Odd Things Happen

Oh I'm just a little upset again with Internet shopping. I have to say I like Internet shopping - I could have done without the bank rining me up to say they've stopped one of my credit cards because of Internet fraud. Well actually I am glad they stopped it (obviously!!). But the thing that's ragging me at the moment is livingaidsonline (name and shame). Why? Well read on, actually it's all rather petty, but it's !*£"! me off a slightly.

Our council went (like lots of others) a bit greener last year and we've got a green box for paper, cans and bottles. Well I keep on thinking that as the kids get older and want to help more in the kitchen, we should be thinking more about those nasty sharp edges on our tin cans. Also I am incredably nervous (paranoid's a better word) about the tops of tin cans in the box, and just know we're close to spraying the utility room (home of the green box) a rather unattractive shade of chrimson.

So I surfed a bit for one of those safety can openners. And livingaidsonline had a ROSPA certified one, not cheap (£20) but better then lots of blood around the kitchen. So I bought it and waited... and waited and (well waited). Just to say it didn't take them long to debit my credit card... No joy so I rang them, and was rung back by a lady who said they didn't have any of that can-opener in stock. Well perhaps they should have said that on their site, or in there auto-email...

She said they had another (style) in stock and asked if I wanted it, was it a saftey one? Yes she said, so I said okay. And I waited... and (you guesed it) waited... Last week I rung them again and asked where was it? Oh it was sent registered post... Well yes it was but not until *after* this second phone call.

And it arrived yesterday. And I openned it and... nope not the saftey can opener I had in mind. In fact nothing of the sort. In fact after a quick surf I found it's a "good" can openner and it's available for 6.45 at one site (in a sale from £9.99). Mmm so let me think - it took about a month, it took several phone calls, it isn't what I ordered, worse it's just a normal opener and they've made at least £15 on the sale.

!*""! off is the word and they'll be getting a venting of my middle-aged splene shortly.

It shouldn't be that hard should it?

It's just destined to be "one of those" fiascos. So we bought this bloomin' fire back in December, the plumber couldn't be arsed fitting it until after the New Year. By which point it was noted to be missing a couple of parts, which now out of it's "7 day bought over the internet" warrenty thing meant phone calls to Baxi for the parts (which they very nicely sent free of charge). And when fitted the plumber said he didn't like the fact that there was a really heat radiation occuring above the fire place in the plasterboard. Monitoring the situation, we didn't use the fire until the missing bits were installed. Then the plumber did and there's still this red-hot heat problem.

So I ring Baxi and get one of their engineers out and he came today. To paraphrase an old AA advert, he was a very nice man. But... we had three incidents... firstly the fire was "behaving itself" in that there was no red-hot plasterboard. So he was just about to signoff when he put the facure back on. And then... hey what-do-you-know? Red hot plasterboard. Well Mr Baxi huffed and puffed and rang his boss, and his fire-specialist mate, both to no avail. Then put a call through to the fire-people back at Baxi, they were busy so they took his number and he (still some 3.5 hours later) is waiting for a return call.

But at least the fire is doing what I said it was. But there's more - a small amount of smoke(?!) drifting up from the top of the fire surround!!! Which after inspection he thinks is "just some of the protective oil burning off", nothing to worry about... oh, really?

So now he's gone (well he left at one o'clock). The fire's still on (burning off the noxious stuff), and I am still awaiting a call about the hot plasterboard.

The moral - don't buy a fire off the Internet I guess.