Daves Christmas rant

[Chancer]

Ignore him, he's just after a reaction that he wont get from me.

 

Water off a ducks back.

 

Séquiéneres

[woolybanana]

quack, quack.

[idun]

Chancer, I found to my cost that I should have been photocopying both sides of the cheques I was paying in. On the back of cheques I always write the name of the account to be credited AND the account/reference number.

 Apparently, once paid in, and a cheque is in the system, I at least, had no right to see the verso, which would have been my proof.

Credit Agricole, I once paid in a large amount of cash for an association and for all the amount was correct, the numpty counting it said it was wrong, and I made them count again......... hated using CA for the association, would never use it myself.

We are on our 5th french bank, not great, but had far worse.

[dave21478]

I still do most of my banking in UK and having gone through a few french banks, am currently with Credit Agricole. I do the absolute bare minimum through them that I possibly can and never leave more than about a thousand euros in the account.

They have done their "short count" bull5hit with me too the one and only time I used the drop-off point. Now, the cash stays at home....no point it being in the bank anyway, they dont apply interest to the account.... and on the very rare occasions I have to pay in cash I do so over the counter and count the notes one at a time onto the table with pedantic slowness. I trust them as far as I could throw them, and they have now realised this and leave me alone, having given up trying to sell me all their pointless services.

After a serious assault that occured in their doorway on the evening of a summer fete one year it came to light that all their cameras were fake. The outcry from the village was what pushed them to fit real ones.

[Chancer]

Sorry but thats either unbelievable or to unreal to believe [:P] - for some anyway [:D]

 

I used to have a cyberstalker that whenever I related anything like that would call me a fantasist plonker (one of the more pleasant labels) and was convinced that I did not even live in France.

 

I had no choice but to use a bank because the mattress was looking like a hollock with the summer rentals, its why I opened with La Banque Postale because for the moment at least cash deposits have to be paid over the counter and the layout of their desks mean they cannot hide it from me, in the old building with a tiny window at head height it was a nightmare, problems is that cheques have to be paid in by just dropping them in a slot and you get no reciept for the transaction, its not recorded in anyway either by having to type in the amount etc or by video-surveillance so I'm in the crazy situation of remaining with the C.A. who have already twice robbed me to pay in cheques, I thought that by trying La Banque Postale at my local post office with the girl I know and who does give me a reciept for the transaction I might fare better, silly me.

 

Now both the girl in my village and my tenant (a good one) are both full of anxiety because of the missing funds [:(],  I'm not concerned, it will eventually be sorted but you can see that they dont believe it will based on bitter previous expériences.

[alittlebitfrench]

I married into a banking family and the bank in question (I will not tell you the name) is a nightmare to deal with even if you have family connections who were up at the very top of the organisation. Having moved about a lot I would say that all branches are as bad as each other. Paris, Lyon Paris etc etc etc. It is quite shocking really. I have no idea how anything gets done in is this country.

All this talk of major banks moving to France after Brexit. Yeah right.

We are seriously considering going for an online bank.

We also had an SFR director in the family before he quit. That did not help either with our constant battles with SFR.

But we love France.

[dave21478]

Someone I know told me about their mortgage and how is would be paid off this year.....if their bank had not screwed up and "lost" five years worth of payments at the start of the mortgage term.

The monthly amount was taken without problem, but where that money went....literally nobody knows. Certainly not towards paying down their mortgage. Their branch couldnt do anything. Their personal adviser in the branch retired during this time and the replacement couldnt figure out what was going on....mortgage from previous property, bridging loan, some kind of deal for VAT reduction on rennovation on the new place....apparently it was "complicated". Head office couldnt do anything. Some kind of banking ombudsman got nowhere....it just faded away and they gave up with it all a long time ago and just accept that they have a further five years to slog.

If that were me i would have been onto the cozzers at least and more likely would have ended up making the news and then not having to worry about mortgage, or any other expenses, for the next six years or whatever murder gets you these days.

Caisse D'epargne, if you need to know.

[dave21478]

In further rants...courier companies. Every time...EVERY SINGLE TIME i order something, there is a problem with delivery.

Got a text message on Monday asking me what day I would like my delivery. Since I live somewhere remote they couldnt be more specific than "between 9am and 8pm". I chose delivery for the following day and sacked off work, opting to do some jobs round the house while waiting. No show the next day and I got a text message about 4pm...Sorry, we cant deliver it, please choose another day. There is no way to phone up and speak to someone...by God, I looked long and hard, but then thought, whats the point? they wont give a 5hit, they will just feed me whatever they think i want to hear and carry on as before. I have reselected to have it delivered to a relay point tomorrow.....we will see. I get it...its Christmas, they are probably busy, but Jesus, its not rocket science and yet I still get screwed around by every single courier company out there.

When I become ruler, every employee of every courier company, from directors down to the cleaners will be executed in a horribly grisly manner, probably involving chainsaws. This will be shown live on all channels over a week or so and be mandatory viewing for all. The sudden availability of thousands of jobs will solve the employment problems and hopefully having seen what happened to their predecessors, the new employees should be suitably motivated to not screw up one of the oldest and simplest professions in the history of civilisation.

[woolybanana]

Must differ, Dave, my delivery drivers over the years have been brilliant.

[BritinBretagne]

[quote user="woolybanana"]Must differ, Dave, my delivery drivers over the years have been brilliant.[/quote]

My experience too and I live out of the way. I guess some people like a moan.

[richard51]

Dave - given your previous experiences why did you not use the relay service straight away?

Frustrations can occur in the UK as well.

[andyh4]

My experience is more in line with Dave's and more often than not I get an email that following my absence they have delivered to the point relais - 11m away, but at least it is near the supermarket. Of course I have not been absent, they have just not bothered to even try.

However having worked in logistics I can at least understand why this happens. 11km off the main drag means that they have a 22km round trip and at 90kph with say a 30 second drop off means that their traffic office will reckon on a 15 - 16 minute delivery off that main drag. on a good day with no hold ups I can do a one way trip in just under that time.

The time pressures the drivers are put under makes it near impossible for them to maintain the traffic office schedules, so if they have a chance to gain a quarter of an hour by delivering to the point relais they take it. Only if they have an accumulation of packages (and especially if they are COD) for the village do they make the detour and actually deliver.

[alittlebitfrench]

I was supposed to have a parcel delivered today.

It never arrived....of course. We live in town.

Just checked the website and it is still out for delivery today.

Well, I will stay up then.

Talking of which, we did a same day Amazon order and delivery to Paris. It was despatched from Orleans.

Ordered at 3PM and it was delivered by a someone driving a very old (probably stolen) beat up renault clio at 7PM. I went down to to receive it and well....next time I will go armed with something just in case.

[Chancer]

She apoogises for the delay, she was held up by Santa and a couple of flics!

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5195129/Hit-run-driver-arrested-chased-Santa.html

[dave21478]

[quote user="richard51"]Dave - given your previous experiences why did you not use the relay service straight away?

Frustrations can occur in the UK as well.[/quote]

I wasnt given the option. Relay points only became available on the later message.

[dave21478]

[quote user="andyh4"]My experience is more in line with Dave's and more often than not I get an email that following my absence they have delivered to the point relais - 11m away, but at least it is near the supermarket. Of course I have not been absent, they have just not bothered to even try.

However having worked in logistics I can at least understand why this happens. 11km off the main drag means that they have a 22km round trip and at 90kph with say a 30 second drop off means that their traffic office will reckon on a 15 - 16 minute delivery off that main drag. on a good day with no hold ups I can do a one way trip in just under that time.

The time pressures the drivers are put under makes it near impossible for them to maintain the traffic office schedules, so if they have a chance to gain a quarter of an hour by delivering to the point relais they take it. Only if they have an accumulation of packages (and especially if they are COD) for the village do they make the detour and actually deliver.[/quote]

I totally understand why it happens. Maybe they could do something utterly crazy like...perhaps....employ more drivers? Madness, I know, but it might just work.

[Chancer]

The technology is there but the will to provide a better more efficient = more profitable service isn't, and frankly all the time that the French continue to meekly say "que voulez-vous qu'on fasse?" when a bank steals their money or 5 years of mortgage payments nothing will ever change, at least not in my lifetime.

 

I had a DPD delivery to my UK address recently, at the last minute I had to cancel my Eurotunnel crossing and was hoping that it would not arrive speedily as there was no-one around to sign for it.

 

I got an E-mail saying that my parcel would be there within a 30 minute window that morning, the the driver was Marek and a photo of him smiling, I could also track his van on Google earth and saw it moving around my village, mine was delivery 23 of 37, he was currently at number 12 etc, I was within 30 minutes of it arriving.

 

There was a button to click to request the delivery be left with a neighbour, in a safe place etc, far too late for that thought I but I tried it anyway "can you please leave it in the porch?" within " minutes an E-mail, your request has been forwarded to Marek and accepted [:-))]

 

I watched in awe on Google maps as his van made its way to my house via my old office, it stopped outside at exactly the predicted time, within 3 minutes another E-mail saying that it had been delivered and 2 photographs showing it in the porch of my rented house.

 

This could happen tomorrow in France, at least with DPD but I have more chance of going through puberty a second time.

 

I have been over 3 times recently and have had several deliveries, the tenant of the house the delivery address has got a full time job now and all the drivers seem happy to leave bot hers and my parcels in the porch without a signature, no doubt they take photos, I guess if an address is flagged up as dodgy, maybe the owner trying for a refund claiming non delivery they would be more reticent.

[andyh4]

That's German efficiency for you.

[Chancer]

I didnt know that they were a German company, says it all Andy!

 

I have a supplier in Holland, he makes no apologies for his delivery costs being high because he will only use UPS to deliver to France or he wont do business with anyone in the country, he was fed up with getting undeserved bad feedback always because of delivery problems.

 

look through any French language negative feedback for EU Amazon sellers and its always the same, the sellers dont deserve it, the delivery companys do.

[andyh4]

DPD - Deutsche PaketDienst - German parcel service.

[DraytonBoy]

DPD is actually owned by a subsidiary of La Poste.

[BritinBretagne]

[quote user="Chancer"]

I didnt know that they were a German company, says it all Andy!

look through any French language negative feedback for EU Amazon sellers and its always the same, the sellers dont deserve it, the delivery companys do.[/quote]

I had a problem with an Amazon seller’s delivery and it was definitely their fault not a delivery company’s. Their computer had changed my address from the one supplied by Amazon. The confirmation email from Amazon showed the correct address, a later email from the seller showed what they had converted it into.

[AnOther]

Two out of the three delivery problems I've had have been with DPD but only when ordering from Germany.

Twice the items got to a clearing depot in France (forget the  place) but then got flagged for an alleged 'non existent' French address. Both ended up sent back to the suppliers and dispatched a second time but with confirmation from me that my address was 100% correct as given but exactly the same thing happened a second time, 'non existent' address.

Both times I cancelled the orders and got a refund.

The really stupid thing is if you put the name of my property into Google maps (2 simple 5 letter words which you can even type together as one) followed by just the first 3 digits of the postcode, it lands on my doorstep !

Same goes for Here maps and both Garmin and TomTom sat navs, go figure !

Third instance was a FedEx delivery. For an sudden and unavoidable reason I had to briefly leave the house but unfortunately my neighbour who normally takes in deliveries if necessary was away so I had to chance it.

Of course the driver did turn up in the half hour or so I was away but since he'd left a card saying he would try again the next day I shrugged it off. Needless to say perhaps he never showed so now I was left in the dark as to when, or even if, another delivery would be scheduled so I started making phone calls.

I finally tracked my package down to a communial clearing house in the nearby town but was told that the next scheduled delivery to my are wasn't for another 3 or 4 days although I could collect it from there at any time so armed with the address (I knew where it was) off I went.

Well could I find the damn place, NO !

I found the street alright, as I said I knew where that was, but despite driving it's length probably half a dozen times I could see nothing remotely resembling a FedEx depot nor a courier depot of any sort and I'd neglected to take the telephone number so couldn't phone them.

I was almost resigned to going nome to get the number when by sheer chance in the mirror I spotted a small FedEx van emerging from an alley between 2 buildings so I drove to the place and noted that one building was unoccupied and had a 'for rent' sign on it and the other had a big sign blazoned across the front proclaiming it as a depot for one of the local vineyards, not so much as hint of being anything else but of course when I drove down the alley there were the FedEx vans and the office !

About France in general; I think when you reach the point where the balance between things which please you and those which displease or annoy swings to the latter it's time to move on and for us that's where we are - hence the house being on the market - and when sold we'll rent until the madness of Brexit is settled.

Ideally we've decided we want to relocate to Spain but making such a move before Brexit is over is too much of leap into the unknown so we're pretty much stuck with staying in France until then but at least we'll be liquid when the time does come and when the uncertainties are finally over.

[elamessa]

Have a mobile contract with Orange that covers europe, DOM etc. With this contract you get two sim cards one for the phone and one to use in another device, MIFI, Tablet etc.

Was in Spain recently and the MiFi device wouldnt get a signal after me trying everything. I had used the same device earlier in the year and it worked perfectly in Spain and Italy. Anyway contacted Orange help line and spent 2 1/2 hours with so called expert with no joy. The numpty I was dealing with tried to tell me that my contract was for France only and also that data roaming does not include Spain!!

You couldn't make it up....

[Chancer]

My tenant who's cheque has gone missing is now doing a Beaker impression, its not been drawn against his account and he is worried that someone else will get their hands on it, thats what happened last time.

 

Meanwhile no response from La Banque Postale, my conseilleur the one person in the branch with maybe a couple of hours of bank training is in hiding, not answering her phone, ignoring the request from her boss to contact me, no response to the official Formulaire Reclamation Bancaire I submitted, TBH what can they say other than "we have lost the cheque and dont know where it is" which of course they will never do, (they gave me a reciept for 3 cheques totalling €1625 yet creditted the account with only 2 totalling €1100), so easiest just to ignore the person, after all that has always worked to date [:D]