Things have been going less well, and more well, depending. The driveway is now two cars wide, and that, frankly, is a good thing. The mog and the DAF are happily nuzzled next to each other, and the Bikes lurk up at the top end. The bad thing is that neither of the cars is running. Jejy the DAF is still waiting for a cylinder head, but the other DAF, Vixy, should be coming back today.
Ian, I think, at the garage, unfortunately put (at least) one of the springs on wrong, didn’t realise until he’d reassembled the car, and then had to take it back out. They rang me to ask what might be causing the problem, and we had a nice chat ending with that as the most likely possibility. He rang yesterday and said he’d been a bit of an idiot, and he’s not sure how he did it, but yes, the springs were in wrong. Apparently she should be back this morning.
I’ll be swapping her for Jejy, who will be going there to have the cylinder head swapped because
a) I have no engine crane
b) The weather is hideous at the moment
She’s then got to get welded, lots, because her MOT expires soon :-/
But what’s really upset me recently is the bank. Years ago I ran a company as a partnership. Well, the company and the partnership ended somewhat acrimoniously, and after about 6 months of me, alone, paying the company debts I decided I’d had enough of that, and reached a deal with our business manager.
We would split the remaining debt 50/50, I paid off mine immediately, with a loan from said bank, and she – entering debt management – would pay off the other half over a much longer period of time. Once my side of the debt was paid I filled in the paperwork to say change the account to a sole-trader account in her name.
Yeah.
I heard nothing for the last 4 years, and then I received a demand for payment of 17 quid last week. I was annoyed, but no-where near as annoyed as I am now. The bank never completed the sole trader conversion and because my ex-business-partner has apparently decided to stop paying her debt, rather than chase her they’ve gone for the easy option.
Because I have a personal account with LloydsTSB, they’ve taken the money out of that. Apparently they did it before, they claim they sent me a letter, but since it happened last month and I’ve not got that letter, and it happened the same time as I paid in my inheritance… I missed the 160 quid they took.
And it gets better. They have no intention of doing anything more than sending her letters, and then taking the money from my account. Having had an endlessly frustrating conversation with a business manager yesterday I came to the conclusion the only way to stop this is to close all my Lloyds accounts.
Fuck them, quite frankly.
I know, at the end of the day, I’ll end up paying, because I have so much to loose by not paying. And at the end of the day it’s not that much. But frankly, Lloyds can get stuffed if they think they’re ever having any more of my business.
I’ve already opened an account elsewhere. I’ll go and pay off my loan once I’ve showered, finish off the opening of the other account and then over the course of this week I hope to be completely separated from LloydsTSB. Insurance, credit card, all cancelled. Goodbye Lloyds.
This then is my advice to you all: If you start a business, no matter how you feel, get a partnership agreement. Don’t bank with the same bank you use for your personal account, because banks are banks and they will fuck you over. Get everything in writing, every last god-damned word that comes from their lying little mouths. If you don’t hear anything, get a response from them somehow about what’s going on.
And lastly, remember, they will screw you over for every last shiny penny you have.
*sighs*
Right.
I had some other news, the nature of which escapes me.
Oh yes, so Nikki did her EVCast from here a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t help but notice that the bandwidth she got was somewhat less than I’d come to expect from our connection. It’s not like we’ve got a whacking great hose of a connection, like she has, but it’s pretty quick.
Today I did the quiet line test; it wasn’t awful, but it was a little poppy – and our connection does go to shit when it rains. So I’ll be reporting it to BT later today. Hopefully we’ll get something a bit better soon.
