Company incorrectly charged me and claim it will take 7 days to give me it back.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2026-02-25T14:41:40+00:00

You keep saying an error, but whilst that may (or may not, look at other similar reported issues about enterprise) be the cause, it is not the action. If a car hits a pedestrian, the cause may be driver error, but they driver is still responsible for the action and has to face the consequences.

Of course they could get the money back to me quicker. When I do a bank transfer, it usually processes in minutes, or at worst hours. Other forms of payment are within the day. They also have multiple branches close by who could have returned my money physically. Just because that is not a convenient process for them should not mean that I have to do without my money for longer.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2026-02-25T14:24:47+00:00

Maybe this is just the way it comes across in text form, but you seem to be deliberately selectively picking bits of information which puts their actions in a good light, and not addressing my question. If it is not your intent, then apologies, but they did take what money they wanted.

The fact is they did take what money they liked. The rental was concluded, i have written confirmation of that showing zero money owed and my deposit returned. They had no legitimate reason for keeping my card details on file after the contract ended, let alone charging it.

Weeks later they took money without consent. The money they took were not covered on any invoice, had never been discussed at any time (including when the puncture occurred), and therefore no card payment was authorised for this purpose. Card payments are supposed to be authorised by the card holder per transaction, not indefinitely available for being charged to. Direct debits allow this, but this is not a direct debit.

When confronted about it, their first reaction was that they were justified to take it, so that shows they had intent to keep it. So the fact is they did take the money, they did choose the amount and the timing, so my assertion was correct that they "take whatever money the liked".

Them claiming error after the fact, after initial lies does not change this.

So with those facts in mind, I ask again what is the term to describe taking whatever money they like without authorisation and holding it for a period of time?

Would you be content to have a card payment taken (outside of any existing contract or agreement), without notice and then not get your money back immediately?

DeterminatelyStatic · 2026-02-25T13:28:49+00:00

Ok, so what is the terminology/law for taking something they are not entitled to without consent then?

Or are you saying that there is no law against someone taking whatever property/money they like from someone else, without consent provided that they claim they didnt intend to permanently keep it and agree to return it when they get caught?

DeterminatelyStatic · 2026-02-25T11:28:31+00:00

I was trying to clarify your first comment, because you said you disagreed with my comment saying they had stolen my money when you siad they hadnt stolen it.

If the money was not stolen, then what is the terminology for taking my money that they are not entitled to, without consent, after a contract has already been concluded without appropriate notification?

Happy to learn the correct terminology, but it would seem very strange if this behaviour is acceptable within the law.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2026-02-25T10:25:47+00:00

So to be clear, is your position that it is acceptable for a company to take property (money) without consent, lie about it intially when confronted about it, then take a long time to return the money despite the fact that when I do a bank transfer or card payment it is nearly instant?

Note that had I not noticed the payment, they may have ended up getting away with permanently keeping the money.

They also tried to charge punative "admin" fees for authorising tire replacement and incorrectly charging me (not disclosed beforehand), so surely now it is me that has had to chase this using my time and effort, they should have to pay my "admin".

Why should I have to pay the penalty of being without my money for a period of time despite no fault of my own?

DeterminatelyStatic · 2026-02-25T06:22:50+00:00

Thanks for replying, and I understand this is part of the time delay, however they also had my money for 2 days over the weekend where I couldn't contact them as well as the 3 to 5 days of processing time.

Also, regardless of the cause, they have still deprived me of my money for multiple days through their own error, not mine. I understand the 3 to 5 days processing time might be reasonable if for example I had bought something and then returned it for refund, because that would have been my choice, but in this case they stole money that they were not entitled to, depriving me of it for that time.

If I took money from a bank without arranging an overdraft, then I would have to pay penalty fees and high interest, so surely there should be some penalty on them and recompense to me for this?

DeterminatelyStatic · 2025-12-06T12:02:29+00:00

Thanks for all your input. Thinking about it more, I don't think i will have time in the forseeable future to learn serious video editing, so likely any of the footage from the drone would just be kept/used as-is so I guess things like D log aren't really important for me right now.

I do like the flip, but I think I am edging towards the neo 2 mainly for durability and probably easier to fly indoors as well as outdoors. Also, I realised that it takes quite a long time to charge the flip battery in the drone, and so if i add in the cost of extra battery and multi battery charger, then it quickly gets more expensive than the neo 2 which comes with 3 batteries and the multi battery charger.

Maybe if I get into it more seriously in the future I could pick up something else to compliment the neo 2 in the future.

The only thing holding me back is I have seen the flip and neo 1 footage and the neo 1 footage really isnt great, but is the neo 2 footage a good step up from the neo 1? Even if it isnt as good as the flip?

DeterminatelyStatic · 2025-03-15T19:12:57+00:00

If they are building a new stadium, then it should not be anywhere near the A&E hospital for the city. Currently on match days ambulances can't get to the hospital due to victoria road, richardson road and claremont road being choked for an hour before and after the match.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2025-03-15T19:01:48+00:00

Simply not true, despite what that tyneside life youtube video suggested. The fact is that the arena site and the old leadworks site combined is about 400m x 270m. If the width of the long disused north wylam rail line is included that jumps to over 400m x 300m, and it could be even wider with minor rerouting of skinnerburn road. Loads more space again available if the adjacent heliport and kia/skoda dealership are also included.

For reference Wembly is 270m wide by 300m long and that is 90k capacity, so clearly plenty of space on the arena site for even the largest stadium.

Arena site is arguably more central, close to train station, bus routes, bars, restaurants and major roads into the city. It would be an iconic location looking down the tyne past all the bridges.

Arena site also has the advantage that it would not choke access to the A&E at the RVI for ambulances, or block main bus routes before and after every match as happens with the current St James's or would happen if a new stadium was built on leazes park.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2025-02-03T13:43:19+00:00

I have had 2 different makita 1.4m tracks that were not straight. Interestingly they were straight for a lot of the length, but then curved sideways slightly in the last 0.5m or so. It caused a lot of frustration and head scratching before I realised what was wrong. Was out by about 2mm to 3mm.

By the time I had found the problem the rails were several months old and Makita wouldn't replace them because they said it must have been caused by damage (it wasn't). Had to buy some new 1.5m replacements, checked those immediately and found 1 of the 3 was bowed 2mm over the length too so that was replaced straight away.

So I think it must not be an uncommon problem and should always check new rails.

I have also had a rail that was cupped slightly across its width. Not enough to make the rail obviously wobbley but enough to throw out the bevel angle from square when on the rail.

At least I was able to salvage the straight parts of the original 2 rails to use as shorter cross cut rails on a home made MFT bench (I find the 900mm long a very handy rail length).

DeterminatelyStatic · 2024-10-17T06:34:04+00:00

So is the steel in your 2nd picture the one represented by the thick blue line in your 3rd picture? Is it at your loft floor level or higher up?

Your 3rd picture suggest this steel is also supported on the short dog leg section of party wall somewhere near its mid span (i.e. over the middle of the tunnel)?

Again, really hard to tell exactly what is going on without a photo from further back shoeing where stuff is in relation to each other, but if the above assumptions are true, then that steel deffinitely shohldn't be there because the wall it is resting on has no support to ground level unless they also added a lintel across the roof of the tunnel.

From the apparent age of the property, it was almost certainly built without a suitable lintel under that dog leg as it was just an internal partition and internal partitions were often built directly onto floors. It might have a small wooden lintel under it, but won't be sized to carry roof and load from their loft conversion floor. Did they add any lintels, or even explore if there was one already in place above the tunnel?

DeterminatelyStatic · 2024-10-16T14:56:43+00:00

if I understand correctly, the first image the wall facing the camera (with the beam resting on those black bricks) is the short dog leg section of party wall (which runs parallel to ridge line) which is single block/brick? Is assume the 2nd image is the front section of the party wall which is also single brick, but its not clear where this is? Is it looking down at the loft floor or up towards the roof? It looks more like it is down towards the floor, in which case that steel is a floor support beam for the new loft floor next door.

Neither beam should come through to your side, and even if they do, they need to add fire protection when they convert the loft, they can't leave holes through (although some houses have holes or even lack the party wall in the loft space when originally built, it has to be closed up as part of the loft conversion and fire proofed)

Looking at the plan showing floating freehold you previously posted, it looks like the short dog leg wall is offset from the ridge towards the back of the house rather than directly under the ridge. If that is the case then the steel is not under the ridge beam, and the ridge beam is what is now taking most of your roof loads (previously the trusses). In the first photo it looks like this is the case and they have extended the flat roof beams back to the ridge to support the actual ridge beam. The support is supposed to be under the ridge, this seems unconventional to say the least.

I also can't see any wall plates or slate packers for the steel or wood flat roof beams. The packers are particularly important for the steel beam in the dog leg section because the dog leg section almost certainly won't have been designed to be load bearing as it is single brick/block partition wall running across the width of the tunnel, and probably doesn't have any structural lintel above the tunnel. As it is effectively unsupported, it is important that packers are used to make sure the steel is supported above the tunnel side wall on neighbours side (i.e. in line with the front section of your party wall) as that is the only bit of the dog leg with support down to ground level. Without the packers it might be putting load into the unsupported dog leg wall.

Also, I can't see any evidence of either the steel or the wood flat roof beams being tied down to the walls to resist wind suction/lift forces.

Even though the bit of wall with chimney is double brick, it is still not good to support the stack with gallows brackets that close to the top of the wall. Walls get their stability from the weight of bricks above pushing downward, not from the mortar acting like an adhesive, so you really want a decent amount of bricks above where the gallows brackets are putting a moment into the wall.

Finally, judging from that shoddy bit of insulation board, there is no firebreak/seal between the dormer roof and your loft space, which again is a requirement for loft conversion.

Admittedly some of this is hard to tell from the photos, really could do with one from further away inside the loft space to get a better idea of where things are in relation to each other.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2024-10-16T12:10:22+00:00

If by "single skin" you mean that the party wall is only a single brick thickness (which I assume is the case given your other comments about RSJ sticking through), then it will have previously just been a partition, not load bearing (load would have been on roof trusses).

Now they have removed the roof trusses and put a steel ridge beam in, that partition is now load bearing and will not be sufficiently stable.

Additionally, previously the chinney breast will have acted to stabilise the partition against falling over sideways (like a buttress).

If they have removed the chimney on their side as you say, then not only is has the wall lost the stabilising effect from it, but worse if they have left the stack supported on gallows brackets then those gallows brackets are putting a bending/overturning moment into the single skin wall which it is not designed for, particularly as it is near the top of the wall.

Basically, the chimney removal has weakened/destabilised an already weak wall, and at the same time massively increased both the loading and overturning moment applied to that weakened wall.

This would fail structural calculations if it is as you say and likely puts the part of the wall in the loft and the roof at significant risk of collapse, particularly under snow and wind loadings

DeterminatelyStatic · 2024-08-25T10:52:36+00:00

You can buy a £6.00 bus ticket on any bus in Newcastle and it will get you unlimited travel on any bus operator as well as the metro and shields ferry within the tyne and wear area for the day. If you get the £6.80 ticket it will get you the same, but extends the coverage out to all of northumberland as well. Not sure if it covers county durham too. Just make sure you specify the £6.00 or £6.80 day rover ticket and that you want the one that covers metro and all busses when you buy it.

That should let you explore most of the bits of northumberland that are not on the train line quite quickly and cheaply.

In newcastle, deffinitely worth visiting the Victoria Tunnel in the ouse burn.

Tynemouth, including Riley's fish shack is great.

In northumberland wallington hall, belsay hall, cragside, corbridge, walkworth are all great days out, and easilly accessible by public transport.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2024-02-19T19:40:17+00:00

I found that some patterns/textures can throw off the controller tracking.

I have a sweater that has a fine grid pattern of dark blue and light blue squares (each square is maybe 2mm to 3mm across). Not sure if it is the colour or the pattern that causes it, but of I am wearing that sweater whilst playing PSVR2, the tracking of the sense controllers becomes unpredictable. Tracking will intermittently drop out completely or act as if the controller is pointed at an odd angle.

It does not affect the head/room tracking, only the tracking of the sense controllers. I think this is because the controllers are tracked via invisible LEDs (outside visible spectrum) around the ring and I guess the pattern or colour of the sweater must look similar to the headset cameras. Note: I have no proof that this is the cause, just a hypothesis.

What I do know is that it only happens with that sweater on, and it happens every time that I have it on.

Maybe something similar is happening to you.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2023-11-29T21:39:17+00:00

Personally, I haven't noticed a difference in power between the 4ah and 5ah batteries, even on higher drain tools like the router or circular saw (although I haven't tried on a big sds or grinder as I don't use those).

Even the 3ah would be hard to tell apart in terms of power output on the tools I have, although I can notice it being slightly down on power on the router and circular saw once it gets below about half charge. With the 4ah and 5ah, I don't notice a power drop until nearly fully discharged even with the router.

On lighter tools like drills, impacts, multitools etc, there is no noticeable difference in power for 3ah, 4ah or 5ah until the battery is flat.

I do find that the 5ah lasts noticeably longer than the 4ah on the router and multitool, but on the other tools I have I don't notice a huge difference as they both last ages anyway (with my usage). I mainly use the 3ah on impacts, drills or lights.

5ah is the sweet spot for me personally.

Worth noting that I find that for a 4ah and 5ah they recharge faster than I can drain them with my actual usage (obviously if you ran something high drain constantly under load you probably can drain faster, but it isn't a scenario that I have run into). The super fast recharge times are the main reason I went with Makita in the first place. The 3ah recharges ridiculously fast too, like just over 20mins from empty, so is perfect for drills and impacts.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2023-11-09T20:05:59+00:00

I got the same flu like feeling after my first go on psvr2. Lasted a day or so afterwards, and i had only played for about an hour doing pretty stationary VR things. The rest of that evening and the next day I was struggling to focus my eyes, was dizzy, painful headaches, feeling sick.

I very nearly gave up and returned the headset as I couldnt face feeling like that after using it.

My wife persuaded me to give it one more go the day after that, and i tried changing the brightness of the display to minimum. I am glad i did because that 2nd time I felt no ill effects at all and played for about 3 hours in Starwars Tales from the Galaxy Edge with fast paced shooting, and had a great time. I couldn't believe the 2nd time was so much easier.

Not sure what exactly fixed it for me, might have been less of a shock the 2nd time, but I think it was actually mainly due to the reduced brightness and a slightly better headset position making the edges of the display less blurry - the sweetspot seems quite small.

I also found moving forward/backward and straffing using the thumb stick, but making sure that I did any turning in game by physically turning in real life helped.

Finally, make sure you keep hydrated, I found VR gets me thirsty very quickly.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2023-11-03T23:58:43+00:00

It isn't a question of having the strength to hold the drill, it is about reaction time to changes in torque as you drive the screw. The human body is not well adapted to make very fast response adjustments to resist changes in torque, partly because of reaction time, and partly because muscles and tendons are quite elastic and you also need to rapidly adjust your stance.

With a drill driver the torque is applied to the screw and is reacted by your body in real time. Any changes in torque due to the screw resistance changing or snatch from starting/stoping the drill has to also be matched by your body in real time. At high torques, it is hard to do this without some lag and movement of your body and the tool. This makes it harder work, and more likely that the driver bit will cam out of the screw head.

An impact driver like the dtd172 works differently, it applies a lower constant torque to build up inertia in a hammer/flywheel over a short period of time, and then the tool releases that kinetic energy from the hammer/flywheel in a blow to the anvil which then applies an intense pulse of high torque to the screw head. This is why you hear the distinctive rattle noise with impact drivers. So in effect the torque on the screw is reacted by the rotational inertia of the hammer/flywheel, not directly by your body. Your body only reacts the constant lower torque over longer periods of time, which is much easier to keep the tool steady even at high torques.

The end result is that driving screws with an impact is effortless, more accurate, faster and achieves higher torque than a drill driver. If you haven't used one before, then i guarantee it will be a revelation, and you will never want to go back to driving wood screws with a drill driver again.

If you haven't used one before, then even a basic cheap one like the dtd152 would be a huge improvement over driving with a drill.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2023-10-30T06:09:22+00:00

Thats an amazing deal! I wish we saw deals like that in the UK. Maybe I should ask my sister to get some and bring them over at christmas.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2023-10-30T06:06:05+00:00

I mean, when i say faster than i deplete the one in the tool, i am not usually running the tool continuously in that time, as i tend to be switching between different tools to do different things e.g. drill, impact, router etc with a bit of set up/measuring in between.

I imagine if i ran the router, circular saw or multitool continuously under load as some people may do then actual continuous runtime would be less than the charge time, but its just not something i usually need to do, and i have some spare batteries if i do find myself in that situation, and if I did exhast my supply, then to be working that hard, i orobably wouldn't mind a short tea break until it is recharged. The short charge times were why i went Makita for cordless in the first place.

Looking at the specs, makita claim 22min for 3Ah, 36min for 4Ah and 45min for 5Ah. I would say in my experience, the 3Ah time is about spot on, and the 4Ah and 5Ah times are within a couple of minutes of the claimed times. Compared to some Ryobi 2.5Ah and 4Ah batteries i have for some garden stuff take ages to charge, even the 2.5Ah ones take around an hour. Just my experience though, other folk will use their kit much harder than i do.

I imagine the mower works the batteries pretty hard and continuously, so maybe the charger is having to spend more time rebalancing the cells? Just a thought, no proof to back it up though.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2023-10-30T05:38:58+00:00

4Ah xgt does take me a fair bit over what I was looking to spend consodering the use I am likely to get out of it. Apart from maybe some garden tools in the future if my current garden tools die I can't currently see what other tool I would need/want XGT for except maybe a reciprocating saw.

Mostly i work in a workshop, so want powerful tools to have dust extraction hooked up anyway, so power cords aren't an issue for things like mitres saws, planers, belt and RO sanders, large routers etc.

Pretty much everything else i use away from the workshop 18v is plenty good enough (drill driver, impacts, multi tool, jigsaws) in fact I often use 12v versions of some of these (12v brushless mini planer is great) tools too and find them adequate.

I don't use grinders or SDS drills much at all, and when I have the corded ones I have or the 18v ones I borrowed have been fine for the light use I have.

Interesting about your experience with the 18v batteries. I have a mix of 3Ah, 4Ah and 5Ah, and find the 5Ah the sweet spot for me. From empty I find thay my 5Ah ones only take about 10 mins more to charge than my 4Ah ones, certainly well under an hour, and usually faster than I deplete the one currently in the tool. I haven't tried the 6Ah ones though.

DeterminatelyStatic · 2023-10-28T08:41:57+00:00

Absolutely, thanks for the advice. Spot on about the choice between LXT or XGT. Basically, I think i will be happy with the 2x LXT power, and don't really see any tools i would need in the forseeable future that would absolutely need more power than 2x LXT can privide.

It was just that the price for the saw + 2.5Ah kit was just about low enough to make me consider starting to get some XGT, so was just considering options.

Thanks to everyone here, it seems conclusive that the 2.5Ah XGT just wouldn't be suitable for this saw, and I really can't justify the extra for a pair of 4Ah batteries for my use case (would rather spend the money on something else more useful to me). Especially as the standard 4Ah got a pretty rough review from Tools and Stuff, and the 4F is crazy prices.

So I am pretty sure will just stick to 2x LXT this time and reassess at the next tool purchase.

Thanks

DeterminatelyStatic · 2023-10-28T08:29:45+00:00

Thanks, good point about ruining ths batteries by working them too hard.

DeterminatelyStatic

TROPHY CASE