Technology, top-ups and a scam...

On the whole, I like modern technology.  Some of it, anyway. Kitchen gadgets make cooking and baking so much easier and more efficient than in the past. Digital cameras are a great improvement, in my view, on the kind with film which had to be processed, and I love being able to make photobooks after scanning old negatives. My slim, sturdy photobooks replace the old, wide albums with faded prints, some of which have started falling out. 

I am also very thankful to be able to have good video communication with my sons and grandchildren in the UK, particularly during this pandemic when there's no chance to visit each other.  And after being dragged rather reluctantly into the smartphone world, I have to admit I like having a phone that can connect to the Internet, allowing me to use WhatsApp, and to check email, news sites or Facebook quickly when my computer isn't on.

There are many other advantages to modern technology, most of which I take for granted. And while I'm no great whizz at technology - not compared with my close family members, anyway - I can mostly get things to work fairly easily. I sometimes feel as if I'm pushing the boundaries of my knowledge, but that's not a bad thing.

However, today I realised I had to top up my phone 'pay-as-you-go' credit. One of my least favourite tasks.

I only knew it was that time of year because I happened to make an actual phone call to Richard to see when he was coming home for lunch. Before it connected, a robotic voice informed me that my phone validation period was ending, and I had to top up immediately.  I had not received a text message or any other alert about this. Had I not made one today, or within the next week or so, I might not have known until everything stopped working, and could possibly even have lost my phone number.  

I write texts rather more than I make phone calls - and use WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger more than sending texts. Looking at my logs, the last time I made a phone call was (also to Richard) a couple of months ago. I don't use up much of my credit, so I never run out, and the validity period of each ten euro top-up is just a year.  I think it would take me about five years to get through ten euros' worth of credit, since text messages only cost two cents each. Indeed, the only way I know how to make phone calls is to go to the text message area, find the person I want to phone, and click the little phone icon. I've never worked out how to make a call to a person (rather than just typing in a number) from the place that is supposed to be for phone calls. 

Ten or more years ago, I topped up by buying a card at a local shop, and then following the instructions on the back. Or, more likely, asking one of my sons to do it. But I knew I could do it online, through our bank. So I logged into that, chose to top up my SoEasy account with another ten euros, entered the one-time code from my phone... and ten euros was deducted from our bank account. That part was easy.

After doing it, at the top of the bank screen was a 16-digit number which said it was my secret code. I copied and pasted it quickly, so I didn't lose it. But what to do with it...?  

As ever, Google was my friend. It didn't take long to find this:

Right. 

I called 1882 and a voice asked me to type 1 to top up my phone. I typed 1. The voice asked me to type in my 16-digit code, and press hash. I did so, a tad concerned that the 1 was showing at the start of it in the only place where I could type, and there was no way to delete it. So I wasn't too surprised when the voice told me the code was wrong. Or, rather, it said that the code had expired, which was a bit odd. Then it asked me to enter it again. 

So I carefully typed the code in again. 16 digits is a lot of numbers to type in, some of them repeated, but I checked it, hit the # key... and the disembodied voice told me that the code had expired and that I should try again.  

Sigh. I was carefully checking each digit, when the voice said it was still waiting. I don't like impatient robot voices, so I ended the call and thought I might try the other method.

Happily, the second method worked perfectly, and a voice told me that my phone had been topped up by ten euros. 

Whew. 

Then I received a text, telling me I should have topped up some other way to receive rewards.  But it said I could go to a website and see what bonus I might get there. I typed in the lengthy URL of the site, and the code I was sent.... and received this:

I checked my logs again. My call today was 16 seconds long.  The previous call, two months ago, was 13 seconds long.  The one before that, in June, was 39 seconds long.  

I did then discover a call I made in May which lasted five minutes; I have no idea what that was about, or why I would have such a long conversation.  But I shouldn't think I've made ten minutes' worth of phone calls all year - so my 'reward' is unlikely to be claimed. 

Still, I won't have to do that again for another year. 

Something else happened today that was a bit disturbing. I received an email, purporting to be from a local friend, asking if I could do her a favour.  Slightly odd phrasing, but I responded and asked what she wanted. The reply said, 

I am sorry for bothering you with this mail, i need to get an Amazon gift card for my Niece, Its her birthday but  I can't do this now because I'm currently out of reach and i have a little issues with my amazon account, can you please get it from any store around you or try buying online for me? I'll reimburse you hopefully this weekend.

It didn't sound like the normal style of the supposed sender, but it didn't seem impossible (though I was puzzled as to why she thought I could find an Amazon gift card in a local store).  So I responded, cautiously, that it might be possible but I'd need to know the details, the message to be sent, etc.  

The reply, almost immediately, said:

I need you to send it today, All i want is amazon gift card, Amount needed is €100

There were lots of triggers there, telling me this was wrong: the bad grammar, the request for such a large amount, the currency being euro when I knew that all this person's relatives were in the UK.  No way was I going to buy such a huge gift card for anyone, so I responded that I was not going to do that. 

I then noticed that the email address was NOT the normal one for this person. The first post had (apparently) come from that email address, but the 'reply-to' email was a different one, starting the same but with a different provider.  

A quick Google search revealed that this, or something similar, is a well-known scam.  So I reported the message to my email provider and didn't respond further. 

I'm usually fairly good at spotting scams, fake news, and false information on Facebook, so I was a tad embarrassed that I even considered for a moment that it might be real. But thought it worth posting a warning in case anyone reading this receives anything similar. 

Changing my mobile phone provider

It's seven years since I first had a mobile phone. Five years ago I wrote about topping it up annually, having to buy a €10 card, since the €5 cards only lasted for 30 days. Normal users of mobiles would think nothing of this, but at the time I struggled to spend as much as €10 in a year.

I eventually had to replace my original Sony phone; it still worked, but the battery life was almost non-existent. When I discovered that a basic Samsung phone in the UK would cost me £10 (unlocked) about three years ago it wasn't a difficult decision to make. Admittedly it took me a few days to get used to it, but I like the predictive text feature; it's light, and simple and - as with my first one - I can make phone calls and send texts.

Oh, and it tells me the time and occasionally acts as an alarm clock.

I have no wish for anything more advanced. I have continued with my pay-as-you-go contract from MTN and had no problems.

Last May, I was pleased to find that I could buy a €5 top-up card from MTN which would last me a year.  I had succeeded in getting my credit to less than €20 and wondered if I might actually succeed in running it down to nothing - after all, I send a minimum of three texts per week (when arranging morning walks) and often as many as ten. I just checked my call log, and it appears that I have made twenty actual phone calls in the past two months. Some of them as long as thirty seconds.

Last Summer, when Tim tried to top up his MTN pay-as-you-go phone, he was annoyed to find that a €10 card was only valid for 60 days. He thought it was because he bought it online - but then learned that they had changed their policies. A €20 top-up was the same - only valid for 60 days. Apparently they don't want light users any more. So, since we had a 'spare' contract (a long story) Tim took that over a few months ago.  Including the monthly charge (85c) he seems to spend about €2-3 per month - and he uses his mobile a lot more than I use mine.

The end of my last year's validity period was fast approaching. I went into an MTN shop to check that this really was the case - that I could no longer pay a small amount that would last a year. The girl in the shop confirmed it, and when I said I'd have to switch providers, she shrugged and nodded.

So it's a nice irony, really. Having moved our landline from CYTA to Cablenet last month, I'm about to move my mobile phone from MTN to CYTA. I double-checked, and their top-ups are far more reasonable: €5 last a year.

I knew I would have to buy a new Sim card, and thought that might cost me ten or fifteen euros... so when I popped into the CYTA shop last Friday, I was surprised to see this:

I told the cashier I would like a new pay-as-you go Sim, and she handed me the pack. Not only was it cheaper than I expected, it included €5 of credit. It's only valid for 90 days, but that's fine; I have 100 free texts included, too. 

Evidently I looked somewhat incompetent, as the cashier asked me (very nicely) if I knew how to activate the Sim. I told her that I didn't, but my son would help me. I'm sure she could have done it for me but I didn't actually want to start it until a couple of days before the end of my current validity period with MTN (which STILL has €12 on it, although I am trying hard to use it up).

I opened it up when I got home:

I assume everything is there. I will need to activate it (or, rather, have someone in the family activate it for me) within the next few days, because it occurs to me that my mobile number is used as a security measure for our online banking, and various other online services. In order to switch to a new number I will have to receive and validate a code on my current number.  Happily my original Sony phone is still usable (so long as it's plugged into the charger continually) so that seems like a good place to put my MTN Sim for the last few days of its life.

Terminating a phone contract... eventually!

Many years ago when we first moved to Cyprus, there was only one phone provider, the national organisation, known as CYTA. We needed a landline and (as I said, this was a LONG time ago) a modem with dial-up Internet connection. Since we were foreigners with no owned property, we had to pay a deposit - and presumably a connection fee - and after a few teething errors, it all worked.

Well, most of the time.

Our bills were initially sent to the PO Box of the organisation Richard was attached to. When that box was closed, we thought it would be straightforward to get everything sent to our own PO box - and it was, for the other utility companies, who still used the efficient method of jotting down notes randomly on ancient sheets of blotting paper or post-it notes.

Unfortunately, the phone company had computerised, so it took about three months for them to get it right.

Over the years we upgraded to broadband, and went through various routers. Mostly it worked; occasionally the service would go down, but - shrug - this is Cyprus. We couldn't understand why we received three different bills in the mail every month: one for the phone, one for the Internet, and one for the connected service. We asked several times if they would put them on just one bill, and the helpful people we spoke to assured us it was possible... but apparently not. Eventually the phone and one part of the Internet service were put on the same bill, so at least we were down to two per month.

Nearly eight years ago when we moved house, everything was straightforward and re-connected quickly. We were impressed.

Buying our own house meant that Richard could, at last, have a mobile phone contract in his name without paying a huge deposit. Previously it had been in the name of a friend who was already a home-owner.  He went to register... and, bizarrely, they could not find any details of our landline contract. So they set him up a new account which - for some reason - had his two first names reversed.   So we were back to having three bills in the mail each month, two to Richard James... and one to James Richard...

There was a slight hiatus about six months ago when we received a bill with both Internet services on the same sheet - hurrah! - although the landline phone bill was still separate.

The problem was that they insisted we were in arrears with our Internet payments. On the other hand, our phone was apparently in significant credit. Happily the amounts were the same, but they had no way to transfer from one part of the account to another.... I paid what they said we owed, and it evened out over a couple of months while our phone bill stayed in credit.

All that is mere introduction to the confusion of trying to transfer from CYTA to another phone provider. It's six weeks since I wrote about getting rid of our CYTA router (and the unexpected benefit of my backache vanishing). Returning the router meant that our Internet contract was finished at the end of February.

Backtracking a little more to the middle of February: if we had wanted a new phone number, we could have had that from the start of March too when it was all installed. But we've kept the same number for over sixteen years, and lots of people know it. And it should have been quite straightforward to transfer it to our new provider...

Except that when Cablenet looked into it, they spotted that Richard's passport (used as ID for many things here) did not have the same number as the one he was registered to with CYTA. Hardly surprising, since passports only last ten years. So they told him to go to CYTA and get his passport number updated.

Unfortunately, CYTA said they could not do that, because there was already an account registered to his new passport number.

'Yes,' he said, when he looked at it. 'That's the account for my mobile phone'. This, of course, explained why they could not find him in their system when he registered the mobile: his passport number had changed. He assumed it would be straightforward to merge the two accounts....

No.

The helpful person at the desk understood the problem, but the computer would not allow them to do it. No problem, they said, they would get someone to do it manually.

But, surprise surprise, when the new provider tried to do the procedure to transfer the phone number, CYTA said they couldn't, because it was the wrong passport number.

So Richard went again, and went through the same process, and another very helpful person said the same thing, and even phoned him an hour later to say it was all done. The new provider asked for copies of both the old AND the new passport, so they could put in two transfer requests, one for each, in case CYTA still hadn't done it.

And it still didn't work. It was getting frustrating. But they kept at it, and eventually, on April 15th, our phone service was transferred from CYTA to Cablenet. Yay.

All's well that ends well, even if the path is a little bumpy en route...?

But no, it wasn't that simple.

CYTA bills are paid in arrears, so I knew we'd still have to pay the February bills (phone and Internet) at the end of March, and the March phone bill at the end of April. I duly paid the February bills online on March 24th and filed them away. I thought no more of it until, in our PO Box a couple of days ago, we found this:

Essentially it says, 'You haven't paid your February Internet bill, and we're a bit worried that you might not, since the service is discontinued.' Dated April 10th. Yes, mail is pretty slow here.

So I checked the online banking and printed out the receipt for that exact amount, which I certainly had paid. It occurred to me that perhaps they had made the account transfer BEFORE I paid the bill. In other words, the bill was to Richard James.... and I paid it to that account. But they now thought it was owed by James Richard...

We went into CYTA on Friday, yet again. We talked to another very helpful person, who totally understood the problem, and could indeed see that the payment had been made - but couldn't do anything about it. So she had to go to the accounts department and get them to deal with it. She couldn't give us any kind of receipt, either, but assured us they had taken care of it.

Richard double-checked that our phone account is now fully terminated, and we were told it was. It then occurred to me that there might still be a deposit - I couldn't remember if we'd claimed it back when we bought our house and moved. So the lady on the desk had a look and said yes, there was indeed a deposit of 150 euros. Richard muttered that it was an odd amount, given that we paid in Cyprus pounds all those years ago; but we weren't going to argue, since we hadn't been sure if the deposit was still there at all.

We had to wait another five minutes while forms were filled in, and the accounts department had to be consulted at length again... but finally, when the phone bills for March and April were deducted, we were handed - and signed for - just over 125 euros in cash.

So it seems that there was, after all, a happy ending.

Just so long as we don't get a summons for an unpaid February bill in the name of James Richard...

Changing our phone/internet provider, and a surprising consequence

Back in October of last year, I wrote a post called 'Images of autumn', which was a rather pretentious-sounding title for what was essentially a summary of several unconnected occurrences which I had not got around to writing about.

Amongst them was this picture of my newly-reorganised study, except that I have managed to add a little arrow near the bottom left:

The arrow shows where our wireless router was put, beside the tall bookcase, connected to the cables that can be seen (if you enlarge the photo) running untidily along behind my chair. 

A couple of months ago, Tim was looking at the costs of various phone companies that now operate in Cyprus, and commented that we could save ten euros per month AND have faster speed if we switched from CYTA - the national company - to Cablenet. We would also, for the first time, get access to cable television. Not that we watch any television, but the occasional news broadcast might be nice, and there was no package that did not include this. 

Various people had experienced good things with this company, so we went to enquire, and made the necessary arrangements. Richard and Tim spent a lot of time deciding how the house could better be wired, and said that the router would have to be behind our television. 

The workmen arrived when they said they would, and after doing some noisy drilling and installing, followed by some tweaking by Richard and Tim (this is about as technical as I get) we now have this arrangement:

And this is what we see on the wall behind:

The television, bizarrely, only shows us black-and-white pictures, because (apparently) there's something wrong with it, or perhaps it's too old (all of seven-and-a-half years), but no worries. Cablenet Internet works, and Richard returned the CYTA router at the end of last month. If CYTA ever manage to get their act together, our phone - on the same number - should work on Cablenet too.

Meanwhile, on an entirely unconnected subject - or so I thought - middle age has been creeping up on me. Last October, a few weeks after I re-started my walks with Sheila, I realised that I was getting backache. I put it down to carrying a heavy belt-bag with my purse and camera, so I stopped taking it. This helped slightly, but I still found my back was aching very badly any time I had been shopping, or if I spent more than about half an hour standing in the kitchen. 

I tried heat, I tried stretching, I tried wearing different shoes. Most of the time it was chronic rather than seriously painful, but there were moments when the twinges meant I had to sit down. Buying a shopping trolley from Lakeland made it easier to do the shopping, and we started getting most of our groceries by car on Fridays.  

But still, my back ached almost continually. I became gradually resigned to it, moving more carefully, doing less in the kitchen, carrying nothing I could avoid. 

A couple of weeks ago, I suddenly realised that my back was not aching. I stood in the kitchen doing various things, and was entirely without pain. It seemed so unusual that I commented on it; I assumed it was a temporary reprieve from the back pain, but it continued. I had not realised quite how continual the ache had become  until I was without it. I noticed it as I came downstairs, as I sat on the floor to put my shoes on, as I got up from my beanbag, as I was able, once more, to do things in the kitchen for an hour or more.

This happy state of affairs has continued. There's still a bit of an ache when I wake in the mornings; I suspect we need a new mattress, or at least a mattress topper. But it goes within a few minutes. And that's it for the day! I've had no painful twinges, and moving is, once again, easy. I'm still avoiding any heavy lifting, and I'm using my shopping trolley - no point taking unnecessary risks - but I am very much appreciating having a back which no longer aches almost continually. 

A few days after my backache so mysteriously vanished, we were talking somewhat about electromagnetic sensitivity: a long name for an increasing condition, where people are (or become) sensitive to mobile phones, or wifi devices. I have never liked mobile phones - in the early days they all gave me a tingling sensation in my hands, almost like a mild electric shock - and although modern ones are better, I still have a problem with smartphones, or even my Kindle when the wi-fi is switched on. We used to think I was some kind of over-sensitive freak; in recent years we have met more and more people with the same kind of sensitivity. 

Then, idly browsing on the topic, I came across this article about electromagnetic sensitivity. Symptoms are far wider than a bit of tingling. I browsed some more, and found a surprising number of anecdotes about people who had aches and pains of all kinds, often headaches, which disappeared as soon as a wireless device - or router - was moved further away.  The 'problems' seem to happen when a device was closer than a metre to a sensitive person.

And, yes... this is where the diverse topics of this post converge. When we thought about it, we realised that the day my backache vanished so unexpectedly was the same day that Richard took the old wireless router back to CYTA. The one which had been about 60cm away from my back whenever I sat at my desk. Which is at least two or three hours per day, often more.  Prior to my re-organising of my study (and prior to my backache) the router had been in a small unit about a metre and a half away from me. 

Anecdotal only, of course. Anecdotes, as Tim has reminded me, do not constitute research. Nonetheless, it seemed to be a good idea to add my experience to the pool. If anyone who happens to see this has unexpected aches or other symptoms, and spends much of their day less than a metre from a wireless router (or smartphone/tablet) then it would do no harm at all to try a few days without it - and might, just possibly, make a difference.  

Paying bills in Cyprus

When we first moved to Cyprus, we assumed we would be able to set up direct debits from our bank account for payments such as our rent, utilities, insurance, and so on. As we did, at no cost, in the UK.

Alas, nothing is that simple in Cyprus. Our landlady said a cheque in the post was the best way to pay rent. So that was all right, even if it seemed a little old-fashioned.

We lived very close to the old electricity board building. The easiest - and commonest - method of paying those (bi-monthly) bills was to go there, in person, and write a cheque. No problem.

The telephone/internet office is in town. Those bills come once a month, but we weren't too far away, so once I got used to it, I would walk down there and write a cheque for that too.

Being Cyprus, cheque books are not free; we had to pay something like five Cyprus pounds for the privilege of having each one, but still. At least it worked.

The water board appeared to be the most forward-looking organisation, and suggested we set up a direct debit with them. So we did. We were a bit puzzled that our bank statements didn't seem to show anything being taken out for the water board... and after six months, a very apologetic man arrived, telling us we hadn't paid our (quarterly) bills. So, as the water board was also fairly near our house, we cancelled the direct debit and I started writing a cheque and going there too.

Then the electricity board moved, considerably further away. I suppose it was walking distance in the winter, but my sense of direction isn't very good. I could pay the bills at the bank, but they charged 50c (old money) each time, which seemed a bit much. So we had to remember to drive to the new electricity board to pay the bills.

Then, a few years ago, the Bank of Cyprus introduced online banking. It was a little clunky, but it worked. At last, I could pay all three utility bills online. It was quick, easy, and best of all, it worked.

Insurance? Oh, that's different again. We had to use a broker. A very friendly, pleasant man calls round regularly to collect money for house, contents and car insurances. A cheque is fine. The amounts seemed very reasonable when we first came here, but have increased somewhat over the years. But he sorts it all out, deals with the paperwork, and when Richard needed to claim something on the car insurance, the broker appeared and dealt with it.

Medical insurance used to work the same way, but the representative changed to someone who preferred an automated system. So we do actually now pay that (quarterly) by direct debit. We had to pay a setup fee, slightly to my horror, but it wasn't huge. And it appears to work.

Then there are the fees for car tax. annually. At first we paid them at a seedy place near the sea-front, which someone recommended. A broker was involved, who took an extra fee. Then we realised we could pay at the 'co-operative' bank, so for some years we did. Now we can pay car taxes online, using jccsmart. That works well.

And then there's the annual sewerage payment, and another bill that we've only had since owning our own house, from the municipality. Some kind of rates, we assume. They both have to be paid by the end of November. And they can both be paid at the co-operative bank, too.

I realised recently that there's a co-op much nearer than I had realised. So today, bills and cheque book in hand, I went there.

'No cheque', said the woman on the till.

'No cheque?' I said, in some surprise. 'But I've written cheques before... why not?"

She just shrugged, and repeated 'no cheque.'.

So I said I'd go and get some cash. I did so, returned, and paid the bills. They charged 50c per bill, but I think that's less than our own bank would have charged.

I came home, and decided to pay the phone/internet bill.

Unfortunately... the Bank of Cyprus have 'migrated' some customers, including me, to a new internet banking system. It won't work at all in Safari, my current favourite browser.

I couldn't get it to work in Firefox, either, the first few attempts. Then finally the login screen loaded correctly and I was in.

This 'new' system is horrible. It's not obvious how it works, and it's SO SLOW. Each page takes at least a minute to load. I finally managed to pay the CYTA bill - at least, I hope so - and then thought I'd look at the current transactions page, to check it had gone through.

I tried to get there before I started typing this post, about fifteen minutes ago.

Firefox is STILL 'transferring data....'.

I had thought that paying bills online at the bank's online system was straightforward and quick.

It would almost have been quicker to walk into town and back...

Surely there has to be a catch somewhere...?

I walked to the PO Box as usual this morning, to collect our mail. Included amongst the envelopes was our bill for CYTA, who provide our phone and Internet services.

With the bill was a letter, as usual Greek on one side and English on the other. In my experience, this usually indicates increased prices, or something of the sort

But no! It says:

From 1 December 2008, Cyta will double the download speeds and, at the same time, increase the upload speeds of all its existing DSL Access Home products.

There's a handy chart, too, showing how each type of service will be automatically upgraded to the next one up. We currently have the Home1000 service, which - at least in theory - means we should be getting a download speed of 1024 kbps. Not that we often get that, but we're supposed to. From 1st December, it will double to 2048.

So that's the good news.

Even better - and even more surprising - is that when this happens, the prices will reduce! Our current system costs us €29.47 per month including VAT. Which isn't particularly cheap, when compared to UK broadband, but is still considerably less than we paid for our phone bills years ago when we were on dial-up access. However, from December 1st, we will apparently be paying €25.30.

It's hard to believe that there isn't a catch somewhere, but this IS Cyprus, and strange things happen sometimes.

Perhaps CYTA made too much profit last year. Or perhaps they're trying to woo customers back from the other phone and Internet service providers. Whatever the reason, it was a pleasant surprise to find mixed up with the bills.