Category: Money

Late night confession

I’m a bit afraid right now.

The milling machine’s been delayed another month. ETA is now early December. But I’m not complaining. Technically I don’t have enough money for it anymore. Once it arrives I’ll have at most a fortnight to pay the rest of the outstanding balance.

Since the £700 set aside for it was going to be sitting in my bank account for some 3 (now 6) months longer than expected, I decided to try and grow the money a bit before it went finally into low-fluidity material goods.

I’ve been spending a lot of money this week. A lot of it either on repairing or replacing tools, but mostly on these horns I’ve won on ebay tonight and the upright rotary table for the 4-axis mill project.
And I’ll be spending more once the horns arrive. I’ll be casting a lot, painting, trying out foam-rubber casts, mostly in the hope of getting enough wonderful quality items ready that I’ll be able to storm both Etsy and MCM Expo with them.

I think I can do it. But I’m still gambling again. And to be honest with myself, my previous gambles haven’t had very good returns.

It’s a supportive routine though. Waiting for supplies and parts to arrive sets me up with a waiting list in my mind, so I get on with immediate jobs a lot faster.

All I do is talk about what I do now. I’m sorry it’s likely not a very interesting subject to most.

Backlog/owed items are almost all done. Legacy projects are either scrapped or progressing. Things are generally improving. Life’s clearing out the chaff.

Will try and get back on Skype in the workshop again tomorrow. Talking while I work may help further.

More bank fuck-uppery

Just tried to get cash out and the PIN number that’s been working for the last fortnight no longer does. I’ve had to come all the way home, turn the PC on, grab the details, call the bank, get it unlocked again.

“Oh no, you need to call to activate your card.”

“It’s been working fine for two weeks.”

“Oh well.. it says you’ve typed the wrong number.”

So that means it’s gotta be activated? Despite working? What?

What the fuck is going on??

Running late now. Will be running even later if the card machine doesn’t work this time.

Paranoia and the bank

So you know how in December someone stole my card details and got about £100 out of my account? I was a bit paranoid because even after it was sorted my sisters bank details were similarly nicked.

A bit past 1pm today I got a phonecall from someone saying they were the Santander fraud department and needed to double-check some things about the other fraudulent transactions made on the same day.

Santander NEVER call you directly. You get automated messages for you to call them. So I told the lady I’d call back. When I got through to Santander’s security department, they had no record of the call.

Plus it sounded like an Indian call-centre. A GOOD Indian call-centre, but an Indian call-centre nonetheless.

So the people who stole my card details also have my phone number, and my feeling that I or this household are being targeted in some way is growing.

The actual banks advice? Keep a close eye on things, let them know if anything odd happens. Helpful stuff.

Of course I’ve seen enough information about con-games I can’t help but wonder if I’m playing into their hands. What if they’re expecting you to call the bank back yourself and have tapped your phone, or re-routed the call to a fake centre, so you give the details as the security questions thinking you’ve outwitted them?

I don’t think that happened, but it’s a possibility. After-all we live in a city where fake BT vans van steal a few hundred miles of copper cable overnight and simply vanish.

Santander seem to be getting sloppy though. When asking to confirm the last digits of my card number the operator actually suggested them to me while I was rummaging in my wallet for it, which is probably the sole reason I haven’t quite calmed down again yet.  That and that they asked for the confirmation number on the back, which I’m sure they’ve asked for before but still seemed out of the ordinary.

The internet banking was also suffering a glitch at the time too, where it wasn’t able to show current balance. That fixed within a minute or two, but still, the whole thing’s got me on-edge again.