test please delete

[FatLazyContractor]

Anybody fancy guessing what this lady's PIN number is? Diner charged £268,399 for meal at popular Hampstead restaurant - News - Hampstead Highgate Express

(Yes, PIN number is tautologous.)

“It’s a warning to everyone to always check their bill closely!”

^This

[FatLazyContractor]

Tea was not, in fact, incinerated.

It was, however, rather lardy, and as a result I feel a bit

A couple of pickled onions made me feel betterer.

In other news, I have a new mole on my knee.

It appeared out of the blue.

I was relatively unconcerned until it started going an interesting shade of black.

I'm off to see the quack on Wednesday morning at 9:50.

Dunno what quack I'm seeing, but it's a Dr Brown apparently.

Dr Harris used to be the skin man at that practice, but I'd guess he's retired by now if he's got any sense, being around my age.

Sorry to break the news, it could be herpes.

[SimonMac]

Anybody fancy guessing what this lady's PIN number is? Diner charged £268,399 for meal at popular Hampstead restaurant - News - Hampstead Highgate Express

(Yes, PIN number is tautologous.)

So we know her PIN and that she has Nearly £300k credit available as it didn't decline

[FatLazyContractor]

So we know her PIN and that she has Nearly £300k credit available as it didn't decline

Both of which would have been changed by now!

[DaveB]

So we know her PIN and that she has Nearly £300k credit available as it didn't decline

Not quite, she hadn't hit enter after the pin number so there had been no attempt to verify the transaction at that point. Since £300k is probably somewhat above the floor limit for the restaurant it would have been fully validated by the bak prior to being authorised and been refused at that point. Or, at least thats what is supposed to happen. Because bank systems never cock it up to the detriment of their customers. Oh no, never...

[SimonMac]

Not quite, she hadn't hit enter after the pin number so there had been no attempt to verify the transaction at that point. Since £300k is probably somewhat above the floor limit for the restaurant it would have been fully validated by the bak prior to being authorised and been refused at that point. Or, at least thats what is supposed to happen. Because bank systems never cock it up to the detriment of their customers. Oh no, never...

She must have, how else would she have got a customer copy receipt

[DaveB]

She must have, how else would she have got a customer copy receipt

When you void a transaction it prints the original receipt as a record for the customer so they can challenge it if the transaction subsequently goes through. There would have been a VOID slip to go with it, but printing that in the picture would ruin the story.

The article even quoted her as saying she was about to hit enter when she noticed the mistake.

[NickFitz]

I was trying to respond to this debate from the pub but my phone died, even though it was using my local 4G hotspot. Rule of thumb: using 3G for data, it dies if reporting less than 70% battery. Using WiFi for data, it dies if reporting around 50% battery. It's OK for calls down to about 12%.

I think I'll buy a new phone this week

But leaving that aside: if one ignores the way the journalist has dressed up the story, and extracts the facts therefrom, it's clear that she was handed the machine when the price had been entered but the "Enter" (or whatever it may be called in such a context) key hadn't been pressed, then entered her PIN (thereby appending it to the price), then pressed the "Enter" key (thereby recording the price as the amount due, otherwise she couldn't have a cancelled receipt showing it), then realised the price was idiotic (I'll come back to that later) and whined to the hapless waiting-staff-person (what is the non-gendered version of waiter/waitress?) whose thumb had slipped off the "Enter" key before handing her the machine.

She has a very Googleable name. Googling it will reveal her LinkedIn profile as the first result (at least, it did for me) from which we learn that she's an IFA, running her own business. So she's not a stupid person; or at least, no stupider than many people who post on CUK.

So, given that she claims to have noticed the problem herself: I reckon it all happened as described, and when she'd pointed out the idiotic price that had resulted and received the cancelled receipt, she saw a good opportunity for self-publicity. Change her PIN, then get the story in there and get her picture in the paper. Free publicity + Googlejuice.

But her "OMFG WTF" attitude in describing it to the local rag was just a bit too much; and I reckon she's miscalculated in one of two ways. Either she failed to realise that people won't respect a financial advisor who puts their own PIN in the local rag (after all, we don't know she changed it); or she really was just "Me-Me-Me"-ing about it, in which case one can't have any respect for her as a person, never mind as an IFA.

And, of course, she could have explained exactly how it happened and how she fully understood the implications of going public with the details, but the journalist will always write the version that makes for the best story for them.

But I'm sure I'm not the only person to have Googled that name after reading the story, and found her business as a result.

If, Heaven forfend, I ever have enough money that I need an IFA, I doubt I'll be calling on her; but they say no publicity is bad publicity

And if, Heaven forfend, you ever have to tell your story to a journalist: remember that they don't care about you, they care about the story. The story will be something they show to people who might give them a better job; but they'll almost certainly never meet you again once they've got that job. And if they do, it'll be because you need them to write a favourable story

[NickFitz]

Steak butty for supper

[NickFitz]

And now the water supply is off

I called the water board (or water capitalist swine, as they are now) and an automated system told me, in a rather patronising tone, that they were already aware of the matter and "this message" would be updated in two hours, if there was anything new to add. (One presumes it will continue to say "in two hours" even if an update is expected within one minute, as otherwise it would already have been updated. Jam tomorrow.)

But I called on a mobile phone.

So how did they know where I was? Is O2 passing call origin location coordinates to Severn Trent Water? Did I agree to that in section 496 of some Terms and Conditions I never read?

I daresay they just play that message to anyone who calls at this time on a weekend, as it's cheaper than employing any staff to tell their paying customers what's going on. Bunch of *****, like all those capitalist bastards who got their big break via Thatcherism. ******* *******.