Sir TophamHatt

I note not many have actually answered the question It's fairly simple: Some people don't know other retailers exist for certain items. This is the power of eBay - it's reach. There's a lot of users so the audience is wide and far reaching. People list all sorts of junk so it's easy for people to find things they're looking for that are old and rare these days. It's interesting that a lot more hasn't shifted to Facebook since they opened their selling area. But many people will always look on ebay for buying as there's bound to be someone on there selling it. A one stop shop, instead of trawling a bunch of websites that then say it's out of stock - yes Hattons, you do this and it's highly annoying and even turns me off from being a customer. It also is full of some people who are desperate for certain items. I sold a toy for £5 but couldn't post it due to personal reasons. Messaged the buyer and refunded. Buyer turned horrible and left a negative. I said I was glad they didn't get it and I'd not welcome them as a customer again / blocked them. Situation changed pretty quick and a few weeks later, I made it available for sale again. They bid from another account and won. Then messaged from the old account to say "thanks it had arrived". I should have gone with my gut feeling and probed further. Was selling something a few years back that was perhaps worth £20 at best. Bids went over £700 so I didn't trust the two bidders and cancelled the auction. I should have carried it on but could have put me in a sticky situation. Been scammed before, although that was Nigeria before I knew that country as scam-central.

Indeed! I bought invested in a game from Kickstarter. It came with spare things I didn't need / want / not part of the game. I sold them (three empty boxes, a plushie, some stickers and a badge) for about the same cost as the whole game cost me - winner! I was very careful and made sure the description and title had they were empty boxes, not the game. Buyer bought and paid. When buyer received, they messaged and opened a case straight away. I refused the return as I sold as honestly as I could. They said three bits were missing. Then said just the badge was missing. Eventually, their case was decided in my favour as they did not provide any details to ebay. Similarly, the buyer before didn't think me writing "EMPTY BOXES" in the title and very large letters in the description was clear enough and that I was obviously scamming. They decided to bid really high, then message me and say they wouldn't be paying. What a waste of everyone's time. I challenged them and said that that'd identified they were empty boxes, so why wouldn't everyone else? No response. -------- The problem in this case is that the seller probably knows you really want the item so will do what they can do make you keep it. By instigating a return through ebay, they will be forced to refund you but will get a final value fee back - everything will be reversed. They will then sell it to the next person who may accept it. It's hard as I've been in the same place and negative feedback doesn't really hold much weight these days. There's so many protections in place as a buyer that I don't really worry about feedback. I know I'll get my money back if there's something wrong. Sent back a pair of trousers recently as they were the wrong size (advertised as the wrong size). Other things (like books) that are described as "excellent" but turn up with scribbles are simply refunded straight away.

Afternoon. On the late shift this week and as it's... not much going on, gives me a lot of time to read and devour information on here. The most exciting thing that's happened so far is that somebody sneezed quite loudly, to which a chorus of co-workers all trying to be extra funny about it. Yep, that's what I'm down to... getting excited over a sneeze!

Which doesn't quite make sense as the item must sell within the first period. There's other terms and conditions with the offer too.

Good evening all. Have managed to clear up loads of stuff in the past day or so. 1) The online retailer that "banned" me has since un-banned me when the next level person looked at the details and decided they were at fault after all. 2) An on-going issue with someone over a personal matter has now been resolved with a lot of bluffing from me and a lot of bluffing from them. We all know whose the biggest bluffer now! MMMWWHAHAHHAHAA. TL;DR - they scammed a lot of people using their position, including me. My persistence has resulted in them agreeing to refund me. 3) Despite Lloyds' attempts, we've found another way to open... or rather re-jig some accounts so free up a joint account we can use for nursery fees. If HSBC did a "save the change", we'd switch in an instant! I wonder how TSB fair with opening joint accounts. Lloyds used to (before Covid) make us both come into a branch with ID to sit through while they opened an joint account. Now we have to go into branch, make an appointment for someone to call us back, to then open the joint account over the phone. Considering we already have 4 joint accounts with them, it's not like we're unknown people. Why can't they just do it over the phone straight away? Something about banking seems very old fashioned. It's almost like joint accounts are an old fashioned thing they don't want to provide any more.

We have this in our airing cupboard but they're a little bendy. I did use vinyl flooring instead of cork though. Seems to be pretty good so far.

Afternoon all. Having a mixed day today. Found out I am banned from purchasing from a cheap(ish) retailer as I raised a PayPal case against them a few years back. The item I had delivered was damaged and they didn't want to accept a return. Were only forced to when PayPal intervened (despite many emails between us). Not entirely bothered as they're a little on the dodgy anyway. Have DPA'd / GDPR'd for all the details they hold on me, will be interesting to see what comes back - although considering they didn't want to accept the return of a damaged product, I doubt they'll follow the law properly here either. I also wonder if I ask them to erase all details (apart from payment info, which they must keep for 7 years), which I can do under DPA, whether I'd be able to create a new account and order something. However, another issue that I thought was going to be a lot harder than it was has very nearly been resolved.

People seem to like to compare the new presenters with the old. Go back to the first series of the new presenters and compare with that.

Indeed! I worked for a large supermarket for a few months in their distribution warehouse. Lorry's came in loaded with anything... pallets of fresh veg, pizzas, sandwiches, flowers (these were the worst!), meats... We'd have an arm computer that told us where to go with our pallet truck, "pick zone D1", scan that zone, collect the pallet and zoom off round "pick lanes", where you'd scan a sign above a cage, it would tell you how many to put in the cage (for that store) and which lane to go to next. Our warehouse covered about 150 / 200 stores. Didn't really do dry stuff, apart from some fruit and bread. Cages were loaded onto other lorry's and shipped out throughout the day / overnight - it's a 24 hour operation with goods arriving and departing nearly all the time. I think the two things that annoy me about this whole thing are: 1) People expecting the government to have answers to every detail. No, they won't. 2) Companies not caring anymore. My local Asda had a policy of "NHS and Key Workers only between 7am and 8am". No communication, hence loads of people trying to get in at 7am. A few weeks later, this changed to "NHS workers only" and I had a bit of a spat with the manager who couldn't answer how it was being communicated. While it's a nice thing, I wonder how it would be faired in the courts. Replace "NHS" with "No blacks" and it's a whole different ball game. But surely it's the same thing, too? But there's a lot of "during these unprecedented times..." how long do you expect these times to last? Surely you've had enough time now to work out how you're going to operate? How long do you think this is going to last? Many months, perhaps even years. Can't keep dragging your feet, surely? Surely they're not "unprecedented" anymore... it's now "normal".

I'm part of a "bargains" group on Facebook. There are people who will buy things that don't even know what it is they've bought or how to use it... but it was cheap!

Free delivery though!

Not sure if Podcasts count? Have got right into them on my commute to/from work recently. Using "PocketCast" as that allows me to download (or auto download if I want) on WiFi and listen data free in the car. Nearly ran out of them (I prefer CrowdScience and other such ramblings) but had a good look (instead of search) through the offerings yesterday and downloaded about 30! That should do me up until Christmas. Only reason I got into them is that my car radio is getting worse - the aerial came off in the car wash (it wouldn't unscrew) so reception is on the dodgy. Tried drilling it out carefully but no go. Maybe I should try again at some point.

This isn't the new Facebook that as the tiny coloumn in the middle with wide open spaces either side is it? I switched back after less than a minute. It's almost like they're tying to put PC users off, considering most of us have WIDEscreens these days... You could also try Social Fixer - it's an extension that has a lot more settings but works quite well in making Facebook what it should be - like displaying the most recent posts at the top of groups instead of it always defaulting to "top posts" and thus you may miss some. Related tip: never video anything from a mobile phone portrait / vertically. Means you can't watch it anywhere else but your phone without it looking stupid. ALWAYS use landscape.

I can imagine these are going to be very popular. Reminds me of the London Underground units. Didn't seem popular but all of a sudden sold out. Now worth in the region of £1000 for the 4-car set. £100 each for the centre cars. I'm still umming and arring about these as I'm having a bit of FOMO about them.

So really, it doesn't seem to matter. Nobody has bought two locos and tested - and that's the only close way you'll truly know.

People say they wire every piece of track but I'd like to hear whether anyone has tested wiring every other piece, or even every 3rd piece. I wonder if this is an old mechanic from those who still think DCC is being sold as "two wires only" - which if you think about a simple Hornby Train set, DCC could work the same way if if's a small layout.

While not N gauge, my Prodigy Advance 2 doesn't do this, so would strongly point to the controller / chips doing something weird. A good way to test would be to make a chip DCC only, then see if that loco does it.

Oh the folly of "AI". Cameras try and be helpful to adjust settings and things for you. My spy phone (Huawei P30) doesn't do this unless I tell it to specifically, then it'll blue the background slightly making much more pleasing portrait photos. To be fair, I use my SLR less and less and think we're at a tipping point where phones are getting more lenses and taking better and better photos.

Indeed! I'm okay with wires, power, DCC fitting and such but when it comes to fiddling about with locos much more than adding DCC, I'm completely cack-handed and will mess up the even simplest of tasks. Many of my DCC additions didn't go to plan. Reminds me of the people who say that if someone isn't willing to model something, they shouldn't be into model railways. WTF?! You can have a pretty decent model railway with all pre-built things. That's like saying unless you build houses, you shouldn't be into buying them or doing any sort of DIY whatsoever.

And to make this more fun, colour-blind to what standard / definition. One test could say you are, while another will say you're not and another still can say you are (most people will be) and tell you how bad.

I'm glad I got to sample a 747 before everyone stops using them, both downstairs and upstairs. Having an okay day. Still sad about the cat but that won't be a quick thing to disappear. However, I have spent most of my work shift adding formulas to the timesheet spreadsheets. The original creator did the whole "using excel because it has boxes already", despite it only being a text based document (so should have been done in Word). However now I've got my hands on it properly, have added the calculations to add hours, add the "remarks" wording when adding the right code and protected all of that from changes (but not the whole sheet). Now it saves a lot of typing. Need to continue testing it though. I think my Son is doing some more teething too. Very red cheeks and very off today. The bottom two are well out and proud so just waiting for the top two. He's so desperate to crawl but his body is 2 months behind his mind so not quite strong enough yet.

Said goodbye to my first cat today. Toasting her off with a Fever Tree Cola, which is increasingly difficult to find. Not really a fan of the hard stuff. Have cried lots. Whoever said grown men don't cry has no heart to love.

Check me out! In reality: I forgot to isolate each side of the circuit with black tubing so now have faff about with tape. The wires to the lights in the roof are too long and stiff. I cut them down but clearly not enough. Although all subsequent versions won't be affected by this. The wires to the pick ups are far too long. The wires to the pickups are going through the slot where the body attaches to the chassis (I was trying to be neat). I may have to drill a special hole in the bogie. But not bad for a first try! Only 19 more to go.

Ah - I didn't know there was so much about scales. But then I don't really pay attention to them per se - if it runs on track a OO Hornby HST runs on then I don't really care if it looks smaller or bigger than the environment around it. I have a growing variety of HO and OO locos that I run on the tracks together, although I understand they're fairly close in scales anyway. I'll probably opt for the Kato ones and see what turns up

Can't remember what they are called (steam isn't my foray). Have a feeling they're available as a kit in a smaller gauge but not OO.