Carpet Right … The Ryan Air of Carpet Wholesalers

So.... when does a £125 worth of carpet cost almost £600? When you go to Carpet Right. Simply we need a new carpet for the hallway, stairs and landing. It’s looking tired and tatty so needed replacing. We found a carpet we liked, priced at a very reasonable £4.99 per meter.

Durable but cheap enough to throw away after years of horse muck, baby sick and mud. Imagine my shock when, having given them the plan, measurements and requirements I end up with a total price of £600.

Now I was expecting extra cost for fitting, underlay etc. But £600 ?!?!

It broke down like this:

£174.65 for the carpet (misquoted by 10 sq meters)
£139.65 for underlay (misquoted by 10 sq meters)
£122.50 for fitting
£35 delivery
£35 cutting charge
£95 gripper rods.

Hmmm… add to this pretty poor service, an arrogant manager and a rude sales advisor who seemed uninterested as I was only spending £4.99 a metre all added up to a somewhat unproductive day.

So whilst you may be tempted in by the ‘20% off our 50% off prices’ just beware. What may seem like a cheap carpet get’s pretty pricey by the time all the extras are added on.

Carpet Right… the Ryan Air of the carpet world.

Phil Hobden

Phil Hobden is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer. His second film, TEN DEAD MEN is out in the UK now and he is currently developing his third feature film through his company Modern Life?, as well as writing for various websites and magazines including Combat Magazine, Fighters, FarEastFilms.comand Impact. For more on Phil Hobden check out http://www.philhobden.co.uk or www.mod-life.net

Bank Charges... Best Place to Rip Off?

I once sat in a training session where the ‘unauthorised’ overdraft charges were discussed.

HSBC policy is that they will charge you a fee when you make an ‘un-authorised’ request for an overdraft. An ‘un-authorised’ request is when you go overdrawn without a pre arranged agreement with the bank. These fees were up to a max of £150 per month. Naturally by that point a formal overdraft agreement couldn’t be agreed as the customers ‘behavioural score’ was very low meaning that formal lending couldn’t be agreed., thus leading the customer into more debt.

This is fine if not for one thing…. the bank will knowingly allow customers to dip into an ‘unauthorised’ even when there is no money in the account or the customer is at their overdraft limit. So you have zero money yet the bank allows you, as part of this ‘un-authorised’ overdraft to make withdraws or payments from your account, forcing you into a situation where you are charged even though the bank knows you do not have money available.

The point was raised that often this charging policy was leading people to go further overdrawn and into a vicious circle of debt. The trainers stated customers should take ownership of their own finances and as an organisation it wasn’t down to us to ensure they used their accounts responsibly. Their fault.

Now HSBC prides themselves on treating customers fairly with their best place to bank philosophy. Does this REALLY sound like the best place for your money? Does it really sound like a company that has your best interests at heart?

Last week HSBC suit Joe Garner posted a message on the internal website saying how proud he was of HSBC's fair fee's policy. Yes they actually believe that charging someone up to £25 a day was fair...

For the record... when i worked for HSBC when I could I would always ensure we refunded unreasonable charges. As do a lot of the front line staff who have to deal with customers rightly annoyed at the banks fees.

Now with the OFT claim against charges slammed, the only option left is to vote with your feet.

I know I will be when I close my accounts later today…

Phil Hobden

Phil Hobden is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer. His second film, TEN DEAD MEN is out in the UK now and he is currently developing his third feature film through his company Modern Life?, as well as writing for various websites and magazines including Combat Magazine, Fighters, FarEastFilms.comand Impact. For more on Phil Hobden check out http://www.philhobden.co.uk or www.mod-life.net

The Year of Average…

I honestly cant remember a more average year for films as 2009. Looking back through the films I’ve watched this year in an attempt to pick my film of the year I’m was gob smacked by just how many of the films I’ve watched drew a bit fat ‘meh’.

The year started well enough with Slumdog Millionaire (IMDB Rating - 9/10), Gran Torino (9/10) and The Wrestler (8/10) but things pretty much nose dived from there.

Fast & Furious (5/10) , Transformers 2 (4/10) , Terminator Salvation (5/10), Public Enemies (6/10), Harry Potter (5/10), GI Joe (6/10) (better than expected but still only just okay), G-Force (5/10), Angels & Demons (6/10), Fighting (3/10), X-men Wolverine (5/10) all fell well short. And that’s saying something as my expectations for most of there were pretty low to start with.

Without comedies like The Hangover (8/10), Bruno (8/10) and The Boat That Rocked (8/10), 2009 could well have been one of the worst years for films ever.

Moving towards year end things don’t look much better. Let’s be honest - 2012 looks terrible and, as I have said previously, Avatar’s pre-press has just left me cold.

Now don’t get me wrong – I know that every year a few or more of the blockbuster films will fall short. But I genuinely cant remember a year where so many films just left me cold. Even the reliable franchise freight train that is Harry Potter failed to ignite my enthusiasm.

Thank god then for Star Trek (8/10), which was probably the only really great action blockbuster of the year. Well plotted, well acted and well directed it should act as the blue print for blockbusters much the same way Jaws was all those years ago.

But as for Hollywood, sorry guys but it’s a C+ for your big budgeted Blockbuster movies this year with a report card that reads ‘MUST TRY HARDER’.

Phil Hobden

Phil Hobden is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer. His second film, TEN DEAD MEN is out in the UK now and he is currently developing his third feature film through his company Modern Life?, as well as writing for various websites and magazines including Combat Magazine, Fighters, FarEastFilms.comand Impact. For more on Phil Hobden check out http://www.philhobden.co.uk or www.mod-life.net

HSBC: Can One Man Change Company Policy?

Probably not. BUT after my recent back and forth communications with HSBC (and the publishing of those letters on Facebook) today I found out something VERY interesting from a former colleague of mine. This week in the weekly T3 (training or brainwashing) session a new company policy has been introduced… expressly banning ANY employee of the company talking about HSBC in any media included social network sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Beebo, Twitter etc.

Also ALL staff are banned from publishing any communications delivered internally. Including letters. Hmmm….

Now I am not arrogant enough to think that anything I have done would have contributed to this but timing, as they say, is everything.

Guess they are scared to hear what people REALLY think out their company...

Oh and another 1700 people are facing redundancy as one of the worlds most profitable banks ($10 billion USD PROFIT in 2008-9) and one of the few NOT to take government money (although they did go cap in hand to share holders) make further cut backs to streamline their operations (read: increase profits, decrease staff moral).

For every round of redundancy they make HSBC manages to strip out another layer of essential staff (be it L&D or back office support) but do nothing to increase branch numbers or put staff back to where they are really needed.

Suggestion. If HSBC want to streamline their business why not make the cuts where they are really needed. Say for example in my old region… the Branch Managers (senior on upwards to £30-40k per year) that do little to enhance business or staff moral from behind their desks and number crunching or the Area PFS Managers (£40k+) that excel in making themselves look very, very busy but in reality they do and offer little to the business at large (Example of this: Senior PFS manager role not filled for 6 months. Business grows. New manager comes in Business and moral contracts.).

Oh and maybe that bloody woman who handles the redundancy for the area...

Phil Hobden

Phil Hobden is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer. His second film, TEN DEAD MEN is out in the UK now and he is currently developing his third feature film through his company Modern Life?, as well as writing for various websites and magazines including Combat Magazine, Fighters, FarEastFilms.comand Impact. For more on Phil Hobden check out http://www.philhobden.co.uk/ or www.mod-life.net

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New Avatar trailer... A big fat 'Meh!'

So the second trailer for what may well be the biggest film of the year is now online. My initial reaction… a big, fat “Meh!”.

Look I want to like AVATAR I really do. I’m a massive James Cameron fan. Aliens is probably one of the best action films EVER made. TRUE LIES, ABYSS, TERMINATOR… all flawless movie experiences. But having now seen over 4 minutes of trailers for the film I honestly couldn’t be less excited. It’s all a bit… dull. Big machines & impressive vistas it may have but the story looks like Dances With Wolves 2 (Dances with Aliens) and I’m just not sure I care enough to sit through 2 hours plus of 3-D headache inducing computer imagery.

The problem however isn’t so much the visuals (although the CGI does make the film look like Ferngully) as much as the script. Okay now I’m saying this from JUST having seen the trailer but come on if the best line you can pick to sell your movie is “Your not in Kansas any more… your in Pandora” do little for Cameron’s reputation as a less than effective writer (11+ Oscar noms for Titanic, all major categories. ZERO for script).

In fact looking back at Titanic and the dialogue snippets I’ve heard so far from Avatar, Cameron is becoming scarily like George “Who needs actors or scripts” Lucas. Think about it – CGI actors, piss poor script… hmm.

Okay so I’m critiquing a film I haven’t yet seen but the trailer should excite me. It didn’t, it just left me cold. CGI has been around for years now. JURASSIC PARK wowed me as I’d never seen anything like it before. It blew me away. But that was 16 years ago. I’m no longer impressed by CGI. For my money it’s one thing to make a visually stunning film (again reserving judgement as for my money the film looks far from the photo-realistic epic we were promised), it’s another thing to make an engaging film that works on more than that one level.

To be honest it’s a hard task. that VERY few people get right. IRON MAN & STAR TREK were two recent films that managed to mix the big bangs with an engaging story & script. Get that right and you have a true blockbuster, get it wrong and you have the trade disputes boredom of STAR WARS: PHANTOM MENACE.

Despite all this I have no doubt that I’ll still be first in the queue to see AVATAR because I still hold a hope that Cameron, who is truly a master film maker, will once again recreate the magic of TRUE LIES or TERMINATOR 2. But I cant help feel that sinking feeling that we may have another STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE SITH on our hands.

Guess well know in just a few short weeks.
AVATAR is out on 18^th December 2009 worldwide. For more check out www2.avatarmovie.com.

Phil Hobden
Phil Hobden is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer. His second film, TEN DEAD MEN is out in the UK now and he is currently developing his third feature film through his company Modern Life?, as well as writing for various websites and magazines including Combat Magazine, Fighters, FarEastFilms.comand Impact. For more on Phil Hobden check out http://www.philhobden.co.uk/ or www.mod-life.net

HSBC… The Sound Of Silence

So weeks on after my first letter and subsequent reply I’ve still not heard back from HSBC. Needless to say I’m not holding my breath.

Personally I think it speaks volumes for the integrity of a company that worries so little about serious beaches of both FSA and internal policies that they do nothing about it.

HSBC strive to be The Best Place to Bank for it’s customers and The Best Place to Work for it’s employees. From my experiences (and those of the many people who have contacted me directly about this) they are pretty far from achieving this…

Phil Hobden

http://www.mod-life.net/

Phil Hobden is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer. His second film, TEN DEAD MEN is out in the UK now and he is currently developing his third feature film through his company Modern Life?, as well as writing for various websites and magazines including Combat Magazine, Fighters, FarEastFilms.com and Impact. For more on Phil Hobden check out http://www.philhobden.co.uk/ or http://www.mod-life.net/

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No Love for Windows...

As I write this Windows 7 launches in the shops today. Is it just me or does anyone else think that Microsoft should be giving this ‘upgrade’ away for free to make up for the cluster f**k that was Vista?

Okay wishful thinking I know. Just the concept of Microsoft ‘giving’ anything away is laughable. In fact I imagine just me writing this is no doubt causing Bill Gates uncontrollable laughter as he sits upon his tower of money (don’t think that he doesn’t ‘know’ everything that is being written about him on his machines… there must be a sub routine somewhere hidden in the coding).

BUT, and this is my point, Vista was a bomb. Everyone knows it. Even Microsoft. The fact is It wasn’t anywhere near as good XP, it was buggy, slow and over priced for what was in essence a p*ss poor rip off of a much better Apple format. Various Service Packs and updates have done little to improve this chugging OS.

So what is Microsoft’s answer? Of course, shine that turd up again and resell it under a new name. Okay that’s a little unfair. If anything just by being a stripped down version of Vista, Windows 7 will be miles better. But it does offend me that once again Microsoft turns in sub standard software then expects us to pay to get a version that works.

This is typical Microsoft. Do a half arsed job then release something better (allegedly!) a few years later. Remember how we used to joke how Microsoft released unfinished software to charge us more later on? Well that’s Vista and Windows 7 in a heartbeat.

Not that it will make a difference but I’m taking a stand. I for one will be boycotting Windows 7 – well at least until my frustration with Vista reaches a point where I’m close to smashing up my PC.
Only then will I relent…




Phil Hobden

Phil Hobden is an independent filmmaker and freelance writer. His second film, TEN DEAD MEN is out in the UK now and he is currently developing his third feature film through his company Modern Life?, as well as writing for various websites and magazines including Combat Magazine, Fighters, FarEastFilms.com and Impact. For more on Phil Hobden check out http://www.philhobden.co.uk/ or http://www.mod-life.net/
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