[Phone scam?]

We are with France Telecom and are on Liste Rouge, so we've never had any problems with unsolicited phone calls except that we have an odd problem someone may have an answer to.

Now and again, and more frequently lately, the phone rings and as soon as we pick it up it disconnects.  This worries us as we are often away and we worry that potential burglars might ring occasionally to check whether the house is unoccupied.  It's odd because strangers should not be able to get our number as we are on Liste Rouge.  Calling 3131 does not help as it only records unanswered calls.

Also, less frequently, when we check for messages we are told that an 009 number (the latest was 00978037331) called and we are invited to press 5 to return the call.  For the sake of security we never return calls to numbers we do not know and this kind of number seems alien to the ones I've ever seen.

I can only guess that this is a random dialling scam to get people to dial an expensive line.  This would explain how they get round Liste Rouge and why the call is aborted if you pick up the phone.

Has anyone else experienced this or know what it's all about?

Regards,

Chico

 

[Our banks are cheating us]

As if the exchange rate was'nt enough for people with income in Sterling.......

If you have savings with a UK bank you will find it is almost impossible to know what interest rate you are getting because they use every trick in the book to bamboozle you.  The Daily Telegraph are petitioning 10, Downing  Street to force

banks to show what rate you are getting when you have any communication

on your account.  Just

click on the link below to add your support.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/savingsummarybox/

 Chico

[Problem with heating controls]

Thanks

for these replies.

On the

info front, the hot water production works perfectly and the problem

only arises when the pump circuit is switched on. It is not a combi

system. I have checked the pump myself and it turns very smoothly

without any friction at all. I have also checked the operation of

the mixing valve (more about this below) and it moves through its

full range very easily. I have located the source of the buzzing

sound in the control box and it is directly behind the set of three

thumbwheels which contol the heating curve which suggests that it is

something to do with the mixing valve.

I like

your suggestion, jonjeau, that I get an engineer to disconnect the

heating pump from the control box and fit a seperate time switch to

run the pump/heating system. But

what about the mixing valve? In his useful notes about French

plumbing funnies, Opel Fruit says

“For

some reason, the French insist on fitting something called a vanne

melangeuse [mixing valve] after the pump. This oddity is totally

unnecessary and is used to inefficiently control the radiator

temperature by allowing some of the boiler flow to immediately return

to the boiler as a kind of crude bypass. Never fit one.”

Well,

I've got one and as far as I can see it seems to be all about

adjusting the water temperature according to the outside temperature.

I would happily forgo this. The gate itself is in a cast iron

“manifold” and is controlled by a lever scaled from 0 (cold) to10

(hot). This lever is moved into position by a whacking great motor

which is controlled from the control box. The motor is held in place

by two nuts and I can easily remove it, which I did temporarily, and

that's how I know the lever moves through its full range without any

friction or grittiness.

Now the

big question. When I ask the engineer to fit a separate timer to the

heat pump, should I ask him to remove the motor to the mixing valve

and disconnect it from the control box? The lever controlling the

mixer valve is on full view and, without the motor on it it would be

easy to move it from open to shut according to need.

What do

you think?

Chico

[Problem with heating controls]

jondeau,  I was beginning to see this as a final option. Would the control box need to be a Viessmann to suit the boiler or are these units interchangeable?  It would be nice if I did not have to find a Viessman specialist - and probably cheaper.

Thanks for your input,  Chico

[Problem with heating controls]

Maricopa,  Thanks a lot for this. The user instructions for the control unit are similar to the ones the previous owner left me - but more up to date.  I'm having trouble getting the system to accept my request for the boiler manual, but I shall persist as this could be vital info.

Chico

[Problem with heating controls]

I have a

problem with my central heating which my heating engineer is unable

to fix.

The

boiler itself works fine – the problem comes when the heating

circuit is switched on (to operate the pump and mixer valve). At any

time and without warning a loud buzzing noise comes from inside the

control unit and the heating system stops working. I can usually

reset this simply by switching off and switching back on again.

I avoid

problems overnight by switching it off. In the morning I switch it

on and all is well for a while, but sometimes when I switch it on

the buzzing starts immediately and I have to switch on and off until

it clears.

The

engineer says he cannot do anything as the heating is OK when he

arrives. My problem is that I will soon have to leave the house

vacant for several weeks during frosty weather.

I have

spoken to Viessmann in the UK and they cannot offer any help. I

cannot find any way of tracking down a Viessmann specialist in this

area (84). The engineer I am dealing with has known this boiler for

at least ten years and keeps promising to find a solution, but he

just goes into hiding until I ring him again. I am sure that if I

could point him in the right direction he would get something done.

My French is good enough to discuss technical matters with someone

who wants to communicate, but it is no match for someone who does'nt.

Any help

or suggestions would be appreciated.

Chico

Oil-fired Boiler:

Viessmann Vitola-biferal VE1 with mixing valve, manufactured

1985

Control

unit: Viessmann Tetramatik-FR-4

[Myinternetpass.com Prepaid dial-up access]

I have only just discovered this for the UK.  Basically, you pay £10 up front and can choose from 2,000 minutes of connection which you have to use or lose in three months or you can opt for unlimited connection for one month.   I am just trying their 30 minute free trial and I'm pleased to see it works with Onspeed.

Is there a similar pre-paid option in France?  My dial-up via Free is very expensive.

Chico

[Pine processionary caterpillar time!!!]

We are at the bottom of the Vaucluse and whilst the chenille processionnaire has been an annual problem for the five years we have been there it has exploded massively this year with nests and ugly tree damage everywhere.

Until now I have managed to cut down and burn all those up to about 20 ft (sorry, 6 metres or so) leaving only a few higher than this, but this is clearly not going to be enough this year.

My French neighbour has bought some special sticky tape from one of the big DIY shops who recommended it as a solution to the problem. He has wrapped this around his tree trunks at about 6ft high. The idea is that they cannot crawl over the sticky flycatcher-like tape.

I thought this was a bit suspect as the moths fly into the trees in late spring to start a new egg-laying, nest-building cycle - but if they are poor fliers as reported earlier, maybe putting the tape at 2 metres or so will do the job.

As we are back in the UK until April I can’t quote the exact name of the product, but it was something like Bande Glu. The drawbacks are that they are quite ugly and cost something like 12 euros for 5 metres, which does’nt go far. Also, you have to rasp the bark flat round the tree otherwise they will just scrawl underneeth.

I am no gardener (in spite of all the hours I put in each year), but I remember seeing strips of sacking covered in gunge and wrapped aroung the trunks of small fruit trees in the UK and I wonder if there is some similar trick which might stop these caterpillars crawling up our trees to wrought havoc every year.

Any ideas?

Chico

[Euro English.]

Sweet 17,

How does your constitution cope with this, which is not a joke?

New Millennium Spelling

Stage 1

1. Change augh to au when it sounds like augh in caught.

caut dauter fraut nauty

2. Change augh to af when it sounds like augh in laugh.

draft laf

3. Change ough to ou when it sounds like ou as in bough

bou drout plou

4. Change ough to au when it sounds like ough in bought.

aut bought fought thaut saut

5. Change ough to of when it sounds like ou in cough.

cough trof

6. Change ough to uf when it sounds like rough.

enuf ruf tuf

7. Change ough to o when it sounds like o, but doh for dough and thurra for thorough.

although tho

8. Change ough to u when it sounds like ough in through.

thru

Stage 2 - add

9. Change ph to f when it sounds like f.

fonetic fonetically foto fotos fotograf fotografs fotografy fysical fysically

 

Stage 3 – add

10. Change to e when a or ea sounds like head.

alredy eny frend hed jelous meny ses tred

 

 

 

11. Drop useless e when the preceding vowel is short

activ ar curv giv hav involv liv (but not the adjective live) massiv negativ opposit serv wer

[RCD adapters]

Thanks for your full reply "Ford Anglia". We are in the UK at present, but I know that our distribution board has the old fashioned type of fuse and not the "trips" you see nowadays and there is also one fuse which overrides the rest, so it looks like a new board is the answer. Our house is about 25 years old. It still puzzles me that RCD adapters seem to be unavailable when a good proportion of houses must still have the old-style distribution boards.

Chico

[RCD adapters]

I have never seen an RCD adapter in the DIY supermarkets in France.  I have read some interesting posts on the subject which only refer to units which are installed in the household wiring system.  Perhaps a separate adapter which you plug into the output before plugging in the appliance is unnecessary, but can I be sure?

I have to confess to being a bit of a belt and braces man, but on two occasions over the years in the UK I have drilled through live cables which should not have been there and could well owe my life to these cheap gadgets.  If I could use one in France I would be happier.

 

[Printer cartridges - infrequent use]

We spend half the year in France, migrating every two months. I don’t use my printers much and so the cartridges dry up or otherwise malfunction and this can get expensive. Has anybody managed to overcome this problem?

I have an HP deskjet 960c in the UK and an Epson C42 plus in France. The Epson is cheap and cheerful and has been quite good in spite of the hot climate where we are. I have got into the habit of topping up the inks once a year using first a chip resetter then the Russian freebie program to overcome the infamous Epson scam. The quality of printing is pretty low though.

The HP gives a good enough print when it’s working, but does’nt like being left idle for two months at a time. It does’nt like having it’s cartridges refilled or topped up either.

I wonder whether the answer would be to buy two identical modestly priced printers and carry the cartridges backwards and forwards so they don’t dry out, but printer makers don’t like you switching half-used cartridges and some, maybe not all, put blocks on this.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Chico

[Messagerie problem solved]

Having said elsewhere that my experience of speaking to France Telecom personnel has been daunting I thought I should share the benefit of such a conversation that did go well.

 

The France Telecom free answerphone service is great, but when I was around the house I could never reach the phone quickly enough to take a call before it switched to "la messagerie".

 

Here's how to change the length of time the phone rings before switching to answerphone.   The maximum is 40 seconds and I have used that in the example.  If, for example, you want 30 seconds (which is what I have chosen) just input 30.  You can change the setting any time you like, as often as you like.

 

Lift the handset and input the following

 

      a.   * (the star button)

      b.   610

      c.   *

      d.   40 (or whatever)

      e.   #

 

Replace the handset.

 

 

Bonne chance.

 

Chico

[Onspeed]

This one is for Martin Watkins,

 

First, Martin, I agree with everything you say about Onspeed.  I'm also "fairly satisfied".  I have stopped pulling my hair out, especially for this forum where I had virtually given up using it since it changed - I used to be a regular contributor.

 

I don't accept your modesty when you say you know nothing about computers when I have bought two downloads, one for the UK and one for France, and you have managed to install one download on two computers.  How did you do it?

 

Regards,

 

Chico

[Ligne Résidence Sécondaire]

France Telecom are pushing this as a saving for second home owners.  It provides a facility to suspend your line when you are not there, so saving the standing charge of €13.99 in return for a charge of €4.69 each time you suspend the line.

 

I have failed miserably to set this up online (the site keeps crashing) and, in spite of having reasonable conversational French, my experience of talking to FT personnel has been daunting.

 

Has anyone had any success with this?  My first question is whether the facility is available to non-residents or only to residents who will have a principal line as well as the one for the second home.  Maybe as a non-resident I am wasting my time anyway.

 

Regards,

 

Chico

[BLOOD TESTS]

Hi Peter,

 

I suggest your first step is to write to [email protected]  explaining the situation.  I did this last August and got a very helpful reply three weeks later.  This included the following which seems to cover your wife’s situation.

 

“From 1^st June 2004 UK residents who are temporarily visiting another European Union Member State are entitled to receive any necessary treatment which their state of health requires during their stay using their Form E111, on the same terms as an insured resident of the country being visited (providing the stay is for no longer than 6 months).

 

This includes on-going medical care for pre-existing conditions i.e. medication, blood tests and injections.

 

The legal basis for this can be found in Decision No. 194 of 17^th December 2003 – a copy can be posted to you if you provide me with your address.

 

Therefore, you will not need a Form E112. Please keep this letter together with your E111 when doing so. If necessary, show this letter to the doctor and/or the hospital.”

 

I suggest your next step is to speak to one of the laboratories near to your home in France or send them a letter or e-mail.  If you  need to find one while you are still in the UK, just put the name of the town or village and “laboratoire” in Google and you are likely to find several choices.  Ask them if they can accept a prescription from a UK doctor.  My own haematologist says the terms used are to an international standard, so this may be possible.  If not, your UK doctor may be able to give you a letter to a French doctor for him/her to write a French ordonance.

 

You will almost certainly find the service you get in a French laboratory beyond your wildest dreams compared to the UK.  They are likely to have someone who speaks English.

 

The report you get will normally be available the day after you give your blood sample.  It will be in a standard computerised form giving all the readings requested.  As these analysis machines are used all over the world it may be possible to ask for an English version of the report.

 

If you speak to your UK consultant or doctor he may say you can send him the reports to see if the dose needs to be changed.  He may even accept a French version as the terms are so similar.

 

If you wife does need to see a specialist in France it gets a bit more complicated, but at the end of the day she should be able to recover 60% or more of her outlays via her E111.

 

During a stay here last year I was taken ill and found to have cancer.  I spent seven weeks in hospital in Marseille and then had two months of treatment.  The hospital stay was paid for by my E111, the treatment was paid for by an E112 which had to be applied for, and since then any follow-ups which have coincided with a stay in France have been paid for by my E111.  The hospital and treatment charges were reimbursed 100%, but the follow-ups only 60%.

 

Tell your wife not to believe anybody who tells you the French medical system is fantastic.  It’s much, much better than that.

 

Best of luck,

 

Chico

 

[Transferring money from Moneybookers to Britline]

.Hi, Alan et al,

 

Here’s the update I promised.

 

I sent the money from my Moneybookers account at about 6pm on Thursday and it arrived in my Britline account on Monday, not bad as this included the weekend.  Britline made no charge.  I got a rate of 1.44359, which is about as good as you can get.  I only sent £20 as I was checking out the system and worried I might screw up.

 

The Moneybookers charge was £1.25 which seems to be a flat rate irrespective of amount.  I particularly liked the fact that they sent me an automated e-mail to say that my transfer from First Direct to fund my transfer to Britline had been received, saving me the need to keep logging on to Moneylenders to see if it had arrived.  That transfer took three working days.

 

The procedure is dead easy once you get the hang of it.  They could do more to explain the procedure to newcomers, but I think I shall stick with them now.

 

Chico   

[Transferring money from Moneybookers to Britline]

Hi Alan,

Many thanks for your reply.  I spoke to Britline this morning and was told that I would be charged 16.75 euros each time.  This is clearly wrong on your experience and that of another forum member who wrote me privately.

I think you have put your finger on it by mentioning that your Moneybookers account is in euros, as mine is.  However, my earlier transfers from First Direct were all in euros and Britline charged me until about two years ago.

I shall give it a try and report back with my results.

Regards,

Chico

[Transferring money from Moneybookers to Britline]

I have just found this helpful item via Search.  I have signed up with Moneybookers and I have just made the same mistakes by trying to send money to an e-mail address!  Now I have set up my Britline account with the help of Feichter's message of 9th July last year, but I notice that there is no provision for giving the IBAN number.  I thought this was necessary to avoid a charge (of about £13 from memory) from Britline for receiving money from the UK.

Has anyone experienced this and found a way of avoiding the "incoming money" charge by Britline?

Regards,

Chico

[Everyday English words in everyday French]

You can really impress your French friends by using the word feeling (with the emphasis on the "ling", of course).  They use the word to convey a deeply sensitive inner sensation of poetic status.  I was ticked off recently for not giving the word its due gravitas, more along the lines of "Ah fink".

The trouble with these borrowed words when they are nouns is that you can never be sure what gender they should be.

Chico (with feeling)

[Cheapest access to Sky]

I have only just found that Sky have reneged on their promise to me last year that I could keep my card and continue to get all the usual BBC and ITV freebies after one year of subscription.

Perhaps the time has come to get around this by subscribing to Pout or one of the other adult channels as suggested here about a year ago. The idea is that you pay about 5 subscription and get a free Sky card (which can also pick up their channel on a pay per night basis) with no obligation to actually pay to watch any of their stuff.

Did anybody go down this route and, if so, does it work? Are their any drawbacks, in particular any threats to disable your card if you do not use the service?

I can understand anyone not wanting to go public on this, so please feel free to drop a line to my mailbox (see above) if youd rather.

Chico

[Zapping That Woman]

I am a great supporter of the Michel Thomas method of learning a language, but I feel the same way about That Woman as many who have made comments in La Mairie. The male student annoys me too with his persistent refusal to pronounce est like the a in may, sticking to his personal favourite, e as in bet. The end result is that revision of the course is a real chore and carries the risk of hooking into the same bad habits as the students.

Having copied the course on to my PC, I would love to be able to edit out the waffle so that I am left with the bare essentials. I have tried to find some suitable software via Google, but have only found over-complicated commercial programs.

Any ideas?

Chico

[Spanish version of La Mairie?]

I am sure I read in Living France some time ago that there is a Spanish version of the magazine and La Mairie. Is that so? If not, can anyone suggest any other facilities which are nearly as good?

Chico

[Basic Question on Paying Tax]

Hi Sarah,

I am not sure whether you have a special reason to sort out your taxe fonciere and taxe dhabitation early. Unless you have a special reason to know what you are going to have to pay, you can just wait in the certain knowledge that the tax authorities will come to you when they want their money.

I understand that it is the responsibility of the notaire to advise the authorities of a change of ownership (or residence) at the time the ownership is transferred.

Our French house is in the Vaucluse, in Provence and we bought it in early December last year. I was told that the demands for the two taxes would arrive in October 2002 to cover the period from 1/1/2002. Sure enough, the demand for the taxe fonciere arrived at the beginning of October with a note that it would be surcharged by 10% if it wasnt paid by the 15th October. Unfortunately, presumably on the advice of the notaire, it was sent to my address in England, so the first we heard of it was when we arrived back in England in November.

On the advice of a French neighbour I paid up by TIP to the Marseilles centre and wrote to the admin centre in Avignon asking for the necessary forms to pay by direct debit next year and begging them ever so humbly to give me a break over the 10% surcharge this year. If they do apply the surcharge, I gather it will be added to my bill next year.

I have heard nothing about the tax dhabitation yet.

I suggest you have a word with the notaire if you really need to know. Or it may be a nice ice-breaker to ask a neighbour when they usually get their demands. I would be surprised if they do not fall over themselves to help you over such a vital subject, ie, the authorities wanting your money.

Good luck,

Chico