Absolutely devastated!

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Holland to the eldest boys house. I know it isn’t strictly legal but I’ll have my old pp and my CDS with me and everything crossed! We will all be there for Xmas then hubby and the younger 2 boys plus Louis GF will head to the tunnel on boxing day. I will then have a luxurious 6 days not having to worry about anyone else but me and hanging out with my first born which I haven’t done in so long as he went to Holland to visit his GF in March of 2020 and got stuck there and never came home!!! Only brief holidays since then so the passport palaver definitely has its silver lining.his

This will definitely be a Christmas to remember. Louis (19) realised last night that the present he ordered for me hadn’t been delivered. He then realised he’d been scammed :rage: poor kid, he was so upset. I am too as I think he’d got something really nice for me. It was one of those things where they added a sneaky s and then a .fr to make it look like it was the official Fr site :rage: :rage: . He immediately called the bank and the idiot on the phone said it wasn’t thier problem and he could do nothing except cancel his card :rage: WTF use is that other than mean he has no card to go away with!!! Is that seriously the case here that there is zero protection for online payments???

Hubby just told me that my present has been sent to the UK (why when we are having Christmas day in Holland??). luckily I bought a face mask and a mini flower lego thing from action for Remy to wrap so I know I have something on the day! Oh and the GF and I’m so happy I didn’t open my secret santa early so I’ll be taking that too!

I shall keep you updated!

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Sorry to hear about the scam! So easy these days, sadly. But delighted you’ve found the silver lining. I can’t help this would make a good film plot - Father and kids heading to UK, Mother and Number One Son innocently head off in another direction and …? Time Warp? Mistaken identities? You could have such fun with this. :slight_smile:

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Have a good time Tory, safe journey there and back.

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I cant’ believe you would do anything like that! Mind you, in the olden days, I used to slink into mum and dad’s wardrobe (where they hid the presents) and sneak a look at what they’d bought me, then feign surprise on Christmas Day! I’m not the ‘enfant terrible’ I was - now ‘I’m perfect in every way!’ :innocent:

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You don’t believe all that stuff do you Sue? The film is already in the making. :rofl:
Next thing you know my eucalyptus tree will have flowers on it, you know the one she took a cutting from last year. :joy:

But the plot does have a semblance of mine. Apparently the son from Bangkok is in Munich with the grandson from Ireland to see the New Year in but their plan to have me there too won’t work without a passport. :roll_eyes:

Don’t really want to be there, beer and memories of AH and in any case travel no longer appeals. If only they’d told me earlier I would have had to think of a different excuse. :rofl:

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Yes - I saw him wandering down the road - but couldn’t stop because of huge truck driving up my car exhaust !! He did look rather lost and sorry for himself !!!

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So it is and getting harder to detect before committing to the spend.

I’ve been scammed twice in the past month, a few days apart. One was avoidable if I’d listened to the part of my brain which was pointing out the dodgy aspects - no physical address, no phone numbers.

I made the purchase on a Sat afternoon. Circa 03:36 Sunday I woke up and thought, “It IS a scam!”

Come morning I immediately jumped onto the website and ‘cancelled’. Reply was they’d already booked delivery with their courier co [lies] - being China they were 7-8 hrs ahead - so cancellation not possible but send it back when it arrives.

I’d seen a complaint about this site on a scam reporting site. The person said the company specified a return m.o which cost over €30. for a small item. That would be 50% the cost of my item.

The item turned up last week. I didn’t have to sign for it so there is no formal confirmation that it has been delivered. I’m now asking them to find out where this thing is and when I can expect it? They are ‘checking’ with their delivery co.

They have agreed that I will get a refund if it has gone AWOL. As they sent it without using a signed-for tracking service they will have to agree it has ‘gone AWOL’..

If they stand by their agreement, I will be refunded.

The products advertised are the final run of hand made leather bags made by a French artisan ‘Isobel’ before she closes her atelier and retires. The item received by the person who reported the scam was a PVC bag from China.

They are cheating me so I will try to cheat them back.

The second scam was worse. The website, a specialist supplier of tea and coffee brought up by a Google search for Malawian coffee, was all up together, complete with a French address in Beauvais and land line phone number.

The reply, on 7 Oct, to my first enquiry about delivery was "mon torréfacteur est actuellement en rupture sur ce produit. Votre commande va partir prochainement. "

No show. And no replies to any further emails.

I phoned. The line belongs to a woman who said she’d had other calls about tea and coffee and that she was nowhere near Beauvais. I went onto Google street maps and this is what the address produces.

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So you woud be right to say “You’ve been stitched up”!

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Yes this one unfortunately is very common, there are tons of ads on Facebook for these “retirement closing down sales”.

Atomic Shrimp (the scambaiter channel on YouTube) did a video on it not long ago:

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Very seasonal…

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A friend on teaching practice at a very rough London school had a teenager give birth during a lesson. She - the mother - had no idea …

This ad has followed me around everywhere. I first saw it on the ‘La Manche Libre’ on -line local Normandy news channel. Since then, all over, and finally, to my fury, an ad on the side panels of the N.Y.Times.

Photo scam. This site had photos of this ‘Isobel’ doing stuff in her ‘atelier’.

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They had also p/shopped this woman to look like 147 years old. Wrinkles like a crocodile. When I pointed this out to the site, they deleted the crocodile!

I have since seen this woman’s photo all over the place in various ads. Here she is again - clearly the same person but p/shopped

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This sort of thing is a reason why it is increasingly a benefit to buy from Amazon or Ebay or pal with PayPal.

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My Oh had a student go ino labour during an exam. She managed to get the student out of the exam room and into an office and an ambulance was called. The student gave birth in the office shortly after the ambulance arrived.

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I don’t want to come across as Mr Goodie Two Shoes or

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but I’m so leary of the passport expiry thingo that I have it on my Google calendar every year until the year of expiry when it crops up every month. Same the CTs, CdS - anything with a critical expiry date that would cause head banging if missed.

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Oh my Lord Toryroo!! You are having a time and a half! :worried:

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How awful for you! Such a common mistake to make though. If there is no way round it, on the positive side - lots of you time. :relieved_face:

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May not be completely fooproof but I have a mantra ‘if it ain’t Amazon I ain’t buying’, with apologies to denigrators of Boeing. :wink:

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And IBM.

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David - just a thought for you. Your application and photo for UK passport.
Do you mind if I give you a bit of advice - a tip - when completing the online form ?
You’ll go to photo studio; have your photo taken which meets requirements. You’ll be given printed copies of your photo - plus they’ll send you e-mail containing attachment - the digi photos.
When you apply on-line you’ll come to a section which asks ‘;who took photo’ - choice of yourself, family/friends or photo studio/booth ?
Do not choose photo studio/booth; select either ‘yourself’ or ‘friend’. This question is not about ‘statement of truth’ -
but is for the UK passport computer to know where to look for the photo. Entering any french number confuses the P/P office computer - it doesn’t like it, and can’t ever find the number.
Instead - select ‘yourself’ or ‘family/friend’. You are telling the computer exactly where to look for the photo - this means it will ‘open the door’ marked ‘applicants computer’ - and will access your computer to find - and upload - the photo.
I’m aware people have stumbled after completing the section ‘photobooth’ and entering the code on the photo - the UK P/P computer hiccups at that point - but selecting one of the other two options over-rides the problem.
Hope this is of help - think more UK exPats should be advised of how to over-ride - and beat - the system !!..
I’m not a techie bod - but I managed to complete the form online - and if I can - you’ll have no trouble as you are far more clever than I am !!!

I know you’ve had a rotten time (understatement) for last couple of years - but enjoy Christmas - and best wishes for the New Year.

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Thank you, what a great post and I will do as you suggest. I’ll start checking out a nearby professional today and follow your instructions.

If you don’t hear from me for a bit the address will be Tower of London. :thinking: :wink:

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Bored already! Trying to sort out my way back to France! Looking tricky to get to Calais but easier to go direct to Abbeville where we have our hotel booked to meet up with the others coming back from the UK. Annoyingly €90+ for the train, cheaper on blabla bus but longer. Currently Reuver - Roermond - Maastricht - Brussels bla blabls. Going to see if my friend is free and see if via Lille better. Anyone any other tips / ideas for routes / transport?

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Bla bla Bus is the former Ouibus. I had the impression SNCF that used to own it? didn’t find it easy to get rid of and at least on routes from London to Paris, always got the worst ratings.

You could try Flixbus, Lidl Plus app often has 15% off [not now though I’ve just checked] and there are other coupons about but they’re not perfect either. Personally looking at winter reliability, I think you have better choices if things go wrong if you go by train.

Also look at journeys to further away places, say Paris, that might be cheaper even if you’d actually get off earlier and take other transport.

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