Conned again!

LOOKED at my tyre and it was flat. No big deal – I can phone the grua or change it myself.

So I opened the boot of the car to see what’s what and, to my surprise, there was nothing there. No jack, no spare wheel, not even the ‘get you home tyre’.

There was a bottle of some kind of gooey stuff and a contraption that you plug into the ciggy lighter and then fix to the tyre and blow it up which is useless if the tyre has got a gaping hole in.

I didn’t even bother to try and read what you do with the gooey stuff. So why have they stopped putting spares into cars?

To make them lighter, which in turn saves fuel apparently, and a few other BS reasons. I was happy with the skinny ‘get you home chap’ that you used to get but to be stranded with nothing is a bit dumb if you ask me.

I liked having that option. Why does everyone know better than the consumer? Because no one I’ve asked thinks it’s a good idea. If you do, please let me know why.

Although I have a house phone, I use my mobile for nearly all my calls. When I got my bill this month I had a few Spanish calls that I had to pay for which is unusual because I have a contract that include all Spanish land lines for free.

But of course, that doesn’t include 901 or 902 numbers, which is a nuisance because my car insurance company and many other services I use have those numbers.

My tip is to go online and find the alternative number, which they all have, that you can then use your mobile to call them.

Why don’t companies just change to a ‘normal’ number which would seem logical? However, phone companies offer incentives in order to avoid this happening.

In this way the phone company can offer their flat rate tariffs to the public, but know that the majority of people will need to call a 901 or 902 number from time to time. Conned again!

Here is another thing to watch out for that happened to me.

I got a call from an 8xx number.  It rang a couple of times then stopped.  

Now as I’ve been round the block a few times I didn’t do what a lot of people would do and ring it back because, somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered reading about a scam where this happens and you call it back and get put on hold after being told some cock and bull story and finish getting charged 3-400 euros for calling this premium number.

As Shaw Taylor would say on Police 5 ‘keep ‘em peeled’ and if you remember that, well done.

Email mikeser@gmail.com