Categories
Loading ...Monthly archives
- November 2008
- October 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
Search
I’m Cold All The Time
I am very determined to show Enbridge that they are idiots. I keep turning down the thermostat, I have spreadsheets tracking my gas usage, this is not good for me, this is not good for them. I am hoping after I make them look like real idiots I can get over this.
At the current moment it looks like my actual usage come March will be less than their estimated usage for January.
Yes that is correct, it looks like it will take me 3 months to use what they think I should use in one month.
I still haven’t lowered myself to checking what my neighbours use through sneaking peeks at their meters. Maybe tonight.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...Posted by Tyler 
Posted in: Everything, Personal Life 
No Comments » 
January 2008
A guy named Vince…
He saved Best Buy from the list. He finally rectified what should never have been a problem. I can’t understand how its possible for them to provide such poor service, when you are spending $3k on a TV. They actually seemed annoyed when I tried to apply some of the discounts that I was entitled to, such as:
- $50 off- TV out of stock
- Free shipping- TV out of stock
- $100 off- brought in an old tube TV
- Free Blu-Ray player
- Free Football
- Free NFL DVD
- $100 off- purchase of Rogers (gah) HD Box
All in all there was a lot of money coming off the price of the thing. In the $1000 range. Anyway, I would point out that they forgot to include one of the $50 discounts and they would say: “You really care?”
I couldn’t believe it, apparently they have a lot of independently wealthy people who work at Best Buy who don’t care about $50.
Anyway, after getting it ordered I started waiting for it to come in. I could never get them to answer the phone at the Ottawa West store, so I called the Ottawa East store. They told me that they had 12 in the warehouse. Once again I phoned and waited (while their phone rang) for 25 minutes. After that time they told me that I would have to go in to book the delivery.
Again I mission in and receive even worse service. The guy was actually flippant asking me why I cared so much about whether I get the TV right now since the layaway plan guaranteed the price. He couldn’t seem to comprehend why I would care about a $3000 bill sitting on my credit card without actually having the TV. That ended with their ordering system being down.
Like the annoying asshole that I am, I spent the night phoning asking about the state of their ordering system. Finally it was back online. They still couldn’t book the delivery over the phone. I went in and the same asshole told me that it was offline, at which point I had to inform him that I just called and someone told me it was back working. He still didn’t want to try, I got a little angry and he agreed to try again. It was working.
It was at this point that he pawned me off on some guy named Vince - Inventory Manager… He was awesome. It took a whil, but I finally got everything booked for delivery. -There was only 1 left in the warehouse when my booking finally went through- He actually treated me with some respect, and got things solved. He solved BestBuy from the list. They really need to consider a commission based system, to try to get their employees to treat people with respect.
Sigh… Maybe they will be on the list.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Personal Life, Technology No Comments » January 2008
The Joys of Utilities: All Hail Enbridge
It has been an interesting learning experience for me, in terms of freaking out over my first Enbridge bill. A few things I have learned:
- Enbridge reads your gas meter every two months
- The months in between are estimates
- You pay based on a Budget Billing Plan, which is roughly what you should be paying every month, so some months you run a deficit and some months you get a credit
On to my situation. Last night I get my first Enbridge gas bill. $267!!!!!! Not only that, but as I look closer, my gas charges are $334.06, but they have only billed me $210 so I have an out standing bill of $124.06 for next month. This is great. So I look closer, this is based on an estimated bill. What they are estimating it on considering that this is my first month of usage is beyond me…
A little aside here are the numbers:
On Dec 3rd the meter reading was 508 m3
On Jan 7th they estimate the meter reading was 1318 m3
This means my usage was 810 m3
I’m thinking to myself, this can’t be right. This morning I read the meter. 838 m3! So my actual usage was only 330 m3, until Jan 16th not Jan 7th. To put this in perspective, there daily estimated usage is 23 m3 per day, my actual usage is 7.5 m3. As well according to my estimates, my reading by the next billing date (Feb 11th) should only be 1033 m3, less than there estimate of what my Jan reading should have been. Sheesh.
———————
I phone Enbridge:
Them: What is your reading?
Me: 838
Them: That is a big difference
Me: Uh-huh
Them: We will send you a new bill
Me: Ok that works
Them: But because of equal billing the amount you pay won’t change
Me: Come again?
Them: Your gas consumption charge will still be 210, but the actual amount you owe will change
Me: Then why do I want a new bill?
Them: Well I guess since we will read the meter in Feb, it really doesn’t make much sense
Me: No, I guess not?
Them: Well you could opt out of the Equal Billing
Me: Can I get back in after?
Them: I’m not really sure.
Me: When will the equal billing amount be revisited?
Them: It will get adjusted in April.
Me: Fine just leave me in it, I will accumulate a huge credit and leave it at that.
———————
Editor’s Note: Enbridge has been added to the list.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Personal Life, Politics 3 Comments » January 2008
The Greatest Feeling of All: Getting Even!
So I was never really slighted, other than by the terrible service practices, even so I feel good about pulling one over on the Chapters/Indigo/Smith Books/Coles conglomerate. As I was doing my last minute Christmas shopping I thought of a few great presents:
The only problem was that there wasn’t enough time to order the books from Amazon.ca to get a good deal. *sigh* The only option that remained was to turn to the evil empire and go to Chaptigo. As I got there the deal was buy 3 get 1 free, so not as bad a deal, maybe not so bad. So I bought 2 copies of Hockey… 1 copy of No Country… and 1 copy of Palahniuk’s Choke. Total cost was $92. It was $74 for the 3 on my list.
Here is where the ethical question comes in. I hopped on Amazon.ca when I got home. Total cost for the 3 books? $48.19
So what did I do? I bought them on Amazon too.
Flash Foward to last night…
I returned the Amazon copies to Indigo. I didn’t return Choke, because that would have just been too obvious. You know there was a really sweet young teenage girl who was telling me that No Country… -the movie- was supposed to be really good. I agreed, and she also recommended Eastern Promises. Bonus points for her. I almost felt bad considering the good service, until I remembered how badly the evil empire is ripping off Canadians.
I returned glady, unethically, and it felt good. I hope Indigo soon learns to honour their own web prices, or even better, matches other stores prices. Probably won’t happen considering their monopoly.
Oh well my small effort saved me $30.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Personal Life 2 Comments » January 2008
The Contest Is OVER! I hope…
Universal has dropped HD DVD and now they are going blu-ray only. I hope this marks the end of the HD DVD blu-ray debate. I have long thought that Blu-Ray should win (due to some reverse compatibility issues, which have apparently been corrected yet blu-ray has vastly greater capacity), and now it looks like Blu-Ray should win.
Now if the cost of blu-ray players come down (or maybe the cost of PS3s) it will be a clear cut victory. Maybe this means that I can buy an HD setup.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Posted by Tyler Posted in: Technology No Comments » January 2008
Almost Volunteer Work
I agreed to make a website for the ski team. There was some stuff that I wanted to do with it. The first was to use some AJAX to load data. I also wanted to use a relatively clean googlesque menu system. I told them it wouldn’t cost them much. In and around the $1000 range.
Well the site is online now: www.clubmsm.org
I just put together my invoice and I included my hourly rate for this job. Yep $3.50/hour. Sometimes it feels good to help out a not-for-profit team. The hope is that at some point its appreciated.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Posted by Tyler Posted in: Coaching, Personal Life, Software 1 Comment » January 2008
The Key To Financial Freedom: Stop Thinking!
The key to financial freedom is to stop thinking. Set up everything you need to, and forget it! Online banking is one of the greatest inventions ever, especially if you are a person who spends whatever they have an lives paycheque to paycheque. By following a few simple exercises you can make things very easy on yourself and end up with some extra money in your account.
I deal with Royal Bank, and I am continually mucking with things to maximize the simplicity mainly for the benefit of my laziness. First step (all in reference to Royal, but I’m sure other banks have similar products) is to setup a huge number of High Interest eSavings accounts. They are free and you have unlimited transfers to other accounts. Its also instant to transfer to other accounts. So setup a bunch. I have one normal account three high interest accounts. The 3 accounts are ‘nicknamed’:
- Savings - Its for my own personal savings until I decide where money goes. It could go to other investments or RRSP or paying down the mortgage etc…
- Property Taxes - This is an account to store money to pay my property taxes once a year, cause I might as well be making interest off the money instead of the city
- House Items Savings (TV) - This is an account to throw money at to save up for items for the house.
The next step is to setup auto deductions. If you are anything like me money flies out of my main account, but I am really good about not taking money out of the separate except for the specific purpose. So once a month I have money that gets automagically transferred to the respective account. Its like paying a bill to yourself, or the case of property taxes having it auto-deducted but making interest off of it until its really due!
Another smart option is to pay all bills with your points earning credit card. I use my PC Financial Mastercard card because I might as well get free groceries for paying my bills. But the real key is that since your bills come in at about the same time every month you setup an automatic payment to coincide with that bill. For example, my cellphone bill comes in between the 3rd and 7th every month so I have a payment setup for the 7th for around $60 which most months will cover my bill. It goes from my account to my credit card, and the cell phone bill comes off the credit card automatically. That one extra automatic payment means that I get free groceries.
Then you do the same for home phone, interweb, television, gas, hydro, etc… So its like having them automatically deducted, but you get points for them from your credit card. There is also no miscalculations or trouble figuring out how much you should have left, one the bill comes (same day every month) the money is out of your account and its a done deal.
Quick easy tricks like this leave money in your pocket or in your account making interest and make budgeting a breeze. I know that this makes saving money very easy for me.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Posted by Tyler Posted in: Everything, Personal Life, Technology No Comments » January 2008