Having problems with your mobile phone service provider?

If you are one of the many thousands of people who have ever tried to move their phone number from one network to another and failed then look no further.  What I will give you here is clear and concise information that is backed up with little known legislation and loopholes that the networks would rather you didn’t know.  How much do I want for this information you might ask because there are many consumer group websites out there charging for this info or charging for the privilege to use their site.  Well my fee is absolutely zero, which funnily enough is exactly how much money you have to pay to a network in order to port but I will explain this in greater detail later.

If you have a mobile phone;  contract or otherwise that you use and pay for according to the terms and conditions then the number associated is legally yours.  It is your legal right to use that telephone number on whatever network you chose, even if you have bad debt with the network!

Firstly it is worth noting that there are only 5 UK phone networks, Orange, T-Mobile, Three, o2 & Vodafone however there are a plethora of  “billing platforms” that buy minutes and texts from these networks and bill you separately.  For example you buy your phone from the Carphone Warehouse and they connect you to the o2 network yet you are still billed by Carphone Warehouse.  In any case you would need to speak with  the company who bill’s you not the company who provides the airtime.

In this post we will deal with consumer & Business accounts on the 5 major UK networks and later I will give advice and guidance for the billing platforms.

Your first port of call should be a telephone call to the customer service department of your network who will ultimately transfer you to their loyalty or retentions department.  Put simply you need to verbally ask them for your Port Authorisation Code (PAC), this is where the fun begins.  Depending on how long you have left to run on your contract depends on how much of a fight the network puts up.  o2 are well known for being very hard and pushy when you ask to cancel, they will try their hardest to retain you and a lot of the time will even make you feel rather bad for leaving them.  This is where you have to stand firm and fight your case, if you really want to leave then don’t be afraid to be blunt and not ask any questions about the new deal.  They will always attempt to better the deal you have been offered, if you want to stay then so be it however you should remember, why is it only when you want to leave are they offering you a better deal?

The simple rule to remember is that it is your legal right to take your number wherever you want and not let them bully you into staying.  o2 will offer your PAC in two parts, they will take your call as the initial request then 48 hours later they will text you the code.  If however you haven’t received the PAC don’t be afraid to call back up and ask them to read it out to you over the phone.

Ofcom have laid out strict rules that all networks MUST follow, these rules state that a network is obligated to issue you with a PAC within 48 hours of any reasonable request.

Three are another network that requires a lot of perseverance to get a PAC simply because they are mainly based overseas and are targeted on retentions.  However be firm and ensure that they give you the PAC over the phone in the same call, they will tell you it can take two hours but that is absolute rubbish!!!

All networks use the exact same system to generate PAC’s.  This system is an internet based system that can generate a PAC instantly, there is no 48 hour wait!

T-Mobile are actually a very good network to get PAC’s from, they will offer the usual retention deals but will back down once you make it clear that you are leaving.  The usual barrier that T-Mobile will put up is making you pay your early termination fee upfront.  If you are getting a cash back deal with your new network and are planning to use this money to pay the buyout then you would be better off getting the fee applied to the final bill.  I

The Network cannot refuse to issue a port authorisation code if:


The customer has not paid their final airtime bill, notice period (not served), disconnection charges, or any porting charge before the port date. These charges should be included in the final airtime bill, which will be settled according to the terms of the contract.  The customer is in bad debt but is still connected to the airtime at the time the request is received.

Vodafone are another company that seem to comply with Ofcom’s advice about excessive retention activity.  For consumers it is a simple phone call to the network requesting the PAC, they will advise you that it will be sent within 48 hours by text, again if you haven’t received it don’t hesitate on calling them, make sure they don’t make you wait a further 48 hours, they can generate the code over the phone.  For business requests they do require that you send the request in writing by either email or Fax, there is no way around this but once they have received the Fax/Email they must release your PAC within 48 hours.

The Network is entitled to insist on a written porting authorisation request with the customer’s signature before issuing a PAC, if it is their current business policy to require the customer’s signature for confirmation of a termination request.

I have attached a link below which should be used as your bible when requesting PAC’s, this is the document that all networks have agreed to abide by.

FAQ’s

I have received a couple of questions already and the most frequent ones will be listed here:

Q. I have just been told by T-Mobile that there is a £10 maximum to put on my final bill and they want the early termination penalty up front.

A. There is no maximum limit at all, the web system is not attached to their billing system.  Ask to speak to a manager and quote the following:

The Network cannot refuse to issue a port authorisation code if:

The customer has not paid their final airtime bill, notice period (not served), disconnection charges, or any porting charge before the port date. These charges should be included in the final airtime bill, which will be settled according to the terms of the contract.  The customer is in bad debt but is still connected to the airtime at the time the request is received.

Q. o2 have just told me that I am not eligible to cancel because I have too much time left on my contract.

A. This is a time wasting tactic used by the networks to make you have to call back!

Q. I was just told that I can’t have my PAC because they don’t think I am the person named on the bill

A. This is one of the only reasons a PAC can be refused, the best option is to call from the actual handset with your most recent bill with you.

Please see the below link for the Ofcom Porting Guide.

http://tinyurl.com/yz78obc

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Diamond cabs of Telford suck!!!

Sorry about the outburst I feel the need to get that in the sub heading of this post after my experience with them on Friday morning.  I get a message from my friend telling me they can’t give me a lift into work on Friday morning so I duly call a taxi and was told that it would take 20 minutes at 7.45am (it takes about 20 mins to get there.  I am due to start work at 8.45am so I believe that I have given plenty of notice.

At 8.15am I gave them a call to ask where my cab was and was told he was seconds away from me.  At 8.30 I called again and asked where my taxi was as I was told it was only seconds away 15 minutes ago.  At 8.45am I call again and ask the controller where exactly my taxi was and was told he was in an area about 700 yards from my house.  9.00am rolls around and I call again, this time I’m told he is literally pulling up outside, so I asked the controller if I was getting a discounted fare due to the fact I had lost 1 hours pay due to his crap planning and logistical skills.  He responded with “I can’t do anything about the fare because the drivers are self employed”.

Just out of interest I called another company who told me they could get a car outside in 10 mins as the Diamond Taxi Telford car pulled up.  The driver was uninterested in the fact I was late and made no effort to apologise for his poor punctuality.  The manners of the driver are not the issue but it is the failure of a public servant to do his job correctly.

It is a good job that I hold the position in my place of work where turning up late is not a sackable offence rather just a point of concern if it happens regularly.  However what would have happened if I had a job interview to attend or worked for a company that didn’t tolerate lateness?  Surely these taxi firms have a duty of care and if not they certainly should!

Do they not understand by lying to customers by promising to deliver you to a said destination is not only a pain in the arse but could affect peoples lives.  Had the controller said to me when I called “no taxis until after 9am) I would have thanked him and gone elsewhere however I would return to them.  But it seems that they would rather offer the customer a one off shite service based on a false promise!  Again when I called the first time it would have been much better for them to tell me the truth and say that due to unforeseen circumstances my taxi was going to be late?  It’s just a sad state of affairs when a taxi company would rather earn a fiver than ensure I get to work on time and continue to get repeat custom from me!

Maybe it is about time that all bus/taxi companies are required to show due diligence towards their customers as part of their operators licence just like the rail company.  The government is quick enough to fine FGW or Arriva if their trains are late and I strongly believe that it’s about time the same rules are forced upon the other “public transport” services.

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Right, I feel the need to have a rant about a recent run in with a complete and utter numpty who has been allowed the right to point and shoot a deadly weapon on the public highway!  Normally my posts are long drawn out detailed diatribes but due to general sickness and the urge to publicly insult this fool I’m keeping it short.

I had just spent the weekend at my parents and they were coming to visit us, so as usual me and my family got a train to Swansea and we going to come home in my Mother’s giant Chrysler Voyager.  Normally we take the “tom tom” route that takes us through the heart of Wales and along many A & B roads, however we wanted to check out the motorway!  After 2 and a half hours of a fairly sedate journey along the motorway network it came time for us to take our exit from the motorway via a contraflow.

So there we were sitting in Lane 3 (Fast lane) about a mile from our exit, A crappy beaten up green Nissan Primera was approaching at speed so my mother stuck her indicator on and moved over into lane 2 (middle lane) and so did the Primera, so after checking it was safe my mother moved into lane 1 (slow lane).  Once again my mother checked the way was clear and indicated to move over into the contraflow lane to take our exit.  It was at this point that matey boy in his badly modified Nissan Primera attempted to undertake 2 tons of 3 year old, 3.2 Turbo V6, Chrysler Voyager.  He did the usual blokey thing and sat on his horn for quite some time making the usual hand gestures!  I should point out that it was my mothers foresight that saved a shunt by accelerating to clear this idiot, I should also point out that there were 4 adults and 2 young children in the car with me and matey boy knew this but still risked a collision by being a prick!

So we were rolling up a slip road towards the roundabout and my mother positioned herself in the right hand lane to take the last exit off the roundabout and he rolled up on the left hand side of us staring into the front window’s.  I looked at him and gave him the usual Wanker hand gesture so as an insult he decided to do the whole pointing at the head to signify my mother might be a bit crazy.  But whilst his gormless face was staring at me he failed to notice the slight kink in the road and rolled his idiotic car over the kerb with quite a large bump!  It was at this point where we all decided to point and laugh at him so he made another hand gesture and raced off round the outside of normal motorists only to end up cutting more people up and took the same exit as us.

We finally caught up with him as he was stopped at a set of lights and I could see that he was looking in his wing mirror as we were rolling up along side him.  After noticing that there were two fully grown men in the car his big hard man attitude had all but faded away as he gripped his steering wheel with both hands and was staring dead ahead!  Had the Voyager not had sliding doors in the back I was going to open the door just to see his reaction!

I hate stupid drivers, but I have to admit this guy made me laugh quite hard considering he nearly wiped himself out just to make some childish gesture at a superior “woman driver”

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Jenson crowned 2009 Formula One World Champion!

It’s true!  This time last year nobody would have guessed that at the end of the penultimate race Jenson Button would be crowned world champion.  I am not going to give any sort of sporting analysis of the race rather point out a few points that caught my eye today and indeed throughout this tempestuous season.

There is one thing that can be said about this years season and that is Jenson has done this all alone!  From his first drive in a Williams I have always had a hope for this feisty little bugger, in fact people got bored of me saying “give Jenson a competitive car and the world championship is his”.  I know it is easy to say following the success of the Brawn GP team but I have always had faith in him.  So much faith in fact I actually own the 2005-2006 season Honda winter Jacket.  The season started with Jenson leading the way and clearly he had finally received that winning car/team combination to push him to the top.  The whole world seemed to be behind Jenson, the press and media were happy plastering his face all over their pages but as the season progressed a terrible trend appeared.  It appeared that no matter what Jenson did it wasn’t quite good enough for Eddie “the poison Dwarf” Jordan.  Jenson never did a good lap, he did a lap half a second slower than Lewis “the cheating scumbag” Hamilton.  It seemed that the public and press were doing exactly the same it was only going to get worse as most of this criticism was given when he was winning!

The season progressed and the criticism got worse, the competitors cars got upgraded and Jenson’s winning streak was over.  Most reports were simply stating he isn’t a naturally born champion like Hamilton, or it was his car that did all the work?  This really wound me up because the same was never said about Hamilton when he swerved, cut up and cheated his way to victory in the previous two seasons.  Jenson has always been a true sportsman and you knew he always put 110% into his racing even if he was driving a car not much quicker than a three legged rocking horse.  There was however one person who like me stuck with Jenson through it all and that was David Coulthard (DC), who at times appeared to be as pissed off as me by the comments coming from the little Irish poisoned one!

The Brawn GP team have done the sport proud this season with a fine mix of internal rivalry and unsurpassed support for both their drivers through good & bad times.  Today’s race really showed the true sporting hero’s of the Formula One teams, this can be summed up by the actions of the Brawn GP pit crew when Heikki Kovalainen was released by a rather sleepy pit crew and dragged a fuelling hose down the pit lane nearly barbecuing a Ferrari.  By the time he had realised he had come to a halt right outside the Brawn garage.  Now the last time this happened it was Massa who wanted to take the hose with him and when he came to a standstill he had to sit and wait for his pit crew to arrive to remove the hose.  Everybody just stood there looking at the car and the pit crew running towards the stricken car.  However in today’s race the Brawn GP team leapt into action and started working trying to remove the hose.  It wasn’t a contrived effort, there were at least 4 people pulling at the hose, 1 on standby with the fire extinguisher and even their “lollipop man” came out.  Now at this point of the race Brawn’s chances of winning were under threat from McLaren so it would have been in Brawn’s favour not to help, but that wasn’t the case.  Once they had successfully released the hose the Brawn “Lollipop man” checked the pit lane and ensured that Heikki was released safely.  When I say safely I don’t just mean he strolled over and said “off you go buddy” he got down to his knees in view of the tiny wing mirrors and gave him thumbs up and waved him off.

You just don’t see this level of true sportsmanship anywhere any more and it warms my heart to know that the Brawn GP team were the ones delivering it.  At the end of the race where the attention was unceremoniously taken from Mark Webber (who actually won the race against all odds) and all the interviews and post race analysis was given there wasn’t a single mention of it.  There was however lots of talk about how close everyone else came to winning and how the race came to Jenson.

Next year I fear is going to be more of the same for Jenson, if he fails to deliver in anything next year he will be dragged over the coals for it!  Just please remember when you are slagging him off that he is a true sporting hero, never do you see him cutting other drivers up, cheating or playing the system to gain an advantage unlike another alleged champion!

One more thing before I finish this, due to a little bet I made right at the beginning of the season I will be changing my name by deed poll.  So as soon as the paperwork comes through I will have Jenson as my new middle name!

Everything else brawn, brawngp, button, cheating, f1, formula one, gp, heikki kovalainen, honda, jenson, mclaren, pit crew, racing, ross brawn, scumbag hamilton, team

Recently I have been asked many times why “my CD drive isn’t detected anymore?”.  It seems that since the mammoth 34 vulnerabilities  Microsoft have recently released during its record “update Tuesday”.  This problem seems to affect laptops more than Desktop PC’s and it seems that it seems to kill the drivers for internal bluetooth adapters and built in webcams.  However do not despair because I have a fix for the CD/DVD ROM problem, and some helpful information about the webcam and bluetooth issues.

To make your computer detect your CD/DVD ROM then follow the below instructions.

Start the Command Prompt (CMD)

Type in “regedit” without the ” ” then click ok

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Then SYSTEM

Then CURRENT CONTROL SET

Then CONTROL

Then CLASS

Then find {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

The whole thing looks like this:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

Then delete the upper and lower filters….

There might be lots of identical keys just select the one that is for CD/DVD.

Restart your computer and all should be merry!

Before you attempt any registry edits please please please please backup first.  If you don’t backup you are at risk of killing your computer!

This post is for informational purposes and must not replace your manufacturers advice.  Do not attempt any sort of registry repair if:

1. You don’t know what the registry is.
2. You don’t know how to find it.
3. You have to google any of the above instructions.

Enjoy…

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A post mainly for my American Readers but due to its universal relevance I have decided to post it here.  According to a recently published white paper it would appear that the Internet Service Provider giant Comcast are now going to take proactive steps to prevent their customers computers being used as evil botnet slaves.  Now without going into too much detail about the technical side of Botnets I will give you a little background on them.

A Botnet is a series of computers that are remotely controlled to attack other machines, solicit spam or generally annoy the public.  To make a Botnet the creators will write a clever piece of Malware that opens certain ports onto your computer allowing it to be controlled by the Botnet or a master computer.  Generally you will not notice that your computer has been compromised but once you have, your computer can be used to commit all kinds of cyber crime.

So Comcast have decided to proactively monitor their broadband customers Internet traffic and will alert you via a browser pop up.  The browser pop will direct you to a site that will quickly and quietly scan your system and tell you what to do and how to do it.   It will offer customers to download and run a “special removal tool” which to me flies in the face of what the industry is advising PC users NOT to do.  To the customer this sounds all very lovely indeed unless you look at it from a techies point of view.  I have always advised clients to ignore any popup that they get stating that their computer is at risk, as it is just invasive advertising that is trying to get you to buy their crappy spyware/adware removal tool.  I just think this is a very risky way to “protect” their customer base by introducing this kind of popup.  Companies have been advising their customers for quite some time that they will never ask them to visit a site or ask for their details and yet Comcast are actively asking theirs to do exactly that.

Just think about the situation that Comcast have created, a Malware writer clones the browser popup and instead of directing customers to the Comcast site it redirects you to a nice copy of the original site.  Once there the customer will be required to download the removal tool but instead will be downloading the malicious payload.

I think it is really stupid method and is counter productive in the fight against cyber crime.

The news article covering this story can be read at http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-350878.html

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Trains, travelling and micro friendships.

I had the daunting task of travelling 3 hours on a train from Swansea to Shrewsbury yesterday.  Normally this journey is full of woe’s due to the sheer number of passengers crammed onto such a small train so my routine is the same every time.

• Get on train
• Find Table seat
• Get comfy
• Bury myself in a book
• Stick headphones in and melt away to the music

However yesterdays journey was different.  I sat opposite a happy looking woman who seemed lost in her own world of traveling, we exchanged smiles and both got our heads down for the long road ahead.  About 20 minutes into the journey I noticed the refreshment trolley whizzing down the isle with a rather flamboyant guy singing his wares.  I looked up and noticed that my fellow passenger had also noticed the flamboyance so I said “wow does he need the hard sell he has a captive audience”.  She then began to tell me he had been like that all the way from Pembroke (almost 1 hour) and that is where our “micro friendship” started.

She asked where I was going and what I was doing in Swansea, so I explained why I was there and we continued to exchange pleasantry’s until we reached Cardiff where I started asking about her and what she did.  She told me that following a rather exciting life in London she moved to South West Wales to continue her self made business path.  She had setup a Media & PR company and wanted the ideal life of living in the countryside rather than the hustle and bustle of London.  By the time we had reached Hereford we were deeply locked in conversation about our personal lives.  We were both enjoying the alcoholic joys of Arriva Trains Wales and I found myself very comfortable telling her about my work life and kids etc.  We shared the same views on kids, certain politics and put the whole world to rights about current affairs!

My “Micro Friend” Jackie (Sorry if I spelt it wrong)  was telling me about her family life, kids and pretty much anything else that we could talk about openly.  This situation is a very bizzare one to find myself in because I am normally very closed about my life but had no problems telling her about my home and family life.

After a while we started chatting about the situation we found ourselves in, I summarised that life is just a series of moments and ultimately it is how and who you share these moments with that make your life what it is.  We both spoke about the possibility of never seeing each other and the chances of our paths ever crossing again.  Something very strange happened then, I felt somewhat sad that I was never going to see my “micro friend” ever again.  In terms of age, personality and lifestyles we were worlds apart.  She was a middle aged well spoken lady who had obviously worked very hard to get where she was in life and there was little old me drinking out of the can and being as common as I normally am.

She thanked me for making the longest part of her journey go so quickly and to be honest the normally long dragged out journey was over in a heartbeat.  I had missed call’s, emails and text messages whilst caught up in this fascinating little social exchange.

Curiously it was Jackie who said that Shrewsbury was the upcoming stop and I gathered my belongings gave her a friendly handshake and wished her well.  I got off the train waved goodbye and she trundled out of my life forever…

This kind of social behaviour is really interesting as we also spoke about talking about each other and how she will always remember our conversation and that is true of me.  I will remember the lady who took the time to chat to a lonely Welshman on a long journey home.  It makes me glad to be part of the human race and has given me a whole new social experiment to plan.

Jackie if ever you read this, thank you for making my journey a quicker one.

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If you are reading this then you have probably “googled” something like “cheap xbox live subscriptions”.  Well that is what I did and I came across a UK based site called live-codes.com.  At first I was a little dubious as I am with all things that appear to good to be true so I asked around and found no negative comments anywhere (there is a good reason for that).

Let me tell you what I know about the site.  They are a UK based Limited company with a genuine registered office (not just a mailbox).  They use Google checkout so you can rest assured that they are not going to run off with your money and their support staff were available to answer my email within minutes at 10.30pm.

I had done my digging and researched the company before purchasing and decided to take the plunge and purchased a 12 month X-Box live subscription card for the fantastic price of £28.99.  Google Checkout was an absolute pleasure to use as I already have a gmail account and felt the transaction went smoother than most other online payment gateways from the largest corporations.

So at 10:22 I completed the transaction and in the time it took to open a new tab and press home the code was sat in my inbox.  It wasnt just an email with the numbers typed in it was an actual scan of the subscription card, I’m guessing they do this to reduce the possibility of problems should anything go wrong.  So as you can imagine I am over the moon at the speed my card was delivered I then entered the code into my X-Box and within seconds my Live account was refreshed for another 12 months.  I was so happy with the transaction I thought it would be nice to email them via their contact us form and tell them how impressed I was.  Within 5 minutes a very helpful person from live-codes.com had responded.  It wasn’t an automated response but a real human who replied to my every single compliment, this is something that will keep me going back time and time again.

It is very rare for an online retailer to have such an affect on me, I am still gobsmacked at the speed and reliablity of the service I recieved!

Now I know what you are all thinking, £28.99 is not as cheap as some of the Power Sellers on the evil Ebay.  This can be true however I have been burnt in the past ordering from a very trusted UK power seller who had 100% feedback.  It is also worth remembering that Ebay have changed their protection policy, so no longer are digitaly delivered items such as subscription codes covered by their buyer protection scheme.  So if you get sold a code that doesnt work then you have no protection whatsoever and will end up having to pay double to get your fix of online gaming.  Im not saying that every seller on Ebay is going to rip you off but in the current economic climate can you afford to take that risk?

I will be using live-codes.com again and will be more than happy to recommend them to friends and family, I suggest you do the same.

This is a snippet of the email that I recieved from them tonight:

We like to operate where; if you are pleased with our service you spread the word to friends and where you found our site (i.e forum etc). The site is fully automated so as soon as the payment is clear codes are emailed out immediately 24/7. We only ever deal in scanned cards, this avoids any typing mistakes and we feel scanned images gives confidence to the customer.

I think I should also add that it is not only X-Box live subscriptions that they sell, they also have Microsoft Points, Nintendo Points & World of Warcraft subscriptions and add-ons.

Go and check them out I guarantee you will not be disappointed!

Just look at the times of these emails!

Link Dump
Links to various sites mentioned in this blog.

Live-Codes.com: http://www.live-codes.com/
Google Checkout: http://www.google.com/
Ebay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/

Copyright information:

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