Sonia's Journal

LOL, autumn is the season for stalkers.

( TL:DR - police are on their way, motherfucker. BOOYAH! )

If you want live (and often dirty, utterly rude and non-pc) commentary from me about Eurovision, you may want to check out my Twitter account:
http://twitter.com/sonia_leong

Grah, my website has been offline for about 36 hours, and now they've only got a cache version up from January - and they still won't let me access my hosting to correct thig. This is really annoying, cos the other day, I had just signed up to various fanlistings, and some of them haven't linked back to my website because they couldn't verify it!

Grrr.

GRAH, that was annoying. Only took me 6hrs without a break. OMG I haven't even had anything to eat or drink! BAH!

Grr. The problem with earning good amounts of dosh is that you have to pay back lots of tax. T_T Not so good when you've already spent most of it on living and lolita clothes. I owe the Inland Revenue over £2000 by the end of January.

Them monies better roll in soon.... XD

I got a call from Switch Call today regarding the message I sent them. They will investigate this matter further, indeed! They provide tele-services to businesses, and provide them with various facilities, including 070 numbers - therefore, it is a little subsidiary of theirs, who gave these numbers to someone else, who is mis-using them.

Good news is that I now have a name of someone who works at Switch Call, and his email and direct telephone number. And that they will cancel all the numbers that were used against me. And that they will seek out and remove my mobile number from any database they have on their system. And try to take action against this behaviour, because it reflects very badly on them, and is not worth that small financial gain. They even advised me not to call back the numbers. Implies sincerity of the story.

If not though, I will take them out. ALL of them. Power to the consumer who can trace telephone numbers. *shakes fist*

It really makes me furious that this sort of thing is allowed to happen so easily. It is actually affecting my ability to work, as I can't stop thinking about ways to fix this and who to kill in cold blood. If the situation does not improve within the next week, I will involve Ofcom, Vodafone, Trading Standards and the police, under malicious phonecalls and continuous harassment.

Just so you know what I've been dealing with, here is the log of all the calls I've gotten.
20/09/2006 - 07099886175 - 10:13
22/09/2006 - 07099884372 - 11:11
22/09/2006 - 07099884156 - 16:40
23/09/2006 - 07099881486 - 08:38
23/09/2006 - 07099886069 - 11:09
23/09/2006 - 07099883093 - 16:41
24/09/2006 - 07099889114 - 08:38
24/09/2006 - 07099881517 - 11:09
24/09/2006 - 07099888211 - 16:41

And here is the link to the post which explains the thing in detail: REVENGE ON MOBILE PHONE SCAMMERS!!

I have been receiving very short, missed calls 3 times a day over the past 5 days from various 070* numbers. Because I'm not an idiot, I did not call back, as I assumed that if it is a mobile number and if it's important, the caller would try again. That was fortunate, as over the last few days I've become suspicious.

And today was the final straw, as I got one of these missed calls at 8:38am this morning. ON A EFFING SATURDAY WHEN I SHOULD BE LYING IN.

So I shall begin my little crusade against the perps.

SUMMARY:

The scam is, you get a missed call on your mobile. The call itself is very short, only rings once, too quick for you to answer. Then the victim calls back the number. And on this number, if on a landline, you get charged about 60p per min, on a mobile, we're talking a lot more. They do all sorts of things, like keep you on hold, try to get you involved in competitions, etc. I do not know what scheme this particular company is running, but I'm certainly NOT going to call them back to find out.

I've traced the phone numbers to SWITCH SERVICES LTD, part of the SWITCH CALL GROUP company. Official website: http://www.switch-tele.com/ They've been investigated at least 3 times since 2004 for misuse of 070 numbers, currently Ofcom are monitoring their behaviour, as they were let off last time because they agreed to comply with guidelines.

Let's get them into trouble again.

( All the details... )

For now, I'm going to have to do something to my mobile profiles.

If you want to contact me in the mornings, text me. I'll put my calls on silent, and texts on sound. That way, I will only get woken up by important texts (as my phone is relatively safe from scam texts, I've opted out of that crap).

LET'S GET THESE BASTARDS.

I have no beef with any religion (I'm a lapsed Roman Catholic myself) but I hate the way some have to use sneaky tactics to get you to take their flyers!

For example, in the UK, the Jehovah's Witnesses here have a magazine which is well known as the "Watchtower". Just now, I got a knock on the door, and there were two people who essentially just said, "Hi, we're just distributing some magazines on topical issues." I looked, and the lady had put a seperate brochure on top of the Watchtower one, as if it to hide it slightly. The moment I saw that, I knew that they were JWs pushing, and said no thanks.

A few years ago, I was visited by similar people (not sure if they were JWs or not, but another Christian denomination), and when I opened the door, the first thing the guy wanted to talk about was Chinese! Just because I am ethnic Chinese, he was like, let's relate, I can speak some Mandarin, whoo! And I was like ¬_¬ "I don't speak Mandarin". And then he proceeded to try to give me his bible...

I'm sure that it may sneakily work with some people who haven't been jaded by this sort of thing, perhaps they think that that if they come across as nice, friendly and normal, then people will think "oh, they aren't so bad. Maybe I'll give it a go!"

But it's like - Gah! To seasoned veterans of such visits, there's no point trying to wheedle your way in by pretending you're something else first! I mean, I'll just turn you away once I figure it out anyway.

Rather than getting preached to on the doorstep, I would much prefer to just get the leaflet through the door with info and a website, or an invitation to a public meeting for people in the area to find out more about a particular religion, with no obligation. It may not be as personal and direct, but it is far less pushy and encroaching.

Really.... want.. to... draw comics.... but not allowed .... have other things to draw instead.... GRAH!

Do you know how much it turns out I have to pay to get the Home Office to give me a little stamp in my passport to say I'm allowed to go in and out of the UK? (I'm a Commonwealth citizen of Malaysia, and my husband is a UK citizen)

£335.

Thank goodness we got married 2 years ago, back when this sort of thing didn't cost so much! I'm very annoyed. Luckily, this is pretty much one of the last things that needs to be done to my passport....

Yesterday was my last full time day in the office. From now, I've only got two days a week for the next three weeks and then I am totally free... It was getting to the point where I had a serious lapse of bothering to be nice, yesterday morning - "yes.... yes, I'm working on that.... Yeah, I know!......Okay okay, I'll do it!" All came out very clipped with no smiles.... until about 10.30am I realised I was being a bit of a dragon and apologised to my manager. I think she knows by now that Sonia before 10.30am is VERY different to SOnia after 10.30am.

But yeah. I'm really trying to write some text for a big project I'm working on, whilst doing some artwork cleaning up and it's impossible with the heat! And when I leave the windows open, all sorts of bugs get in! And then I couldn't stand how the kitchen and lounge werer so messy so cue manic vacuuming. Grr! I am really hoping it's not gonne ba like this everyday I do artwork from home... why can't it be cooler... And Matt let the bottom of my bolognaise sauce burn, even he was downstairs and I was upstairs working.... I smelt the burning before he did cos of his friggin' bongo game. Mind you, he had to retreat from me and cower in the bedroom for a good 20 mins whilst I sorted out the mess... he is a little scared of me sometimes. BUT RIGHTLY SO!!

Why can't my husband make good tea? Why...... *sobs*

He hardly ever gets it right....
lets it get cold...
sometimes doesn't let it brew long enough.....
he lets it go scummy at the top....
he gives me a cup that hasn't been fully cleaned...
sometimes the milk has curdled slightly and is sitting in little clots at the top....