Andrew Speakman

A few bloggers have posted that the webcheck feature on the companies house website is closed on Sundays and only available 7am to midnight Monday to Saturday, but no one found out why. I decided to do just this, I sent an e-mail to companies house on Sunday evening and was surprised to get a comprehensive reply on Monday morning. I’m impressed, I just hope we won’t have a tax increase to pay for their new systems!

Dear Sir/Madam,

Our “Company names Index” Index Mainframe systems require updating and maintenance overnight. Our Web Service runs from 7a.m. To Midnight, which is not, 24/7 but does extend as far as we can beyond “normal office hours”.

Our Web Service is a real time system i.e. it is updated daily with substantial amounts of new and amended company information. To allow this to take place the service is unavailable after midnight. Most Web Services that offer 24/7 access have fixed information.

Our main companies information database is held on a mainframe computer, which allows Online Transaction processing between 7a.m. and 7p.m. each day. Hundreds of staff are entering new information and amending existing information daily. At 7 p.m. our overnight batch work commences, which produces Annual Returns for despatch, information snapshots for customers, reminder and default letters, certificates of incorporation and change of name, plus dozens of other essential (sometimes statutory outputs.

In addition, transfers are made to the Web Service of all amended company information collated during the day, plus images of new documents. These amounts to tens of thousands of transactions, which need to be, updated overnight. This is the reason for the service to be unavailable between Midnight and 7a.m

Companies House is currently in the process of re-developing its computer systems, which will enable us to move away from our legacy mainframe systems. This may offer us more flexibility in the future.

I hope this information satisfies your enquiry and I apologise for any inconvenience caused, if you require any further information do not hesitate to contact us.

Yours faithfully,
Dave Sullivan
E-mail Enquiries
Companies House

———- Original Message: ———-
From:
To: enquiries@companies-house.gov.uk
Sent: 12-03-2006 16:47:15
Subject: [Case 2722012] webcheck

Dear Sir / Madam,

I tried to use your webcheck service today and was presented with a message
saying:

Access to the service is closed
Companies House is available from Monday to Saturday 07:00 - 12 Midnight UK Time

I am wondering why this is the case?

Best Regards
Andrew Speakman

I have a policy with E&L insurance for our cat. Earlier this year we needed to make a claim, we put the claim in, and received a letter asking for further information to proceed the claim. I called E&L at the beginning of Februrary to clarify what information they needed. It took me a long time and a lot of calls to get through, each time I called, I got a message telling me that they couldn’t take my call because they were very busy. This is quite frustrating when calling an expensive 0870 number, although, looking now, there is an entry on http://www.saynoto0870.com/, but I’m not sure it’s valid for claims calls. I then sent the further information required to E&L.

After three weeks we hadn’t had any further communication form E&L. I started to wonder what was going on, so, remembering that it had taken a long time to get through on the phone, contacted them via a form on their website. After a few days plus a weekend, I had no response, so when through the process of calling and calling back until someone answered. It turns out that E&L received my letter with further information on the 10th February and are processing my claim. Good. I was told that they currently have a big claims backlog, and are up to claims received on the 25th Janurary. I pointed out that it was also difficult to get through on the phone, and was told that they had just moved to a new office and hadn’t yet got enough phone lines.

The conclusion: be prepared for a wait with E&L.

I got a reduced hydro-explorer rocket kit from maplin today and decided to google it to see if I could find out a bit about it. This led to me finding out that Maplin has started offering ’affiliate’ online stores to website owners. I have found them on radioandtelly.co.uk, eleinmec.com, activedeal.co.uk, krs-electronics.co.uk, electronics2you.co.uk, rmcybernetics.com.

 These sites look very amateur, I wonder if they are getting a cut of Maplin’s sales that are routed through them? Are Maplin doing this to increase their web sales / hit rate, if so, it stinks.. Maybe I’ll get one, a nice little earner. UPDATE - yes, maplin do have an affiliate programme: http://www.webgains.com/signup.html?programid=214

 Back to the rocket, it is quite an interesting design, made from as many mass produced parts as possible - hosepipe connectors, a bit of bike handlebar, a bike brake lever and brake cable. We had a go with the rocket with three launches in the local park, the results we pretty unspectacular, with a strong hook and a strong slice. We think performance was bad because we didn’t put enough water in and the launchpad was a bit unstable. I was pumping the rocket up to 80psi, so I think air pressure was satisfactory.

From what I remember, my old Rokit bottle rocket kit performed much better, except its launch was unpredictable, although that did add to the fun!

I also noticed that Maplin have something called an ecatalogue from a link tucked in the corner of their website. It uses something called Activepoint Promotion ebook which works like a paper catalogue but online. I’m not convinced. It might be a cost effective way of putting a printed catalogue online with all its printing and formatting, but you can’t read the catalogue text in the normal view so I think it’s pretty pointless. When you hove over an item, it brings up a description in larger text, but the description isn’t as comprehensive as that in the catalogue itself, and, to me, it defeats the point of being able to see a whole page of products at once. It’s like needing a magnifying glass to read a catalogue, which, one day I may need, but until then I’ll avoid it.

0870 7210445 - 08707210445 - 0870 721 0445 - 0870 7210 445
At 19.20 today I had a cold call from this number, it was ‘Andrew’ from an Indian call centre selling mobile phones. I found it hard to hear what he was saying because he was mumbling and his voice was robotic.

We are registered with the TPS (telephone preference service), so get pissed off at any unsolicited calls. I dealt with this call the same way as I do any cold call - I hit the mute and left the phone off the hook. He was still waiting on the line two minutes later (I could hear the call centre pitter patter in the background). Perhaps he was using it as an opportunity to take a sneaky break from the abuse of his job?

Maybe next time I should turn the call into a bit of an entertaining prank, record it, and publish it on the net…

If anyone knows who it is making these cold calls, let me know.

A bout of phone rage

A few months ago I saw in the Money Saving Expert newsletter a way of getting £100 by open a Barclays bank account. All you had to do is open a Barclays online account, and put £1000 in per month for the first two months, I would then be credited with an extra £100.

Normally I can’t be bothered to take up this kind of offer, as it can be more hassle than it’s worth. I asked people’s opinions, and was pursuaded to apply, I applied online.

A few days later I received a letter saying that my application couldn’t be completed, and that I would have to call into a branch with a recent utility bill (less than three months old) and a form of ID. So I printed out my latest Bill (online billing) and headed to the branch. I then queued for half an hour or so to speak to an advisor. It was at this point that I started to regret bothering with the whole thing.

When I finally reached the advisor I showed her the letter and handed over my passport and utility bill. She told me that she couldn’t accept a copy of a utility bill. I explained to her that I paid all my bills online, that this was not a copy but an original printout, and I did not receive bills in the post any more (getting your bills in the post is so last century). But no, I would have to come back with some posted proof of address. She told me to bring as many proofs of address as possible including credit card statements.

Why didn’t the letter say that online bills weren’t accepted and that credit card statements were accepted? I told the advisor that I wasn’t willing to queue again, so she gave me an appointment (even though Barclays ‘don’t normally do appointments for this kind of thing’).

I explained to the advisor that I had only recently applied for another account, and didn’t have to visit a branch and go through all this trouble. I was told it was an FSA rule for people opening accounts to come to a branch. My original online application never said this. I suspect whether you have to visit a branch is dependent on where you live and whether they think you might be dodgy - If I lived in a posh part of london and worked for Morgan Stanley this probably wouldn’t have happened. 

Even though I was regretting the whole thing, I thought to myself ‘I’ve got this far, so I might as well see it through’. I returned to the branch for my appointment with piles of paper. This time I had what was needed. It turned out that nearly all of the details that barclays had on me were inaccurate or completely incorrect, even though I’d entered them all correctly online a week ago. This could be the reason for all the hassle with visitinf the branch. Barclays must have been manually transferring data between systems, via printouts . Ouch!

The advisor proceeded to open the account, I reminded her that I had applied for the online account, with the £100 offer. She told me that she had used the same reference number, so the offer would be honoured. A week or so later I received account details, card etc, but no online login details.  I assumed that these would arrive later, so just waited. Nothing happened. Eventually I got frustrated and called Barclays only to be told that no, I hadn’t got an online account. I explained the £100 offer etc etc to them and was put on hold for a few minutes. They came back and told me that I could be added to the £100 list, but I only had until tomorrow to put the first £1000 in my account. Hmm, a bit difficult. There’s no way I’m walking around with £1000 cash just to get £100. At this point I asked to close my account, and after being put on hold for five minutes was told that I wouldn’t be able to close my account on the phone, I would have to drop into my branch or send a letter. So much for modern banking with Barclays.

PS A quick search for Barclay’s complaints shows that I’m not the only dissatisfied customer:

http://www.blagger.com/db4/company_id/130/companyname/Barclays.html

http://www.barclaystory.com/

http://www.grumbletext.co.uk/vt.php?t=108&subj=complaints+Barclays+complaint