SUALLY, the Three Towers are a good place to be. The residents are quiet, the place is relatively clean, but RMG tends to neglect it, leaving the gates, for example, unfixed for years.

It is also very hard to communicate with RMG, which refuses to provide basic information and impressively enough offers zero cooperation in case of serious incidents.

RMG is ruining what could otherwise be decent. The utility company (with a monopoly on the service) is apparently connected to the building’s operator (an incestuous relationship), so a form of corruption is likely, too.

Today I wish to deal with more serious matters and put them out there for our own safety, as well as to warn others.

Crime in our building recently took place, but RMG seems apathetic and unresponsive about it. I don’t believe we were personally targeted, but just in case something happens, I believe RMG should be held partly accountable or at least liable. No company should follow the example of RMG.

I am hereby, with some hesitation, writing regarding a very serious matter which seemed more serious after the police had reported gunshots near our apartment in Christabel (this was confirmed by the police in a letter).

The gunshots happened a short while after my wife was assaulted inside our building, Christabel. Two young boys stalked her in the elevator and then followed her into the bin room. When she entered they locked her inside and propped the door locked with a broom. She yelled for help and a nearby neighbour came to the ground floor and scared the boys away, after they had admitted (to him) they did not even live in the building. How did these boys get inside?

My wife was horrified, but this was never investigated. RMG did not even bother looking at the CCTV footage that it had captured. What is CCTV good for if one can’t be bothered to even use it? The individuals probably cannot be identified, but the way in which they infiltrated the building matters. RMG does not seem to care. Yes, they let it slide.

A couple of hours later we both saw two dodgy-looking people in their 40s or 50s hanging about in a nearby apartments building (marionette) which are still waiting to be demolished. Their behaviour could be described as odd and we thought about calling the police though saying two people are “up to no good” is a spurious complaint (the police would not appreciate it). I had other menacing incidents like this in the past, but never a gunshot (domestic violence across the hall, intruder in my house, and the nearby building routinely had ambulances and police vans next to it).

At 11PM gunshot was fired at a window (the police confirms this) and the following morning the road below us was closed by the police with two vans, including TAU (special police unit in Manchester), parked at both ends. One of the guys we saw last night (one of the two dodgy-looking one) was carried to a police van in a wheelchair. The police does not say much about the incident except the gunshots. This is far from reassuring. We now feel unsafe even inside our house.

I demanded that RMG should investigate all these incidents and inform residents what exactly was happening. They failed to do so, so in my view they are now liable and I decided to spread the word about what happened in this area, holding accountable those who are not doing enough to protect the residents (we pay a lot of money for RNG to do so every year). There is a risk to life here and since intruders assaulted my wife inside the building we cannot tolerate this.

Cooperation with the police has proved useless in the past (in fact it put me at risk because the criminals then perceived me as their enemy), so I was approaching RMG first. RMG should have extensive CCTV footage inside the building and around it. Given the separation of just 4 hours between these events there is likelihood that they are related and one took place right inside Christabel. Why did RMG never investigate or even respond? Total neglect. Even criminal neglect.

I asked RMG not to share my identity with the police (it would most likely not help as much as a testimony to RMG).

I recently thought about buying a property here, but after these incidents I have other, less favourable plans.

People’s safety seems to be at stake, not just RMG’s reputation. For what it’s worth, avoid RMG, wherever they are. All they’re good at it collecting money annually.

Update: three hours after I published this post (on a Sunday even) RMG contacted me and said they had forwarded the case, well over a week after the CCTV footage got taken (the rotation of footage may mean that relevant footage might already be erased). It would not be unreasonable to suggest that this post had something to do with their late reactions.

Update #2 (30/6/2014: Today I was issued the following face-saving response:

Dear Dr Schestowitz,

Thank you for contacting RMG recently.

Unfortunately, our CCTV expires after 14 days and we are unable to access footage after this point. We are now unable to access any CCTV from 16th June or before.

Having spoken to the Property Manager, she has made us aware that was onsite, and visited apartment [redacted] the day after the reported assault, but was not at that point made aware of any allegations. At that point, Claire would’ve been able to access any CCTV footage required.

Additionally, if there are any future queries of this nature, we would strongly recommend that you contact us over the telephone rather than via email. Over the phone, we will be able to assist instantly.

Most importantly, if there are any further crimes at the property, you would need to contact the police as the first matter of course, especially considering the nature of the reported crime.

If you have any further queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Thanks, and kind regards

It is regretful that CCTV footage was left to expire and response over E-mail was so slow, probably due to bureaucracy. I will keep this in mind in the future.

ASYJET is an airline that should be blacklisted. It’s not just overpriced and does not arrange seatings; today it shocked my family when it turned down pre-booked tickets, saying that the flight was “overbooked”. Yes, apparently even when you book a flight with EasyJet (whose broken Web site makes it virtually impossible to check in) the airline can refuse to let the passengers board the plane. Even bus services don’t do such stuff!

EasyJet might be the crappiest airlines ever to exist. How can they legally turn back passangers with ticket they purchased for a flight? Way to ruin one’s vacation.

HERE IS a company in the UK called Cleverboxes. Its name may sound innocent and its Web site gloats/boasts about a relationship with Tesco Direct. Well, this is a warning to anyone who considers buying anything from Cleverboxes.

Cleverboxes is a dysfunctional business. It does not communicate with so-called ‘customers’, it does not deliver, it does not even properly cooperate with Tesco, it makes false promises, and it generally makes Tesco look bad. Well, Tesco is bad for having such a terrible partner.

Almost a dozen calls later (at cost of money and time to us) my wife and I cancelled our order, which was made through Tesco to Cleverboxes.

To be fair to Tesco, their staff was quite responsible and was eager to pressure Cleverboxes to deliver; it was seemingly the fault Cleverboxes alone. Do they have have staff there? Is that a real business?

Save yourself the disappointment and avoid Cleverboxes. It deserves to lose Tesco as a partner immediately because all it does is rubbish Tesco’s name.

Very hard, not easy

asyJet’s utter incompetence has wasted not only hours of my time but also a lot of time of several relatives (with computer science degrees). Their site is broken and only a fool would trust the company to keep an airplane up in the air. Their customer support is too hard to reach and would probably be useless in this circumstance.

Save yourself a lot of headache by never even visiting the site of EasyJet. This airlines, EasyJet, is technically defunct.

ver the years I have flown with over a dozen different airlines and never did I have as much problem as I am having with EasyJet these days. Their Web site is broken by design, their customer support is understaffed (been waiting for a long time before just giving up and hanging up), and anyone who considers flying with EasyJet should definitely think twice before doing anything. Upselling, spam, advertising of malicious software is all one ends up with after suffering bad IT and customer service.

EasyJet, based on my experience, is the world’s worst airline.

arlier today I was horrified when I attempted to print plane tickets that I had purchased last week. Check-in is possible now as the flight is less than 30 days away (that’s the standard accepted by several companies). Upon attempting to obtain the tickets (as PDF, also a common standard among airlines) I was greeted with nothing at all (no download). I proceeded towards an oblivion of cyclical links and cruft. Both Firefox and Chromium were tested for this, even the latest Android. Nothing would work. When pressing on “check in” I’d be redirected to the Adobe Web site. It’s absolutely impossible to do anything else. Adobe would then pressure the visitor to download and install (with full/root access to the system) a piece of spyware/malware known as “Reader”. In the process, by linkage, EasyJet was forcing one to receive more Adobe ads (proprietary software). Everything in the process is proprietary despite the fact that the Web is “open” and all the software I use is FOSS. Worse yet, EasyJet has me running through screens of non-ending malicious advertising while just trying to log in and check in. Without Adobe’s proprietary Reader, on the face of it, one cannot check in at all. EasyJet ought to take a closer look at who’s hired for its IT team to avoid such embarrassment.

EasyJet should know that Reader is not required to open PDFs. Every IT professional should know this.

“Bad service” the understatement of this decade

atWest (National Westminster, part of the Royal Bank of Scotland) used to be pretty good, but it became absolutely terrible a few years ago, not just for customers but also for staff (what’s left of the staff that’s qualified). There were systemic changes that were covered here before. Earlier this year it was the last straw (much had happened beforehand) and we decided to ditch the bank. We decide to transfer all the money elsewhere after they had made many mistakes. But it’s not easy. Even then they make a mistake (not passing all the money, forgetting to pay interest) and later, only upon visiting the bank again, they finally admitted their error and then refused to issue a letter that would enable us to ask the new bank to compensate us for NatWest making its mistake. Basically, NatWest had an innocent party, Nationwide, blamed in vain and it caused hours of painful work and nuisance (for all sides which were innocent victims). But wait, it gets worse. NatWest then closed the account and forgot or failed to send a closing statement. How can a bank be so incompetent? Many arguments were needed to make a resolution reachable and no resolution has been reached yet. It’s chaos because the staff if not skilled enough to deal with the scenario. This is just typical NatWest as of recent years. The staff member there don’t know what the heck they are doing.

It is worth adding that NatWest still advertises in many pamphlets everywhere that it is saying “yes” to almost every loan request, gloating about accepting 90% of applications, essentially gambling with savers’ money by giving it to people who cannot pay back. This is a recipe for bankruptcy (or taxpayers-paid bailout), especially when banks are allowed to lend around 10 times the amount they actually possess. This is corruption.

In summary, NatWest is a terrible bank these days and those who try to leave it may find that even upon departure the bank is unable do work properly. A lot of problems can be spared and avoided if one quits NatWest or never joins them to begin with. Learn from other people’s repeatedly-horrible experience. My friends who are with NatWest say the same about the bank.