Wilburys at the Memo

Last night Mrs H and I went to the Barry Memo - the local theatre/arts venue to see the Paul Hopkins' Roy Orbison and the Traveling Wilburys Experience (Facebook link) a tribute act to the fabulous Traveling Wilburys. 

Barry Memo is a bit dated inside, but still a worthy local community arts and theatre venue, and regularly hosts live music, films and theatre. An easy place to listen to live music, there's a handy bar and no restriction on taking your drinks into the theatre

The original Wilburys - George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison were all represented by lookalike accomplished musicians who are now into their 7th year as this tribute experience. Not forgetting the less well known Jim Keltner on drums. The musicians are drawn from over the UK and had travelled down for the gig - I'm not sure how often they get to rehearse together, but they were very well drilled.

A mixture of original Wilbury tracks and individual performer songs (Blowin in the Wind for example by the Dylan member, Please Please Me from "George Harrison" and Mr Blue Sky from "Jeff Lynne" to name a few) were all very well received by the audience of mostly people the upper side of 50. Having said that, the Wilburys were formed in 1988, so 35 years ago when we were all a lot younger!!!!

There wasn't a massive audience, but the band were clearly delighted to be playing live music to appreciative ears - the photo below isn't a good one of the band (taken by their stage manager!) but shows the audience numbers and everyone enjoyed the show. A signed Fender Squier guitar was also raffled - sadly I didn't win.

Last night's show

All in all we had a very enjoyable evening - I'd recommend going to see them if you get a chance.

Twitter: @Statto1927 

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De-cluttering is hard work, but good for the soul

It's amazing, or perhaps not, the amount of "stuff" you collect over the course of a lifetime. We've got a large loft full of "stuff", a garage I've never ever been able to get my car in, a 5 bedroom house that has "stuff" everywhere (PS the photo above is not our clutter!)

Some of this "stuff" is precious (in personal terms rather than monetary value). Books, cuddly toys and other bits and pieces from the kid's early years for instance. Some is just hanging around because it might be needed or required for something down the line, and a lot is just there because we can't be arsed to get rid of it.

I'm one of the world's worst procrastinators when it comes to de-cluttering. I think it's such a good idea, but I struggle to put it in to practice. Mrs H is even worse. She can always find a reason not to throw or give something away, in a sort of "Ah, that's cute/useful, we can't throw that away" manner on something we haven't even seen let alone used in many a long year.

This week I've been in the garage trying to sort through stuff that fits into the above categories. I subscribe to a local "Re-use" page on Facebook - I'd much rather give stuff away to someone who wants/needs it, that try and flog it on eBay or take it to the local tip, and I listed a few things. Mrs H immediately convinced me to take two things off that  list!

A couple of others were snapped up straight away and have now been collected, some things are still available. 

I must admit it does feel good for the soul getting rid of stuff we no longer need, and especially when it's given free gratis to someone who really wants it. I've got a long, long way to go though before I get anywhere near the Marie Kondo level of decluttering.

Twitter: @Statto1927 

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FairFX - poor customer service

I haven't had a customer service rant for almost two months. That's good going for me. Anyway you'll be glad to hear I can now resolve that.

Some business are good at customer service, and some, well aren't.......

For many years I have had a FairFX multi-currency card. It's the sort of card you can pre-load with different currencies and use when out and about in different countries like a debit card to save you carrying cash. I first got it way backk in the noughties when we went to Florida (Disneyland). In those days you had one card for each currency (so one for dollars, one for euros etc). A few years ago they sensibly merged it so you only had one card to carry.

Anyway, my card was expiring a month ago and I got an email with a link to "upgrade" and order a new card which I duly followed.  However, fool that I am, when I was asked to enter my phone number so I can use two factor authentication (recommended by the way for extra security), I inadvertently mistyped my phone number. Then when I went to log in, I got a a message saying "enter the code we've sent you" only of course I hadn't received it because the number I'd typed was wrong (this despite the fact they had my correct phone number on account anyway).

Cue attempts to contact someone to put it right. The options on their website appeared to be either a live chat or emailing support. I tried live chat. It was more dead than alive. Eventually I connected and after the normal to-ing and fro-ing was asked to long in to continue the chat. 

Errr...I can't log in that's why I'm contacting you. 

Somewhat frustrated, I was then directed to the email support link. So I sent an email off. Two days later no response. So I sent another one. No response, I was then away for five days. Nothing in my in box on return. Sent another slightly more feisty email. No response.

I found a link for complaints which include (you've guessed it) directions for Live Chat or email support! However, there was also a phone number. I rang it and got a (badly) automated voice message advising to leave a message and email address and they would get in touch within three business days. 

Today I returned to live chat, which was slightly more alert, but not much so. Outlining my problem I was asked if I'd like a call back. Yes please I said. Oddly given everything that had gone before, I got a call back almost immediately. A pleasant young man called Ryan took me through security questions, and then confirmed he could see the phone number typo and changed it for me. Whilst still on the phone I successfully logged in. Whilst I whooped with joy, he asked me if there was anything else he could help me with, and that's where I made my next mistake.

My email address for that account was slightly different to my normal one, and I asked for hime to amend it. He told me he'd done it, and I could see the change when I refreshed the page in my account. All good, I thanked him and I rang off.

To check everything was Ok I logged out and tried to log back in. All went swimmingly until I got a message saying you can't log in because you haven't verified your email address from the link in the email we've sent you.

*checks inbox*

No email

*checks junk mail*

No email

*Waited 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes*

No email

Back to square one with a different issue. 

Apparently the "upgrade" process FairFX are going through with new cards has made them very busy. But that's no excuse for tardy live chat, not responding to emails, a crappy telephone system and a system that's supposed to send you a verification email link and doesn't. especially when it's got money (albeit not a lot at the moment) belonging to me.

I'm currently closing in on one hour's wait for a response to my current live chat query....

They need to look at their customer service. it's (lack of) support like this that puts people off companies and businesses. Good customer service makes such a difference.

UPDATE

90 minutes after I logged onto live chat, I got a response. The agent fixed my issue (without needing to send me a verification email link). Also turns out I was using an old version of the app on my iPhone and iPad which didn’t help. Finally seems all sorted.

Twitter: @Statto1927 

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