Posts by Victoria Jacotey

HDS drive array failure suspected in bank giant's ATM outage

Quick update!

I called the number given to me by my branch, and over an hour (yes HOUR) later I get through to an indian woman that promptly tells me I need to contact my branch quickly gives me the branch phone number and hangs up without even a 'bye'!

So local number, call it and let it ring for 5 mins, a quick search on google reveals the number is a 0870 number which happens to be the same for all branches...

I call it and the first thing it asks me for is a 16 digit card number (the very card the cash machine had retained).

Eventually I get put through to a queueing system and another indian lady answers who then has to put me through to another department. Fortunately I got put through to a very nice english girl who went out of her way to help me and ordered me a new card. She admitted the card was swallowed by the network problems they suffered on tuesday and that a large number of other people also had their cards retained.

I now have to wait 5-7 days for replacement card which is another inconvenience as the problem of me not being able to access my account for 1 afternoon has now expanded into a whole week!

Bleh!

I live in South Wales and couldnt access my Barclays account via an instore(bank) cash machine yesterday. After multiple attempts I withdraw money using my Cahoot card.

Today I went to use the machine which promptly retained my card as I went to check my balance... Right now Im calling their Debit Card Service which was engaged twice (with an actual engaged tone!) and finally managed to get into a queueing system. Hopefully will get to sort it all out...

UK WoW fans plead for Lich King Collector's Edition

EverQuest expansion also

It appears that Blizard might be following in SOE's footsteps. For a few years now it appears that anyone outside of America has to resort to purchasing Everquest expansions on ebay.

This can pose an annoyance as we need to wait perhaps more than a week to be able to play with friends and guildmates who are already exploring the expansion, leaving you with nothing to do than sit in the guild lobby or do faction tasks.

Today I called play.com and they have not got the Seeds of Destruction expansion on their release shedule, nor have game or gamestation. Amazon.com lists it, but will not ship to the UK, the UK amazon site does not list the expansion either. This has also been the case for the previous 7 expansions!

EverQuest is regarded by many as one of the better MMORPGs out there and on the servers that I play on (Xegony and The Nameless), we have begun to have a large influx of people who have moved from WoW to something with much more content and greater challenges. It is shocking that SOE appears to neglect users who reside outside of the USA - particularly when they have a dedicated UK-based server!

SOE does have an online store that allows for a digital download via the launchpad system. However, many people on the forums have complained regarding SOE's version of the exchange rate which does not match the exchange rate set by the financial markets.

This means that anyone purchasing from outside of the USA can expect a hefty markup with SOE pocketing the difference. Some players have worked around this by setting the currency on the station store to USD and allowing the credit/debit card providers to do the exchange more realistically. However, SOE has recently put a stop to this practice by locking the options to choose your currency and to change your billing address to perhaps that of a friend who lives in the US.

Paris, because she knows how to mass market digital content effectively.