Prime Idiocy

A confession. It took three attempts and many years for me to get to grips with online banking. During that time I was without paper statements so was never completely sure how my balance stood. I’d check it a few times a month at the ATM and sometimes I’d print out a mini statement.

So, when I finally got online with the bank I was jolly pleased and the first thing I did was check on my regular outgoings, you know, phone bill, charity subs, streaming services – that kind of thing. And the first thing I noticed was that I appeared to be paying for Amazon Prime twice!

A regular payment of £8.99 was going out on the 25^th of the month and a few days ahead of that another sum was also coming out of my account. It was never the exact amount, varied from month to month – always around £12. I couldn’t figure it out so contacted Amazon.

And it turned out they had no record of it. I was advised to contact my bank. The next day was Tuesday and I was too busy doing cakes and family meals. The day after that I was in to the bank to find out what’s what. And what it was – was that the bank closed on Wednesdays.

First thing today I was in there and met a very helpful young woman who looked into the situation. I was paying for two subscriptions but the extra one, the one I couldn’t understand was in the USA! Apparently Amazon Prime costs $14.99 in the States which is why my sterling withdrawals fluctuated from month to month.

I was relieved that whatever had happened wasn’t my fault, that I hadn’t accidentally set up an extra account in America. But still,  a shame not to have noticed it before now as it turns out I’ve been paying for another person’s Prime Video subscription for nearly four years.

As I said to the woman in the bank, God I hope it wasn’t a Trump supporter!

She agreed that it would be sickening if it was.

Now I’ve got to see if Amazon in the UK can sort this out for me. I am not sure if I’ll ever recover the money but I suppose I’ll have to try and claim something from somebody. Apparently, according to an article I read today, I should also contact the FBI although that seems pretty intense. Also overkill. And probably pointless.

Lockdown Christmas Dec 1

Full disclosure. I've already bought most of my Christmas presents and some have even been delivered thanks (or no thanks) to Amazon who signed me up to Prime without my knowledge. I cancelled it after the presents were delivered and I think that cost me an extra £7. As the presents were heavily discounted I'm not too worried about that.

Also, I've already had the Christmas beverages delivered, although I might have taken a teeny dip into that. It's the stress y'know. A friend of ours had the same delivery around the same time and the delivery man joshed him about the amount. Our friend explained,

It's for a Christmas party.

(This was before parties were verboten.)

The delivery man joked,

Ha! I'll be back again before Christmas.

And he was. The very next day.

But back to Day 1, or the day before Day 1. I had an amazing day yesterday. My knees (after the usual morning stiffness) were easy and I felt full of energy. Bert and I cleaned the hen house and considering that two weeks ago I was considering giving up chicken keeping due to being unable to care for them properly, this was very cheering. I actually managed more than 10,000 steps for the first time in three weeks.

I paid for that today. Very low energy. Finished reading Carol Shields Unless and watched Steve McQueen's Mangrove Nine and mainly lolled around. I did tend to my chickens and, as a treat, let them run around the yard where they scattered in all directions. When I counted them in tonight three were missing. It was a foggy, foxy sort of day. Hopefully, the three that are gone were oldies. My two favourites are still there and, of course, the two roosters.

My sole contribution to Christmas prep was fetching the festive wrapping paper from the attic.

And posting this picture. Holly de Cat when she was a little'un. It's my most 'borrowed' photograph on the internet.