Amazon.co.uk did not tell me the truth!

I am not at all happy with the service from Amazon.co.uk. When I ordered on the 24^th July the website showed there were three of the item I ordered in stock. Amazon.co.uk confirmed receipt of the order which works on the basis that the item I ordered was in stock and that it would be delivered five to seven days later. On the 25^th July I'm told that my delivery had been dispatched – which means it must have been in-stock – and I could expect the item today and that amazon.co.uk had taken payment as my 'contract to purchase' had been completed. Yesterday (31^st July) I received a telephone call asking me if I would consider accepting a different make and different model with different specifications as an alternative to my ordered item. I confirmed that I wanted what I had ordered and what had been stated as dispatched to me.

Today I'm informed that the item I ordered had not in fact been dispatched, even-though a payment had been taken from my credit card, because they didn't have any in stock.

On the 24^th July 2013, having placed an order on Amazon.co.uk, I received an email with the subject line: 'Your Order with Amazon.co.uk.' They wrote to me: 'Thanks for your order, Elliot Sampford.. . . Delivery estimate: 29 July 2013 – 1^st Aug 2013.' They confirmed: 'This e-mail is only an acknowledgement of receipt of your order and your contract to purchase these items is not complete until we send you an e-mail notifying you that the items have been dispatched to you'. Fair enough.

On the 25^th July 2013 I received the email entitled: 'Your Amazon.co.uk order of . . . has been dispatched.' this confirmed that my contract to purchase the item was complete. The email went on to confirm: 'Dispatch Confirmation Order # xxx-xxxxxxx-xxxxxxx . . . We thought you'd like to know that . . . Your order is on the way, and can no longer be changed . . . Your estimated delivery date is: Thursday, August 01, 2013'. The email also confirmed that payment had been taken for the order: 'Paid by Visa: £xxx.xx.'

On the 30^th July 2013 I received an email from Amazon which said: 'Dear Elliot Sampford, Thank you for placing your order with us. I tried contacting you on the telephone number that we have on file xxxxxxxxxxx but could not get through to you. In order to fulfil your order in timely manner, we instructed our supplier to process and dispatch your order directly to you. They have contacted that there is an issue with the order which we would like to discuss with you. Kindly provide your best contact phone number and a convenient time, or contact us on 084568001708.

Today I received the following email from Amazon: 'Dear Elliot Sampford, It was a pleasure speaking with you earlier. As discussed, I am sorry that we could not supply the exact item that you ordered. I have initiated a full refund for the transaction.

Why was my order accepted for an item of which they had no stock? Why was I informed that a product that didn't exist had been dispatched to me? Why was payment taken for an item that didn't exist?

I am not at all satisfied with the service from Amazon.co.uk and supplier.

I find it totally unacceptable to be mislead by any supplier of goods or services. Especially one that takes money for something that cannot be supplied because it doesn't exist.

I expect to see the refund due to me  on my credit card account tomorrow.

I wonder if any of my readers have had similar problems.

Orihuela Council might be going to replace our missing street-name signs.

It could be good news; it seems likely that the Orihuela Council might be going to replace our missing street-name sign.

Following my previous article 'OrihuelaCosta's missing street-name signs' on this weblog, the publication of it in 'The Leader' newspaper, and reference to it in 'ThePost', it seems the influence of modern media and the local printed press has caused a reaction.

Today I received the following email from the Town Hall:

“Buenos días Sr. Sampford:

Para poder gestionar adecuadamente su petición de reposición de placas indentificativas de nombre de calle, le solicitamos nos haga llegar su petición a través de la ventanilla de registro, por medio de instancia registrada, a fin de que el Departamento competente realice las actuaciones necesarias para su resolución.

No obstante, reenvío copia del presente para conocimiento del Concejal de Infraestructuras, Pedro Mancebo.

Sin otro particular, reciba Vd. un cordial saludo.”

[My translation is:

Good morning Mr. Sampford:

In order to be able to act appropriately to your request for the replacement of street-name signs, we ask you to send us your request through the registration window, so your application is registered, in order that the responsible department will carry out the necessary actions for a resolution.

However, a copy of this is being forwarded to the Councillor for Infrastructure, Pedro Mancebo for his information.

Without further ado, yours sincerely.]

I wait with interest. Will a new sign be fitted to our royal blue pole, to give it back its purpose in life, or will they remove it instead? I ponder this question because of the comment Graham added to my initial article.

“we had 2 installed in Calle Leman. One blue post remains at the bottom of the street but no sign, the other blue post was removed by the Council 12 months,the hole filled in and the signpost has never been replaced.We therefore have no indication as to the location of Calle Leman which is the postal address for 5 communities off Calle Leman. I emailed the Town Hall and was, like you was advised that I had to visit the Town Hall to make an Official Denuncia in Spanish!! That was 6 months ago!! Still no action. Will have to make another visit and try again as emergency services are now having problems finding houses.”

What about the other streets with no names?

Has someone from each street got to travel to the magical window in the Orihuela Costa Town Hall?

Why can't the Town Council administration system accept emails as official documented requests and forward a copy of the email to the respective department? It's not too difficult to click on the forward button.

Why can't the Town Hall have a section on its website for residents to complete and register denuncias on-line? If I can think of the idea why hasn't one of the highly paid Councillors, or Councillor's Advisers, thought of and instigated such a system? Just a thought . . .

Orihuela Costa's missing street-name signs.

Dotted around the streets of Orihuela Costa there are numerous two metre tall royal blue poles that have lost their purpose in life: standing alone, forlorn, ignored by passers-by.

Calle Leman

Sometime ago the Orihuela Town Council decided that the time had come when every road should finally have its name on display. The poles began to appear, in some instances in the most seemingly inappropriate, ludicrous, places, adorned with an oblong aluminium plate heralding for all to see the official name of the road in which they stand. Presumably in order to save costs the name plate was made of the thinnest aluminium sheet possible. It was attached to a small part of the circumference of the circular pole by two small screws: not the most secure method of fixing a flat surface to a curved one.

It was not long before the name plates in both our and the adjoining road became misshapen, bent in half, and then completely absent. This was either as a result of the strong winds; which could be seen to be violently shaking the thin plates; or drunken vandals, or both, tearing the plate off the pole; what a surprise! A scenario duplicated in many locations in Orihuela Costa. In two cases that I know of the pole has gone as well.

At the end of June 2012 I sent an email to two separate recipients, with a copy of the photograph at the top of the page attached, in the Town Hall offices requesting a replacement name plate. I wrote: 'Could you please make a request on my behalf for a replacement for the missing street name sign for 'Calle Ontario'. The blue pole is lonely on its own! '.

I received a reply informing me that in order for the Council to action my request I had to travel to the Town Hall to complete an official form, in person. As I was preparing for the start of our two month trip to the United Kingdom, I was not inclined to waste my time, and the expense of petrol for the car, to visit the offices in Orihuela Costa to complete, what I consider, an unnecessary duplicate request of my email. I thought a replacement sign would be of benefit to my neighbours, visitors, the community, delivery companies and helpful to the Council.

Calle Baikal

Several months on and still our blue pole is standing there without a purpose. So I've decided to see if the Orihuela Town Council will react again to a posting on my weblog.

If so, Sr. Alcaldesa, Mr Mayor, I have a question and a suggestion for you. Can the Council replace our missing street name sign? As the Urban Cleaning Services household refuse collection lorries travel throughout the area on a daily basis they would be an excellent source of information about the location of other missing signs and dis-functional poles.

[I wonder if any of the readers of this weblog living in Orihuela Costa know of any more examples and will send the location as a comment.]

By the by.

On the day that the two Council employees came and installed one of the signs for our road, we (my wife and I) were sitting in our lounge drinking our morning coffee when we suddenly heard the sound of drilling directly in front of our house. Opening the front door we could see the workers starting to drill a hole in the path directly in-line with our garden entrance gate. On enquiring we discovered that this was being drilled for the installation of one of the street-name poles. We pointed out to them that to site it there would seem a little inconsiderate as it made entry to our house through the gate a little inconvenient. It was pointed out to us that that was where their instructions indicated the sign must be. We eventually managed to get the 'Jobsworths' to agree to move it, all be it less than one half of a metre northwards further along the pavement; not directly in front of anyone's gateway.

There is a dead wasp in the swimming pool; - what should I do?

I was sitting at home one  afternoon recently with some friends who had called round for a chat and a cup of tea. There was an unexpected knock on the front door. I broke off from the interesting conversation we were having to see who was at the front door in the middle of the very hot afternoon.

“There is a dead wasp in the pool” said the young lady standing on the door step in her swim suit! She was on holiday, with her equally young beau, staying with a relative who has a property in the community.

I ought to clarify at this point that not only do I live next to the communal swimming pool but I am also the Chairman of the Community in which the pool is situated.

Her statement threw me for moment and before I could think of the appropriate response she enquired as to what she should do to remove the offending insect from the water.

Refraining from the urge to make a satirical, or verging on sarcastic, comment I suggest that perhaps the solution was to scoop the invader out of the water with the aid of a handful of water as a propellant. If that failed she might try the alternative of using her swimming goggles as a scoop. I suggested that her 'Sir Galahad', who remained in the pool, possibly as a rearguard defence and lookout, might assist her in the quest to remove the Hymenoptera.

It is good to be able to assist the youth of today with their education!

Having made my constructive suggestions, I refrained from leaving my guests and undertaking an act of chivalry by despatching the 'beastie', thereby enabling her 'Knight in Armour' to save the señorita from the Spanish invader. With what I perceived as a look of disappointment, that I was not to accompany her, she returned to the swimming pool. Whether or not she, or her 'Superman' hero, or neither of them extracted the wasp from water I'll never know, and to be honest, even though they felt it necessary to disturb my afternoon, I don't need to know.

On returning to my guests I found them chuckling amongst themselves about the episode they had just overheard. Wondering if it was real life or a trailer for a comedy sketch. I put their minds at rest.

It is another one of the joys, or is that peculiarities, of being Chairman of a Community!

Moronic Mother puts swimming pool users health at risk.

I supposed it shouldn't surprise me, having been the Chairman of our Community for five years, but it still does, how stupid and inconsiderate some of the owners, and their visitors in some cases, of the properties within the community can be in relation to communal areas! In this case, and probably in the majority of cases, for the majority of Community Chairman it relates to the use of the communal swimming pool.

In order to maintain the quality of the water within the swimming pool, and therefore directly the health of users of the pool, our Community has an agreed, and issued to all households, set of rules governing the correct use of the facility. Included is the rule that; 'No child using and/or wearing nappies, or not considered as satisfactorily toilet trained, is to be allowed in the water at any time, unless wearing a specially designed, leak proof, swimming nappy'; not an unreasonable rule to try to reduce or eliminate health risks.

Recently I had to speak to an owner, of some long standing, of a property within the community who was using the swimming pool with her very young child. The lady in question brought her child into the swimming pool area, where upon she removed the nappy the child was wearing, leaving the used, soiled, nappy on the perimeter concrete edge of the pool, close to the water, and where other swimmers sit before entering the water; then took the naked child with her under the shower, as required before entering the water, making a little effort to wash herself and the baby, paying little attention to it's now nappy free bottom area; then took the child into the water without any sanitation protection, as required, on the child!

Not only did she leave a soiled nappy on the edge of the pool; she had the child in the water without protection, for other users of the pool, after her visit, from the possible urination or defecation by the very young child in the water.

In the latter case I wonder what she would have done if an incident had occurred resulting in faeces in the water? Would she have informed someone, or myself as Chairman, so remedial water treatment could have been initiated to protect other pool users, or would she have said nothing, done nothing to rectify a problem, and just left the pool area?

On observing her actions I of course immediately spoke to the lady; pointing out that they were unacceptable; that the child be removed from the water immediately; that the soiled nappy be removed from the pool edge and disposed of correctly. Taking into consideration that I am aware that she has had medical training, including rules of hygiene I assume, I was surprised, or was I, by the look she gave me of what I take to be indignation that I should say anything to her about her action! Why can't she do what she wants irrespective of the potential effect it may have on others. Who was I to reprimand her. Who was I to point out to her the unacceptability of her unhygienic actions.

Oh well; another one of those experiences of human nature that comes with the role of being Chairman of a Community.

Judge slams police after teacher is acquitted of kissing a friend.

Well done to Mr William Stevenson QC.

Well done to the accused, David Owusu-Akyead for electing to go to the Crown Court for trial to be judged by his peers. Had he accepted the jurisdiction of the Magistrates Court he would most probably have been found guilty. 12 persons collective judgement is better than 3.

Read the full article here:Judge slams police after teacher is acquitted of kissing a friend - Telegraph