Yesterday, I was stuck on the end of my iPhone with one of those things which is increasingly both common, and irritating, these days. I recently upgraded my EE account for my iPhone and was informed that my bills would be about the same as BT (with whom I had an account) had taken over EE. As part of migrating to my new account, I was asked whether I wanted to accept a TV package but declined this, only to be told 'Well, it is free and part of the package' Now a coupe of weeks later, I discovered that I have been sent an Apple TV package that I neither actually want or need and, to boot, I am being charged £18.00 a month for this. As soon as I received notification of my latest bill, I got onto the phone to EE only to be informed that there is a wait of 30 minutes during which time I have to listen to some inane pop song but feel that I dared not hang up as the issue has got to be resolved eventually. I am going to have to ask them to listen back to their own recordings when I am convinced that they told me that this service was 'free' but I suspect this is a traditional sleight of hand in which companies say a service is 'free' by which they mean they are going to charge you for it eventually. The frustrating part of this episode, with which we are all familiar, is that if one wishes to buy a product por service one gets connected within seconds whereas if you want to query a bill or request a refund it is made as difficult as possible. Our domestic calls around on Fridays these days and her husband was experiencing an episode similar to mine where he was trying to disentangle his BT and Sky accounts and this, too, was taking hours and hours on the phone to attempt to resolve. After having been on the phone for nearly one hour and a half, I am pleased to say that the problem was resolved more or less to my satisfaction but it took an EE worker with a Scottish accent (in Scotland?), working remotely from home who had to consult with the recordings of the original transaction, at least three consultations with a manager, a 'threat' that if I had changed my mind I would be responsible for a cancellation fee of £300 and goodness what else besides before the matter was resolved to my satisfaction. What had complicated the situation was that in the course of the conversation with the original EE salesperson I was offered a package, then a special 'rebate' and goodness knows what else besides until I was forced to mention the Small Claims Court and we talked our way, at length, to a resolution of the problem. In the meanwhile, most of our morning was wasted in this venture so in the very late morning, I wheeled Meg down the hill, picked up a copy of our newspaper and then wheeled her back before pressing on with a quick lunch of a curry I had thrown together. Just to compound these irritations, I have received a text from the care agency saying they are short staffed and so I could I manage with one carer for Meg's lunch time and tea time calls today - this is happening more and more frequently these days and although I certainly do not mind helping out as and when I can to help resolve problems, this occurrence is getting all too frequent these days. After lunch. Meg and I treated ourselves to watching a catch up of last night's 'Question Time' but after the traumas of the morning, I seem to have slept through most of it.
This afternoon, Meg and I felt in the mood for something a little different and it was a very wet and dreary afternoon. We wondered if there was a good Thomas Hardy film on YouTube but the film quality of one or two of our choices was a bit iffy so we settled on one with Spanish subtitles. This we quite enjoyed until the whole of YouTube froze (which it does tend to do) so we had a cup of tea and chose to watch Verdi's Rigoletto instead.
Sky News is reporting tonight on one of the worst cases of 'catfishing' This term refers to the creation of a fictitious online persona, or fake identity, with the intent of deception, usually to mislead a victim into an online romantic relationship. An online predator who led an American girl and her father to take their own lives has been jailed for at least 20 years after the UK's largest 'catfishing' case. Alexander McCartney previously admitted 185 charges, including the manslaughter of a girl who took her own life. Police called him a 'dangerous, relentless, cruel paedophile' who 'may as well have pulled the trigger himself' and said there were about 3,500 victims. Devices seized from his bedroom contained hundreds of thousands of indecent photographs and videos of underage girls. Belfast Crown Court heard victims were aged between 10 and 16 and based in the UK, USA, continental Europe, Australia and New Zealand. McCartney, from South Armagh in Northern Ireland, used Snapchat and other sites to pose as someone else online, known as catfishing.
He pretended to be a young girl to persuade his victims to send images. He then blackmailed them into sending more explicit material. Sky News is reporting tonight that these offences took place when the internet could be compared with the 'Wild West and deception on this scale would not be possible today. However, it is a very powerful reminder of why we need an 'Online safety Act' but one always wonders whether the law lags quite a long way behind the actual practices on the internet and it must be continue to be an incredibly dangerous terrain for the unwary. Having said that and from admittedly male perspective, I am rather at a loss to understand why anyone, and particularly a teenage girl, would willing take and then send explicit sexual images of themselves. This particular miscreant has been jailed for life, whatever that actually means in this case but the scale of the offences is mind boggling. Apparently the abuse started the minute the explicit photo was received and an already pre-prepared type of ransom demand was immediately cut and pasted to the victim's phone or laptop.