He was a true visionary, a real special person with a passion that filled his life. He will be missed by many. I feel for both his family and close friends, I hope they take comfort in the fact he is and always will be admired by millions.

RIP Steve Jobs, you will be missed.

Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011 - From the Apple website

Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011 - From the Apple website

Last August (2010) I purchased a vehicle from Wrexham, we could not pick the car up straight away however I made inquiries with my insurance company to ensure I could drive the vehicle home to which they informed me I could. A week later we returned from vacation, my brother John drove us over to pick it up and within 20 minutes of picking the car up I was stopped….. No insurance.

I posted a chronological list of events in an earlier blog should you be interested in reading it: http://auroral.co.uk/2010/12/16/reliable-car-insurance-avoid-hastings-direct-life-wreckers/

Today was my third court hearing at the magistrates court in Northwich, Cheshire, some 2 hours away from my home. This time it was a special hearings case where they look at the information to hand, all my correspondence with Hastings Direct. All my interaction with the Financial Ombudsmen. I will be honest, I’m not a bad boy and this was a rather scary prospect in that I could loose money, get points, pay more for insurance and most importantly lose my clean driving license of over 10 years and all because I was misadvised by some idiot with a headset working in a call centre!

I got there, not sure what to expect. I was called in. They verified some details with me, received my new correspondence with the Financial Ombudsmen. The worships left the room to read all my correspondence and defence. Whilst out, the Clerk and prosecutor both said I should be fine and that after reading my case I should be out in 10 minutes or so.

The worships come in and even though the Clerk and prosecutor said I would be fine, I still found it nervy! They passed their verdict of “Not Guilty” stated I would have this whipped from my record, no points and no fine!

You can’t believe what a weight this is from my mind, I know it seems so trivial really in comparison to what is happening around the world but when you try to be all you can be and it seems you are being knocked down by a system which should serve and protect us, well its a little distressing.

I have to say that before my attendance today I really wasn’t sure which way this was going to unfold. I now have faith in our system once again!

Now……… Last week I received a letter from the Financial Ombudsmen with an offer from Hastings Direct of a measly £100 compensation…. I don’t think I will be accepting now…… Life Wreckers they are!!

The poor get poorer and the rich….. well you know the rest!

Money dictates how we live our life, what we do and how we survive. It restricts us and in a way it can define us with relation to how giving we can be towards Nobel causes.

So where is our Robin Hood to stave off excessive fuel prices in the petrol stations, or take on the giants that withhold electric and gas unless we pay extortionate prices. What about food and the cost of living, in an ever increasingly difficult world. We are by no means suffering in comparison to what some people have to endure in this world, in fact compared to third world countries we, ourselves would be considered rich, so are we greedy for wanting more?

No, I don’t think we are, its not greed to want a better life for you or your family and lets face it money, the controller, the dictator is what limits us in our ability to evolve as human beings. But this thing we call money which the government and powers that be use to control us, they are numbers, they mean nothing really, only we place value on those numbers because society conditions us to. When a company makes millions every day how does that change anything, it only adds a few more numbers to a balance sheet, or a computer program running a bank. Its not like the old days where you would barter with live stock because you needed something which someone else had.

Our need for money holds us back, it controls the lifestyle we live.

However, the fact is that this is how our society has evolved unless we all made it change then nothing ever will. Nothing can change because humanity is selfish, if you owned a business you wouldn’t give your things away, and if you didn’t need to work because food, water, electric etc was readily available and free, then chances are most people would simply do nothing but then again that is what a fair few draining the countries fictional numbers (money) do. As a world we need to evolve beyond selfish greed to control and dominate.

I digress a little……

If we are to live by numbers, we are to pay by numbers and die by numbers, then there are things we can do to regain a little power. Stop using some of the bigger players or related companies until their prices come down, if they are not making money then they have no choice but to become more competitive. Imagine if we stopped using a whole chain of companies of companies like BP, if they are not selling their petrol they will go under and so we take control in refusing to hand over our hard earned numbers (money) until it becomes more affordable. The same could be done for large supermarkets, stop using them and revert back to the local traders, the market traders, the people who it benefits the most because with our obsession for retail parks, shopping malls and 24 hour large supermarkets this is what is killing independent traders who buy produce locally, get our farms working again and stop relying on the EU to pay our farmers not to farm. Keep abusing your local councils to make parking near down and city/town centres FREE, this is one of the main reasons people go to retail parks and such and thats because it costs them nothing to park. We could even grow our own!

Lets bullet point:-

• Boycott one large petrol manufacturer and retailer for 6 months, 12 months or more. If they are not making money they will need to become cheaper to get people in.
• School projects could be to farm and grow produce to resell locally, keeps the money local for the school whilst educating the kids to grow.
• Use local farmers for meat and dairy products. There are plenty around who you can buy direct from, in fact buying half a pig (which they butcher for you) and freezing it will save you money.
• Use local market traders for fruit, veg, other meat and fish produce, keeps local people in business and employment whilst keeping the money local.
• Move to one supplier across the country for gas and electric (everyone) other suppliers would have no choice to cut their prices because they are simply not making money with no customers otherwise.

Doing this will hit the bigger brands where it matters for them, doing this allows us to gain some control over what we pay or at least who we pay it to and which outside country gets our numbers (money), in essence we are our own Robin Hood, we just need to step up!

I called Hastings Direct to check I could drive a car I was purchasing from ebay, they said yes. The police stopped me for no insurance. I requested a copy of the audio from the call. Many missed call backs, misinformation, wrong department transfers, lack of communication later I was starting to get annoyed. They finally said it would take them 28 days to investigate, we transferred our insurance over completely which cost of course. That passed so I called them and called them to finally learn they have 8 weeks to investigate a matter as per the Financial Ombudsmen’s regulations. 12 weeks later and still nothing from them so I took the complaint to the Financial Ombudsmen. Hastings Direct then cancelled my car insurance.

So they took payment to transfer my insurance from one car to another knowing their previous advice has given me 6 points pending on my license. They then cancel my insurance with no refund for driving with no insurance. I paid for the year upfront. Lying, cheating, dishonest thieves. Why take more money from me and then cancel my car insurance, its rhetorical, their thieves I know!

I still have 6 points pending and they are refusing to provide me audio despite me quoting the Data Protection Registry and the Freedom Of Information Act. My life now rests on the outcome of the Financial Ombudsmen investigation, I just hope they see the clear pattern of neglect and incompetence with regards to how Hastings Direct has unprofessionally dealt with my issue.

Here’s the letter:

25th November 2010

Your reference:

Recently as your aware I made a complaint against Hasting Direct regarding a matter where they misinformed me, chose to delay their correspondence to me, failed to give me numerous promised call backs, failed to respond in their 28 days to resolve a complaint, failed to respond and resolve my complaint in the 8 weeks allotted by the Financial Ombudsmen. I believe they have shown deception, clear neglect of their duties, incompetence and fraud after taking my money to change a policy and then cancelling the policy shortly afterwards.

Originally I stated to Hastings Direct that if this problem was resolved and they gave me a copy of the recording or a letter to indemnify me they I would take no legal action and I would be happy to sign something stating that. I’m now contemplating suing them for the damage they are causing my family and myself both physically and mentally.

I will document in this letter a chronological order of events:-

6th August 2010:
I contacted Hastings Direct on two occasions firstly to confirm if they could e-mail or fax a copy of my motor insurance if I required it for the purpose of taxing a new vehicle, at this time I was looking at a couple of different cars. I stated that I was aware of a regulation change in April 2010 which allows companies to send these documents out electronically. I was informed by their customer service adviser that they could not e-mail the documents but they could fax them for a charge of £10.

After finding a possible vehicle on e-bay which already had tax I then called to ask if I could drive the vehicle back from Wrexham under my insurance to which I was informed I could. On this basis I made arrangements with the seller to pick the vehicle up however the seller was currently away that weekend and on the Monday my wife and I were going camping for 5 days and so we left collection of the vehicle until Sunday the following week.

I was not informed I could not drive the vehicle without a third party owning it and insuring it. Its a ridiculous notion that I would risk driving a vehicle without insurance especially when the cost to change it was only £1 to £2.

15th August 2010:
On rout back from Wrexham I was stopped by Cheshire Police and was subsequently informed I had no insurance, they called Hasting Direct to check that I could drive it and was informed by the customer service agent I could not and thus ceased the vehicle.

16th August 2010:
Approximately 8am I called Hastings Direct to have the policy changed over for a fee of £1 to £2 including an admin because the insurance was cheaper it resulted in most of the total cost being covered. I informed them I would need a copy of the insurance faxing to Warrington Police Station so that I could recover the vehicle at a cost of £150. The lady said something along the lines of “Are you aware there will be a charge” to which I replied along the lines of “Yes, I was informed last week it would cost £10 to fax a copy”. I’d already made these enquiries in the original phone calls where I was deceived.

I arrived at the Police station a couple of hours later to find out that Hastings Direct could not be bothered to send the Police a copy of my insurance certificate.

I called Hastings Direct at approximately 10:50am to 11:30am to complain and request another copy of my motor insurance, the young gentleman on the phone was more accommodating this time and took the time to resolve the matter, he also called me back to confirm it had gone though and apologised that it had not been done previously but the previous customer service agent had not added notes on the system to explain what had happened and so he could not comment on the situation. More of my time wasted because most the staff of Hastings Direct seem incapable of performing simply tasks

During the first phone call at 8am I requested for a copy of the call recording so that I could vindicate my name to which the young lady replied “We only record most phone calls” to which I responded “I don’t want most phone calls, I want the call recording of my conversation regarding the misinformation I was given”. She said there would be another charge of £10 to which I agreed.

In the afternoon I received a callback from a lady in Hastings Direct informing me that Hastings Direct were under no obligation to provide the recording as it already states in my policy small print that I would not be insurance to drive another vehicle third party which I own, and it would also need to be insured by a third party. I responded quoting the Freedom Of Information Act and the Data Protection Registry that I’m entitled to a copy of the recording and any information which they hold on their systems pertaining to me. She then placed me on hold whilst referring to a manager, I was then informed that this had to be refereed and someone would call me back that day or the next.

17th August 2010:
After receiving no call back I decided to call them only to informed by another young lady that my initial request and complaint had not been escalated and that I should have been passed to Customer Relations not Customer Services, which is something that occurred again and again in later days and weeks.

So their investigation into my complaint was delayed as confirmed by the agent on this phone call, she stated that someone in in Customer Services should have transferred me to Customer Relations because Customer Service was not equip to deal with such a matter. So more lies, misinformation and clear patter of incompetance.

I requested someone call me back who is handling the case now to let me know what is happening.

19th August 2010
I received no call back, and so I called to check the progress to be told that the complaint had now been escalated and that it could take up to 28 days until they have an answer.

30th September 2010
I called to check the outcome as I had heard nothing despite me asking specifically to be kept informed either through letter or a call back, the person on the phone was not very forthcoming and couldn’t really give me anymore information other than her own name and that they could go over the 28 days and anything up to 8 weeks as allowed by the FSA, Financial Ombudsman.

1st November 2010:
I received a letter informing me that they were cancelling my motor insurance with them but still no correspondence about my complaint, thus they acted without resolving the matter leaving me without insurance, heightened premiums with other insurers due to cancellation of my insurance, 6 points pending on my licence with a £200 fine and £150 release fee from the impound for my car.

Further more I pay yearly for my insurance and they charged me to change my car insurance to the new car knowing that I had 6 points pending. I’ve had no refund for the remainder of my policy and taking money from me to change the policy and then cancelling it afterwards without refund is fraud and deception. Why change the policy and charge me money if they were only going to cancel it without concluding their investigation or informing me of any outcome. That is pure evil, my wife and I are currently going through IVF, our one chance to have a child and this company, Hastings Direct are doing everything in their power to ruin our lives, we can’t get to hospital now without relying on others, this is putting a huge amount of strain on our lives and without a car if we miss an appointment then we could miss our chance.

As a man who has a clean criminal history, a clean driving licence of over 10 the life of my driving history, a clean PSV licence for professionally driving large vehicles, a person who stops at the side of the road to assist people, help the emergency services, call the police, you know a decent honest man who tries to do right and has always had tax and car insurance I find it disgusting they treating me like this!

I would never have risked my licence, my life to drive uninsured, I could never have lived with myself if there had been an accident through a fault of my own and my insurance was not there to help the other person and their family should it be needed, and I most certainly would not have risked it for the sake of £1 or £2 to change the cover over, that’s ridiculous on so many levels!

After receiving the cancellation I then tried calling them and was given numerous promises of a call back which I did not get, in addition to my complaint being passed to the sales department to handle. Quite clearly their staff are ill trained and incompetent in their actions.

3rd November 2010
I called them to complain about the letter informing me that my insurance would be cancelled. I requested the Customer Relations department but was informed the person I needed was in a training session that day and that they would call me back the following day.

4th November 2010
No call back again!

5th November 2010
I allowed the person all Tuesday to call me back but they failed and so I called them once again to be told by an adviser that their manager would e-mail the person investigating my case and that they would call me back that day.

6th November 2010
Still no call back and so I called once more to complain, only to be told that the department I require does not open on weekends, the agent then said there was nothing he could do other than what has already been done and that was to e-mail the person investigating the matter again. He stated that this could only end up delaying the matter though as the more e-mails sent the more time it takes to go through them. Lets be honest with ourselves here, that really is lie because if they dealt with the e-mails in chronological order then if they had been reading their e-mails they would have called me before getting to the second one.

I then contacted yourselves, the Financial Ombudsmen to lodge a complaint because now it had been some 12 or 13 weeks.

11th November – 1:15PM
After opening the complaint with yourselves I called them to inform them I had done so, as usual I requested for the Customer Relations department, the customer service agent seemed reluctant at first, I explained the complaint and I used words like “Your ruining our lives” to which he replied “I’m not ruining your life” my was response was along the lines of “Look you are representing this company, when I refer to you, I refer to you as a company not an individual” I guess I assumed some level of intelligence where Hastings Directs staff could differentiate between professional and personal because I certainly was not attacking him I’m mealy frustrated at their lack of willingness to resolve this situation in a timely manner, I guess those assumptions were wrong.

This customer service agent then told me he would need to transfer me through to the right department, Success!!!

At least I thought so until the next lady answered, and guess which department she was in?

Customer sales, why would customer sales need to deal with the situation? They don’t, I complained though and she apologised and said there was nothing she could do unless I wanted a quote. I complained and was then told she would have it referred and someone would call me back.

No call back again!!

They have my mobile, my land line number and in one of the conversations I gave them my wife’s mobile number. They also have my address so if they couldn’t contact me for any reason (which there is no reason) they could mail me, I also believe that when I set the policy up I did it on-line originally (this year was a renewal) and so they should have my e-mail address also.

This is not acceptable by any standard!

After contacting yourselves I have now finally received a reply which pretty much stats they don’t have the recording however in previous phone calls they made reference to the recording. In fact on the 16th August 2010 when they did call me back they stated “We will not give you a copy of the recording”. I suspect they have it and are covering for a friend who gave me ill advice as well as covering their own backs against legal action, why keep stalling me all this time, why keep putting me off, why keep telling me they only record most calls, telling me I can’t have a copy of the recording even though I would have been paying for it, why avoid my calls, not send me any correspondence pertaining to the matter at hand, why did it take a complaint to the FSA and Financial Ombudsmen to actually get them to do something. I now believe their deceit and dishonesty through all this that they have deleted the audio, I’m informed that if I take legal action I could have a forensic investigation into their computer systems, I realise it would be costly at first but once my innocence is proven I could claim all that back in addition to much more in compensation.

That said, I’m a decent guy and would rather sort this matter amicably. I believe if they provide me a letter or the audio recording so I can present this to the police to clear my name and to clear the 6 points thus indemnifying me in addition to covering the costs I’ve incurred so far, reinstate my policy, refund me for the time I’ve not been insured and refund me for the wasted time on my car tax then I’m happy to drop the matter. Remuneration for the time I’ve spent chasing them all the time to resolve matter

I’ve been through the legal systems successfully suing a company for incompetence in the past I know it is rather time consuming and I really want to avoid this option but if thats the only choice I have then I guess I will.

I believe that a judge will see a clear pattern of incompetence and neglect, I also believe I would be in good standing with my clean and untarnished record for both criminal and motoring convictions, I realise a judge could give a court order forcing the surrender of all phone call recordings they have which will also demonstrate a clear pattern of misguidance, incompetence and neglect.

I really hope you can help me resolve this situation amicably.

Kindest Regards
Timothy Bowers

Through out all this I believe I’ve been made to feel like a criminal from the first instance of being stopped by the police to collecting my vehicle from the impound. I found the police rude, he gave me permission to call my mother so I could I explain what was happening and then gave me permission to take a call from my brother again to explain what was happening, he spoke over me rudely and abruptly. I complained about the matter but the officer that called me back seemed to think it was because I was being to emotional. All I did was explain to my mother and brother on the phone that I’d been stopped for no insurance and that the police officer could not allow me to proceed, the officer took this as me accusing him of being at fault, he said I was blaming him for me having no insurance. Well my mother and brother as my witness saw this as me simple telling them that he was doing his job, I wasn’t blaming him. It was my insurance company at fault.

The police a law unto themselves eh…. That and their tactics of steeling laptops (see my other blog) I really doubt I will ever help the police again, what’s the point? RESPECT MY AUTHORITAAAAAAAAAAAY – As Eric Cartman from South Park would say.

At the moment we can’t drive the car as we have no insurance, insurance will now cost me over £1200+ (one quoted £4500) because I have to tell them I have 6 points pending and I’ve had my insurance cancelled in the past! Feels like I’m a teenager again with this rip off prices.

**Warning Strong Language Follows**

The wife and I were going through IVF throughout all of this, this stress we don’t need so Merry Fucking Christmas Hastings Direct you lying, thieving twats!!

If you want to know more about the Apple iPhone – http://www.apple.com/iphone/

You know that what ever Brown says, he really has something to say off camera, a hidden agenda me thinks! Just look at his behaviour when he thought he was away form the cameras and called a woman a bigot, I really wanted him to let rip in that car whilst people were listening. But all that said, it really just shows him as being human albeit a little two faced.

• I have to consider what Labour has done to us, Poor NHS funding and inadequate doctors resulted in my fathers death, my uncles death, my aunts death.
• Treated my mother like a criminal for their mistake, she’s an OAP for Christ sakes.
• Can’t even get their bin men in order but still charge my mother an incredible amount of council tax.
• I needed help from their job centre, but instead got sod all but I’m sure if I’d come from another country I could have had help. All those years of them money grabbing
• DVLA threatening legal action for a vehicle which I’d had sorn with them and later informed them was written off which my insurance company also notified them of. They harassed me for months despite me telling them the numerous times again.
• The list could go on, but for now this will do

We’ve then got the used car salesman, David Cameron. Honestly I think I’d struggle to buy a car from him he just gives off these vibes that he’s after a good commission this month.

BNP, well you know I was considering having a look at what they stand for and today we got a leaflet through the door so I had a quick read. The way I read it is they want to rip our troops out of other countries which could be a devastation not just for use for those countries we’ve gone into but also for ourselves. We need to fix the problems we’ve helped create there and we still need to fight terrorism, if we just pick up and leave places like Afghanistan then we might as well throw them back into chaos and give them some weapons to come get us with afterwards.

The bombings we’ve endured in this country hurt people who didn’t choose to fight in this war, it killed people who were just living their life and if we continued to do nothing they would still continue to come at us. The world is our oyster and we live in it so we have a duty to care for it and not just ourselves because if don’t then when all hell breaks loose we will then be dragged in to it.

BNP also don’t believe in climate change, well regardless of their belief the things we do which scientist claim contribute to climate change are still ruining our world and how we live. Coal, Gas and oil won’t last for ever, landfill sites will still be a mess and will still give of methane. The gases thrown into the Earth’s air will still be poisonous and waste from nuclear power plants still can’t be disposed of easily.

And the other parties……… Well if I’m honest I don’t really understand what they are proposing or what they stand for but I guess I should give them some consideration.

OK after careful consideration I think we should line them all up, blindfold some voters, maybe all of them and give them a paint ball gun who ever gets hit the fewest is in. lol

Maybe not?

She passed away in the early morning of Thursday 2nd July 2009 from Cancer.

The funeral of Margaret & Arthur Webb will take place tomorrow 12th July 2009.

May they both rest in peace.

28th June 2009 my Uncle, Arther Webb, husband to Margaret Webb, father to Steven Webb, Tony Webb, Ronnie Webb, Andrew Webb, Linda and grandfather to many has passed away.

In my previous blog to this, I also mentioned that my Aunty Margaret (Webb) was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

How can one have faith when life keeps dealing these blows.

On my return it was starting to get dark and she was still there, so I decided I’d drop my mother and aunt off first and then come back after all it was only 5 minutes or so away.

Now this is not the first time I’ve done this sort of thing, the other month a chap out side was struggling to get his car going so I went out then drove him to petrol station to get a fuel canister filled up and then back, a few months prior to that I pulled over on a country lane to offer assistance to another driver with a flat tyre. It’s just the sort of thing I do because I’d like to think if one of my family or I ever needed help then someone would offer it.

Anyway, so Helen and I returned back to where the car was and the lady was sat in, I walked up to the window and offered my help to change her tyre, well it seemed she’d managed to get hold of her son and he was on his way I insisted I could help if she wanted but she said no and thanked me. She also stated that I was the second person to stop and offer help.

So two people in total stopped to offer help, lets do a little math here.

Busy road, perhaps 100 cars going on 1 side ever 5 minutes, I was gone maybe an hour so that’s approx 1200 cars on one side of the road which never even thought a stranded driver might need help, perhaps they never saw the flat or the fact that the car was parked at an obscure angle as if it had turned around to park in the middle of the road pretty much on the exit of a road junction.

* These numbers are rough, there could have been a lot more. It was probably something more like 1 every second or 2 so 60 a minute is 3600 an hour.

This just seems to tie in with the whole Woolworth’s post I made, people are only bothered about themselves and what they can get out of everything. Now just imagine if that was your aunt, gran, mother, sister, daughter, son, brother, father, grandfather or uncle, wouldn’t you want someone to help them?

On another note, I couldn’t belive how selfish the British public are and how cheap they were, crying out that things were not cheap enough to the staff of Woolworths who this Christmas will be celebrating without a job, just spent thought on them and their families. I guess the UK is just full of cheap usless barstools who need to get a grip on reality!

Did I hear the government were considering helping out Vauxhal? What a load of crap.