Did a car boot yesterday and it went quite well, took just over €100,00, so am very pleased and of course, managed to clear out a bit of unwanted stuff. After taking off what we spent there, left with €94,00, gave two euros each to the girls (they were very good), so €90,00 in the pot. Made €64,00 so far selling stuff on the free ads site on the internet as well, so looks like we'll be able to buy birthday and christmas presents this year! Still got some other stuff to sell on the free ads as well, and possibly another car boot in September, so maybe a bit more cash to earn yet. The weather was hot yesterday and I have distinctive tan lines today - a 'healthy glow' I like to call it after a winter looking white and haggared. Now I'm just tanned and haggared. Anyway, after a full day at the car boot and three weeks of hard work in the garden, was exhausted last night and was in bed by 9.45pm.
There was only one slight downside to the day - I had a shopping bag full of all those little plastic bags to give to customers if necessary; anyway, someone asked for one and it wasn't until I reached in for it that I discovered that the cat had been sick in it overnight. Thank God for wet-wipes. There were three that were sick-free, the rest went in the bin. Talking of bins, my eldest daughter took it upon herself to go around collecting rubbish that people had dropped and find a bin to put it in! How responsible is that?! Wombling fun!
Finally though, some more good news - I'm sure you'll all be pleased to hear that we now have the cupboard for the kitchen. And the guy in the shop was very helpful and put it together for us before we got there to pick it up. Fortunately we have an estate car and we could get it home, because they weren't offering free delivery (he hadn't checked this with us beforehand!).
However, because I was no longer having issues with the DIY shop, I then had to find someone else to have a run-in with. Luckily, I did not have to wait too long (24hrs in fact) before another issue with French incomptency presented itself to me. We have always been with France Telecom for our phone/internet service ever since we have been here (Oct 2005) and we have always, always paid our bills automatically through the bank. Well, you may recall that I changed our package with them a while back. And even though they already had our bank details and our authority to take money from our bank, they insisted that I re-sign the paperwork authorising them to take the money and give them another copy of my RIB (piece of paper, that quite frankly, anyone with a PC could forge, giving details of bank account and which they already have). I duly did so and then to my surprise (well, not really, come to think of it), a few days later I had a letter in the post, asking me to sign more documents, including another document authorising them to take money from our account and a request for yet another RIB. Did as requested and sent it all off.
This week a bill arrived for France telecom. They had not set up the auto-payments, they were asking me to pay by cheque, or 'to make life easier for me as the customer' it suggested that I send them a copy of my RIB or go onto my client area in the internet and set up auto-payments from my bank account. No option to pay by bank card over the phone. And due to be paid by the following day, with charges applied for late payments, (no doubt even if it's not the clients fault). I was a little annoyed. Went into my client area on the internet to re-set up the auto-payments. There in front of me, on screen were details of my RIB. Clicked on the button to set up auto-payments. 'Please print off and complete this form and send it to us together with a copy of your RIB'. Ha fucking ha.
Then I had a bright idea. There is a France Telecom shop in town, the one where we recently changed our package with them. 'I'm sure they'll be able to help and I can pay the bill at the same time' I thought. Alas, no. They couldn't help. 'I am in the France Telecom shop aren't I?'
'Yes you are madame, but we only do sales' 'Well, you can take money, you have a till, can't you at least take my payment for the bill?' 'No'.
Came home and rang the 'helpline'. 'The problem is Madame, that we appear to have lost your RIB' 'Don't be ridiculous, I've given it to you three times, you haven't lost three copies of it. And I know you haven't lost it, because I can see it on my account details on the internet'. 'Ah, but it's not on my system and mine is connected to the bills system. Anyway, Madame, you can pay by bank card over the phone if you like'. So I duly paid by bank card, gave her my RIB details over the phone (perfickly ok apparantly) and she has supposedly set up auto-payments for me.....
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