea what the heck I've got You'd think the Accounts tab, when logged in, would clearly say "You have XYZ Package, here's a link to what you've got. Would you like to compare that to what else we've got?"

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

1.30 Mbps download
0.35 Mbps upload

Jackmydad wrote: »

At £50 a month for that I'd start making a lot of noise.

Indeed - I'm paying a little over that, £52 on average at a guess, including a couple of add-ons and calls, but my speeds is 30 times those figures.

Ah, PNs last post has detailed one thing I don't have, unlimited calls. I only have weekend calls included.

With the cabinet being only around 200m away, I suspect the line could support even higher speeds but I have no need for a higher speed cap, which would be for more money of course.