Don’t you find that you go through life, paying ever-increasing bills and charges, while feeling that your hard-earned pennies are disappearing into the pockets of some corporate fat cat? The common man never wins, he just pays a little bit more every month. Well, for once, things came good and resulted in a victory for me!

You’ll recall that I have not been well of late (don’t worry, I’m still well on the road to recovery). What I neglected to tell you all was that Claire and I had a cruise booked for next month, which we had to cancel due to my recent ill health. Due to the short notice of our cancellation, we looked set to lose a lot of money.

Being sensible, I took out travel insurance at the time of booking our holiday. After falling ill and cancelling the cruise, I naturally sent off a very large claim under my travel insurance. Given I was asking for so much money, as well as the fact I had never heard of the insurer before and they could only be contacted by post, I didn’t hold out much hope of receiving a penny back.

Weeks passed since making my claim and I became resigned to the fact that I would never see the holiday money again. Until today! I logged into my bank account to pay a bill (what else?) when I saw a very large sum of money had been deposited into my account. Upon close inspiration, it transpired that this money had been sent from my insurance company! Every penny that I had claimed, minus the small excess, was there. It was the biggest insurance payout related to a ship since the Titanic sunk. For once, I won!

It was time to renew our home insurance. Our provider sent us a bill and like last year, it had gone up in price, despite the fact we haven’t made a claim ever. How does that work? Unlike last year, when we were lazy and just accepted that our policy would be automatically renewed, we took it upon ourselves to go onto the internet to compare prices. Santander quoted us £170. This is compared to another insurance company who offered us exactly the same deal for just over £60 AND we get a free meerkat for switching!

I rang Santander to tell them the news that we were dumping them. After crying a little, the man on the end of the phone offered me a reduced quote of £109. This kind of begs the question, why weren’t we offered this price originally. However, that is still a lot more than our other quote, so we went our separate ways.

I trust the new insurance company to be good and not have any nasty hidden surprises. If I find anything I don’t like, the meerkat gets it.

It takes a lot to annoy me, when it comes to dealing with companies. OK, that’s a lie, there’s a Me Vs. The World category on this very blog! I have to deal with customers in my job and like to think I offer a good, friendly service. I sometimes have to deal with angry people, and it’s not nice. That is why I try to be pleasant to the person on the end of the phone, whenever it is me making a complaint… unless, of course, I know I am speaking to the person who is personally to blame, in which case, I turn into the Incredible Hulk – “raaar!”. The manager of Argos in Bath experienced my rage once.

Basically, I don’t get angry with people I ring, of those who call me, very often. The other day was an exception. I received a call from an unknown number. Stupidly, I answered it. Why did I do that? I NEVER answer calls from withheld numbers? If you want to speak to me, at least have the common decency not to hide your number. I answered the call…

Them: “I am calling about the car accident you had recently”
Me: “What car accident?”
Them: “I’m afraid I can’t tell you”
Me: “I haven’t had a car accident, what are you calling me about?”
Them: “I can’t tell you”
Me: (getting frustrated) “Why?”
Them: “Because of Data Protection”

This is when I got mad. The girl calling me – who I eventually got to admit was named Zoe, calling from First Call – was basically calling random numbers (by her own admission), asking people about their car accident, in the off chance they do reach some poor sod who has been unlucky enough to give actually been involved in such an event. It is extremely sneaky and should be illegal, if it is not already. I couldn’t even find a company relating to law firms called First Call, when I looked on Google. Therefore, either Zoe was lying to me (if that is her real name), or First Call are phoning people on behalf of well-known companies. Very naughty.

I asked Zoe to be put through to their complaints department. Unsurprisingly, they don’t have one. If they did, no doubt they would receive more calls than the 999 telephone line. I was informed that I would be taken off their “list”, although I bet it’ll be a matter of days before I get another call regarding my traffic accident, plane crash or dinosaur attack.

Really, this wasn’t Zoe’s fault. The poor girl must know she is pissing off every single person she rings. In fact, I would rather she do that job than sign on the dole. The people I take issue with are the owners and directors of these marketing companies. They must make loads of money. It should be the law, that if you want to open one of these harassment phone-lines, that you publish your personal contact details on the internet. Then, everyone you have annoyed with nuisance calls, can ring you at all hours of the night, and wind you up too!

Last Friday, I was expecting a delivery (for those nosy and wanting to know what it is, it was this). Hermes were the courier company put in charge of delivering my order. I’ve had a few issues with them in the past, and looking on the internet, I’m not the only one. When I was at work and checked in on my order online, I was pleased to see it had been delivered. Pleased, but then alarmed. This was because the status of the order was “Delivered To Shed”. This would normally be all well and good. After all, a shed should be a safe, secure place to leave a parcel. The problem was, I don’t have a shed!