19 April 2016

Circling back and looking forward

That whole incident with the mystery iPhone, which was sent to me out of the blue by a company I used to buy things from, isn't yet wrapped up. Can you believe it? I sent the phone back, only to be told I would be given a credit for its price of some $900, but then no credit ever showed up on my account with the company. That's fine, because I never paid for the phone in the first place. I wrote to the company and pointed that out.


I have not received any any further explanations that would help me understand what happened, how, or why. My Visa card, the one that somebody tried to hack after the iPhone showed up, had to be canceled. The credit union in the U.S. has sent me a new one, so that part of the incident is now history.


The company that sent me the iPhone seems to think I was somehow at fault. At least that's my impression. I wrote to them last week and told them I want to close my account with their outfit, but now they tell me I have to send them a copy of my ID before they'll close the account. You'd think that my having a password on the account would be enough ID to allow me to close it down. But no...


Maybe I should have filed a complaint at the gendarmerie when it all happened, but I didn't, and now I'm not motivated. I just want it all to be over with. I will never again do business with the company, which is called LDLC. I was never a frequent customer anyway, but I first ordered things from LDLC in 2004, right after we moved to France.


Meanwhile, here are some more photos of springtime flowers in the yard and out in the vineyard. We're in a dry spell for a few days, and the ground is gradually drying out. Walt did some mowing yesterday, and we'll both be out working in and around the vegetable garden plot today.


The greenhouse tent is holding up and the seedlings in it are green and growing. It won't be many more weeks before we can start transplanting some of them into the garden plot. May 15 is the day when it's safe to assume that there's no longer any danger of frost here in the Loire Valley. It was cold yesterday morning, there were frosty patches in the yard, and there was a layer of fog over the river valley, as you can see above.

20 comments:

  1. LDCL Lyon n'a pas bonne presse auprès de certains de ses clients,voyez plutôt :
    http://www.linternaute.com/hightech/comparatif/site-d-achat-high-tech/ldlc/avis/3421.shtml

    vous pouvez vous renseigner auprès de la très officielle DGCCRF (Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes) qui saura vous donner la marche à suivre :
    https://lannuaire.service-public.fr/gouvernement/administration-centrale-ou-ministere_171897

    je flaire l'arnaque !
    ne communiquez surtout pas la copie de votre ID

    j'ai été (presque) victime de ce genre d'agissement après avoir retourné du matériel TV chez NOOS et ne m'en suis sortie qu'après consultation de l'autorité ci-dessus nommée.

    si vous souhaitez plus de détails concernant mes démarches à ce sujet,contactez-moi par courriel.

    bon courage !

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Merci Janet. J'ai envoyé encore un message à LDLC pour leur dire de me téléphoner chez moi, en utilisant le numéro de téléphone qu'on peut trouver dans l'annuaire, s'ils veulent vérifier mon identité. Je suppose que je pourrais leur envoyer une copie de ma pièce d'identité par la poste. Il n'est pas normal de refuser aux clients le droit de supprimer leur compte-client du site web, je trouve.

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  2. We have those lillies and after starting pristine they get insect attack and a lot of brown spotty staining. Do you spray yours?

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    Replies
    1. We don't spray the cala lilies, and yes, they do develop those brown spots sometimes. We're not really very good at cultivating them, so we just let them do their thing and enjoy the few blooms we get.

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  3. Lovely photos. Re the phone problem, I am surprised there isn't a way to close your account online. In general, I don't let sites keep my credit-card details. I enter them fresh each time. Even when they have the card info, when the card expires, you have to enter a new expiration date, so if you hadn't done that, it's surprising a charge went through.
    Down here, we had frost once or twice in November and nothing since then. It has meant the weeds have gone wild, and we are still trying to pull them out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I also find it strange that you can't remove your own account information from the LDLC web site. Deleting it there wouldn't mean the info can't stay on LDLC's own computers, just that pirates can't access it and steal your identity the way mine was stolen.

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  4. I haven't ordered from LDLC in a long time -- because I just haven't bought anything recently. I will steer away next time.

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    Replies
    1. I ordered things from LDLC when we first got here 12 or 13 years ago, before amazon.fr was really up to speed. And last August I ordered a Chromebox from them because the price was much lower than Amazon's price. Méfie-toi...

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    2. I rather think it's actually illegal for them to refuse to remove the data they hold about you, under the standard EU data protection law.

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    3. Good point, Autolycus. I will write to them about that.

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  5. What a goofy mess this whole phone thing is, eh?

    Beautiful close-up photos, Ken! I especially love the cala lilly with its water drops. Fabulous :)

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  6. Nice photos! I think canceling your credit card will protect you from further problems. I can't imagine something like this iPhone problem ever happening again. It is wonderful how we can order so much stuff on line nowadays. Walmart seems to be trying to do Amazon things here now with lots of online stuff being sold- things not available in their stores....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, I've changed the password on my LDLC customer account, my e-mail passwords, and my credit card number, security code, and PIN. Ouf ! Living here, outside Saint-Aignan, ordering on line is the only way to go. This is not a shopping mecca. No big-box stores at all, unless you count two supermarkets, within 25 miles of us.

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  7. Nice photos Ken! Especially the iris (of course) and the most rising from the vineyards.

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    Replies
    1. Fog or mist over the river valley mean temperatures are low. Mornings have been chilly but afternoons warm and pleasant for a few days.

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  8. the texture in that iris is incredible! great work.

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  9. If, indeed, your identify really was stolen, and it was not just a small hack, keep a very close eye on *all* your accounts and on any regular electronic payments into them. Someone stealing something as simple as access to a credit card can get a wealth of other information about you, because it's all interlinked. And they're most often pros, or working as part of a large group.
    Not to be alarmist, but . . .

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