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[Loki]

Belated happy Birthday, Cesium!

...we need a birthday thread already, don't we?

[pwhodges]

My birthday was determined by how long it took my mother to get pregnant after the end of the war.  My brother was born at the start of the war, and they decided to delay having another child until after the cessation of hostilities.  This places me in the vanguard of "the bulge".

[Masterpiece]

Finally got my smartphone back.

FINALLY

[ev4n]

Wow! Happy birthday (belated or not) to Loki, ev4n, and bain!!

January is like, Official Forumite Birthday Month.

Thanks!  Yeah, I've always known a lot of people with early January birthdays.

[BeoPuppy]

Many happy felicitations on all of your births.

New definition of tense: having to train with a 5th dan but not just any old 5th dan ... no ... this was the 5th dan that oversaw my 1st dan exam. I've got muscle aches from just the tension of that situation all over.

[nekowafer]

Finally got my smartphone back.

FINALLY

Yesssssssssss

[Loki]

What was up with that smartphone, Master Princess?

[Masterpiece]

The wireless charging wasn't working and I wanted to use the extended warranty while I still could.

Of course the place I went to first decided to fix it on their own, making me wait for delivery of some obscure part, and after they got it, they fixed it just to find that the wireless charging was still not working. That's when they decided to send it to Nokia. I waited one and a half months. Idiots.

In other news, I just got a mail saying that I can start on a second job in my university tutoring the "Medientechnik" module, which was the best module in my classes so far.
MORE MONEYS!

[Barmymoo]

Wireless... charging? How does the electrickery get in?

[Masterpiece]

It works the same way an electric toothbrush does.

[snalin]

Wireless power on wikipedia. It's a thing!

I think I've heard that a wireless power network would lose a lot less energy than a wired one. It's pretty effective!

Edit: remember that electricity is just the movement of electrons. It's also generated by moving magnetic fields, which require no physical medium.

[Barmymoo]

Oh I see, the wire is just not attached to the phone, there is still a wire somewhere.

[Barmymoo]

Oh boo, I have my first early shift on Friday. I knew it had to be coming, I've only done lates so far. I'll have to be on a train at 6.30am (I feel very lucky to only live 10 minutes away from the hospital, some of my friends have a two-hour drive). Tomorrow night I've been invited to a pub quiz, so I think I'll have a post-university afternoon nap, go to the quiz, and leave early to try and get at least some sleep. Lately I've not been falling asleep til after 1am no matter how early I try.

[Akima]

Oh I see, the wire is just not attached to the phone, there is still a wire somewhere.

Yes. "Wireless" is arguably a misnomer. "Contactless" would be better.

[jwhouk]

I believe the term is more like "conductive" or "inductive" - not quite sure which would fit.

I'm not a big fan of them, though. I had rechargeable batteries for my Wii controllers that I would only need to lay on a charging pad to get to full power - but after time the pad and the batteries degraded noticeably.

[GarandMarine]

I hit the button on my alarm clock four times today... it's gonna be one of those "You people are lucky I bothered to get dressed" kinda days it seems.

[Metope]

I hit it for three hours and then I put coffee ground in the drip cone before realising I'd forgotten to put in a filter. I'm not even going outside.

[nekowafer]

Yeah I called out. I don't wanna do anything.

[Barmymoo]

I was superorganised last night and got everything ready - washed the blender, washed the Thermos, packed my bag. However, I did not check my alarm was set. So I woke up half an hour late, felt pleased that my organisation meant I still had time to make my breakfast smoothie and heat up my soup to put in the Thermos, did both of those things, and then left the Thermos on the counter.

Sigh.

[GarandMarine]

I thought about callling out. I don't want to be that asshole though. Nor do I want to burn a sick day. Besides, it's almost Friday, and I have work to do and... shit I do this exact same shit when I'm actually sick.

Which is rare, so when I'm sick... I am Sick. Like "Holy fuck it's a zombie!" Sick, and I still don't call out. Cause I'm dumb.

[Barmymoo]

I'm intrigued - is the phrase "calling out" common in the USA? Here we say "calling in" sick.

[GarandMarine]

Well you're not going in to work are you? So you'll be out for the day. I've always called out or called off. "Calling in" might be used if someone asks you what you're doing up when you should be in the rack. "I'm just calling in to the office, I need to call off for my shift this afternoon"

[Barmymoo]

That makes perfect sense, I had just never heard it before.

[Lupercal]

I know a few people that make a big deal out of 'Americanisms' but...some of them really make a hell of a load more sense than the English variation.

[jwhouk]

It took me a moment, because I use "call in sick" as the term.

Must be an East Coast or regional thing.

[pwhodges]

I know a few people that make a big deal out of 'Americanisms' but...some of them really make a hell of a load more sense than the English variation.

Generally the same amount - they're just a different viewpoint.  As in this case - I call in to the office to tell them I'm sick, rather than calling the office to tell them I'll be out sick ("call in ... sick", vs "call ... out sick").

[Lines]

Never heard the phrase calling out. It's always either calling off or called in sick.

It's sad that I've been sick so often lately (I still have bronchitis, woop) and I hate my job so much sometimes that I wake up hoping that I feel like shit or that the roads are utter crap so I can call off. Yay mostly apathetic work ethic!

[Akima]

In Australia you call in sick in order to be off sick, but it is also common to refer to a "sickie", as in: "I was feeling rough, so I took a sickie". or "I wasn't in the office that day because I was taking a sickie."

However, a "sickie" also has connotations that the time off was taken on possibly dubious grounds, especially if you only take off the amount of time your employer will normally allow without it being validated by a doctor's certificate, and particularly if you are "sick" on a Friday or Monday. Technically, any sick days are supposed to be backed up by a certificate, but most employers don't bother with it if you're only off for a single day.

[Metope]

Some dickwad used my card details to book plane tickets for $1500/£900 and I'm absolutely furious. They tried buying other stuff too for even more money, which got declined thank god. I've now cancelled my card, but the plane ticket purchase is registered in my online bank statement as "reserved", and the woman I talked to at the bank says that means it can still not go through and the money will go back in my account, or it might go through and possibly be lost forever. If it does go through, I'll have to report it to the bank and they'll deal with it. I want to be optimistic since the bank has a lot of details about the purchase, it's with Lufthansa, from somewhere in the states to Cairo, hopefully they can find out which exact flight it is and contact Lufthansa about it. I dunno though, this is just incredibly frustrating and nerve wrecking, I can't afford to lose all that money. Fuck!

[GarandMarine]

Oh no! That's terrible! Do you have any idea how your card got compromised?

[Metope]

No idea. I've done some online shopping, but only in legit, respectable stores, that's the only thing I can think of. Maybe somewhere got hacked? I can't see why a store wouldn't notify their customers about being hacked though. Also I haven't bought anything online in weeks, and it would be really strange for someone to steal my details and wait for so long with using them. Usually people who steal card details use them straight away since that's when their success rate is highest. All the attempts of using my card, including the plane ticket purchase which may or may not have worked, were in the timespan of an hour yesterday. It's really scary, but thank god I managed to cancel my card. I also transferred the rest of my money in that account to my savings account.

[Jimmy the Squid]

Surely your bank will cover any losses if you notified them as soon as you noticed it? Mine does.

[Metope]

I'm not sure. The woman I talked to told me to report it if I lose it, but I think they will do anything they can do get it back. The reason I noticed was because they emailed me about unusual activity, and I think they declined everything after the Lufthansa purchase because of that. Also probably because there wasn't enough money in my account for the other purchases to begin with. In any case, I hope they'll contact Lufthansa as well and stop this asshole from flying on stolen money.

[lepetitfromage]

They should be able to. I had something similar but smaller happen to me ($300 worth of stuff from Walmart). I had no idea where they got my info from and caught it pretty quickly so my bank told me to wait until it stopped "processing" and cleared. Then, they were able to reverse the charge. They put the money back into my account but said I'd have to fill out some paperwork to verify what happened. As long as I returned the paperwork in time, proving what happened, the funds stayed in my account.

It was scary at first and then annoying, but it was resolved a lot easier than I had anticipated. I hope it goes the same way for you. *fingers crossed*

[ev4n]

If it's a credit card, everything I've heard and experienced in North America says that getting the charge reversed was pretty easy.

[jwhouk]

...Have you shopped at a Target or Dayton-Hudson affiliated store lately?

(I don't know what stores they might have on your side of the pond.)

[Metope]

I did shop at Target when I was in the states last month, but with my credit card, and it's my debit card that the info was stolen from. I'm pretty sure it was one of the shops I went to in the states though, since the person using my card is in the states. But yeah, it's my debit card, not credit.

[LTK]

Maybe your card got skimmed at a compromised ATM. That's the only way that someone could make transactions with your debit card without stealing the physical card - to my knowledge. Can you use your card for online purchases?

[Masterpiece]

My friend just spent the last hour singing Munford and Sons songs to me. I plan on retaliating by reciting Jethro Tulls Thick as a Brick epic.

[Lines]

LTK some debit cards can be used like credit cards. Mine can. So it's still possible for that information to be stolen online.

[Metope]

I don't think it was an ATM anyway, the only ATM I've used in a few months was the one at Edinburgh Airport before customs and right next to the money exchange counter, which seems unlikely. Anyway, since nothing has changed in my account as of now and the transaction is still pending, I'll just have to wait until next week. It sucks.

[Loki]

Is there any way to read out info from it from a distance, via NFC or somesuch?

[Metope]

Not sure what that is. I'm kind of hoping that if it goes through, my bank will deal with it and contact Lufthansa or something. Hopefully it'll all work out.

[Lines]

I'm surprised that they aren't making you fill out theft paperwork now. My bank made my do that when my wallet was stolen and two kids cleared out my bank account. I had to sign something that made notice of the last transaction I made and which ones were made after the theft. (I withdrew from an ATM days before this happened and for whatever stupid reason it posted at the same time as the shopping spree. And banks are really effing particular about how/when things post, not when they were made.) I was refunded everything, it'd be downright shitty of them to not refund your money.

[jwhouk]

I did shop at Target when I was in the states last month, but with my credit card, and it's my debit card that the info was stolen from. I'm pretty sure it was one of the shops I went to in the states though, since the person using my card is in the states. But yeah, it's my debit card, not credit.

Oops.

Target Data Breach

[Lines]

Yeah, but she said that it was a different card that was used at Target...

[jwhouk]

It's possible that they just got lucky. I had that happen with my Discover card at one point.

[Metope]

How could they get lucky? It's a different card with a different pin code, I don't think that's possible.

Also they might make me fill out stuff, but I don't think they will until it's sure the money is gone. The woman I talked to told me the transaction could go either way and it was too early to say. If it does go through, I'm sure I'll have to do something but as of now, technically no money has been stolen from me. There's also the added layer of difficulty from my bank being in Norway while I'm in the UK.

[Lines]

Eeek. Hopefully it goes the not being withdrawn way. It'd certainly be faster and less of a pain in the ass.

[Metope]

Yeah, I'll have to wait till next week before I know anything since there's no bank activity over the weekend. Sigh! Apparently one of three things can happen: 1. The transaction is cancelled and I get my money back, 2. It goes through and I've lost it (although I might get it back when I report it), or 3. There is no change in the bank status for a while, which means the transfer hasn't gone through and I'll probably have to bug someone to get the money back, but at least it will be in the hands of the bank and not the thief.

One thing though, I have another pending transaction from the same card, which was groceries bought at Lidl. Since the card is cancelled, if the Lufthansa fraud purchase gets cancelled, will the Lidl purchase get cancelled too? Does this mean I got free veggies, cheese and pasta?