Santander Live Chat Sandi AI

I'm a firm believer in the saying, you only know how good a company or service is when you have a problem. Well I had a little problem, so thought I'd quickly get it sorted via Santander's Live Help. How naive of me. It quickly became apparent that the live help chat was actually a BOT. As in, not a real living person. It's basically a low-level AI script that just searches Santander's own help / support pages and spits out answers from those pages depending on the phrase or question you type. So essentially it is useless.

 

 

What an appauling, frustrating level of support to offer banking customers. I mean, we are talking about a major bank here, a place people are supposed to trust with their money. And those people might have questions or need assistance urgently. And if Santander call it "Chat With Us" on their website, which they do, it should be nothing less than a real person, not Sandi the 24/7 digital assistant robot. Live help is essential.

I wonder what the success rate is for customers who got the help they needed. I certainly didn't. My problem has not been solved. Only way to really get an answer is to phone Santander. You know what that means. A potentially long wait on hold while it munches through all my phone credit, only to reach the terminus and be met with the nightmare so common these days, a customer support representative that hardly speaks or understands English. No thanks, I think I'll just live with the problem.

All in all, a very disappointing experience. It does make the mind wonder though. With all the bank closures happening lately, lots of talk about moving to a digital monetary system, which is not a good thing despite how the media will dress it up, could we be one manufactured "crisis" away from that becoming reality. I hope not. Anyway, what do you think of Santander's fake live chat?

Chris Eubank Sr Robbed In London

Thought I'd quickly write about this due to me writing a few posts lately about Rolex watches being robbed off people's wrists in the UK, with the most recent incident taking place in London. While in London, boxings former Super Middleweight Champion Chris Eubank Senior was robbed of his Louis Vuitton manbag.

Apparently, the thief snatched the bag and ran off. Just goes to show how fast a mugging can take place. It can happen to anyone. Read more about this story on badlefthook.

This isn't the first time Chris Eubank Sr has been robbed. In the late 1990's he was robbed of £100,000 worth of  jewellery while onboard a train. It seems like this one was a distraction robbery. Read more about this story on theargus.co.uk.

Eubank Jr has also been a victim of crime. He had his house in Brighton robbed a few years back, and I believe the thieves got away with items totalling a good number of thousands. I'm not sure if the people responsible were ever caught.

There was some CCTV footage of the men snooping around his house but it wasn't very good quality. I think Eubank Jr has since increased his home security, including a much needed upgrade of his CCTV system.

Telephone Boxes (Payphones) Obsolete

Telephone boxes (Payphones) offer a sobering reminder of how enhancements in technology have made something else obsolete. Just like VHS videos, DVDs, Radio Scanners,  Walkmans and CD players, advancement in technology has made them almost useless.

Who remembers stores like Tandy, Blockbuster and the many old VHS rental stores that were at one point thriving. Just like those stores are now all but a distant memory, Payphones are lose to suffering the same fate. When is the last time you used a Payphone?

Still in use: A red phonebox in London, UK

I'm sure you're aware that I'm not just talking about the older red telephone boxes  / booths, but all payphones in general. Almost everyone now owns a mobile phone, whether that be a basic mobile phone like what I use, or a Smartphone.

Add to that, that a big majority of people have phone plans (contracts) which include hundreds of free texts and hundreds of hours of free calls each month, and factor in all the pay as you go people like me who would rather just top up their phone than put money in a phone box, and it's clear to see why there is such a massive decline in the amount of people using telephone boxes.

Of course, some people do still use payphones, so I doubt they will be completely removed from public service any time soon. Emergency situations, convenience if out of credit, people who don't own a mobile phone (Yes they do exist, even in the UK) or those who have expensive cellphone tariffs where its actually cheaper to phone certain numbers from a landline rather than a mobile.

The sad reality: A Phone Booth Graveyard

Why am I writing about this obsolete subject that most of the world has moved on from. I'll tell you why. I had a strange dream that I was in a phonebox. I looked down at the part that holds the money, and the front of the box had been removed, as if someone have tried to steal the contents but either couldn't do it or got disturbed and would come back later and try again.

The inner box that contained the money was still intact and firmly in place. In my dream I managed to pull the money box out of its enclosure and hide in down by my side. In my dream I really wanted this money, and going on the weight of the money box, there was a considerable amount of coins in there.

A woman came to the phonebox and wanted to use it. This made me nervous, so I hid the money box in my jacket and pretended to be talking to someone on the phone. All the time while I was doing this I was thinking of how I could leave the situation with the money box without her asking me, or me telling her that the phone was out of order.

And if I did tell her the phone was broken, would she become suspicious because I was supposedly talking to someone on it just a minute ago. Would she then think it was me who broke the phone and robbed the money. And also, would she report me to the police. This sounds crazy, but that's what I was thinking in the dream. You know how mad and vivid dreams can be. Feelings and emotions seems so real sometimes.

Anyway, that dream made me think about phone booths and how much money they actually take in each month. I could be wrong, but I'd imagine these days British Telecom (BT) are not even earning enough change to cover the persons wages who goes around in the van collecting the money. Yeah, in my dream the money box was heavy, full of coins. I was definitely dreaming then!

UK Premium Bonds Now Just £25

Good news. The UK Premium Bonds have recently lowered the minimum amount needed to invest in some bonds from £100 to £25. This makes a lot of sense. Having to spend a minimum of £100 to hold some bonds made most people hesitate a bit.  But £25 is much more affordable. If you work it makes it much more doable to be able to buy just £25 a week, or even £25 per month out of your wage packet. It will soon add up to a decent amount of Premium Bonds.

Some people would have you believe that the bonds are a silly investment because the odds of being one of the lucky few that win a substantial prize every month is in the Billions, yes Billions. And they rightfully crunch all the numbers and start talking percentages and say "You'd earn more in interest by just leaving the money in the bank". In some ways they are correct. But personally, I like to mix things up a bit and put money in a few different places. And so should you.

Look at it this way. If you play the lottery and lose, like most people do these days since they added more numbers, you've lost your money. But if you have some premium bonds and they don't come up, you don't lose your money. It's still sitting there waiting to be entered into next months draw.

OK, you may lose a small percentage if GBP (British Pound) falls in value, but not much at all over a few years going on currency trends. And remember, no matter how big the odds may seem, two people every month win a 1 million pound prize. And several more win £100,000, £50,000, £25,000, £10,000, etc. That's guaranteed. Unlike the UK "National" (Canadian owned) Lottery where it keeps on rolling over.

So to all those people who say "nah, can't win on the bonds, impossible, the odds are too great". Go and say that to one of last months million pound winners, and they'll no doubt say - mate, I won it last month, so its very possible. And don't underestimate a £25 bond either. I check the bond winner results regularly and I always see a few £25 bonds that have landed a win of £5,000+.

But this was before the limit was lowered and these £25 bonds were prize winnings that bond holders opted not to withdraw but to have invested back into more bonds. Exactly the same thing though really. My advice: Buy some, it's worth the risk. What risk? You don't really lose anything! And you can take your money back whenever you want. -Interwire.