Deco

4 hours ago, DeadLinesman said:

I didn’t think you were allowed to work and claim Furlough? 

Yeah, you can work but once you work for or over your regular hours, the furlough gets cancelled. As I do bar-work I’m on a zero-hour contract and as I’m working less hours that means I still get a combination of furlough and my regular pay. I’m just not sure how they’ll calculate it.

4 hours ago, Harvsky said:

Were you furloughed for a period of 3 of more weeks at any point before June 30th?

If yes you should be eligible for partial furlough, 80% pay of the missed hours. Your employer needs to submit the paperwork for this.

If you normally work mon-wed, but instead now work mon-tue, you'd be furloughed on Wed. So 80% of Wed pay will come from furlough scheme. You'd get 100% od mon-tue pay.

I get you, cheers!

I’ve got to ask because I’ve just been properly confused by people at work.

Alongside all of my studies, I work part-time in a club. I worked just under my regular number of hours during July. Does furlough cover the rest of my wages or are the hours I worked added on top of the furlough? I’m so confused.

Recently a close friend of mine started placing ridiculous accumulators. He’s not going with gut feeling or a genuine approach. He went from backing sound games from the big leagues and European derbies to backing teams in the Vietnam Second Division and the Mongolian Premier League and asking me what I think of them. He’s got a four-fold on for later today featuring world giants like ‘Ham-Kam’ and ‘Paide Linnameeskond’. No, me neither.

He’s wasting £10 a day on these and when they’re at a nice cash-out (one in ten) he refuses to take it and then sulks when it loses. He told me over the phone that he’s going to be upping his stakes too. Does anyone else have any experience with this sort of thing?

So I had my theory test booked for the day prior to the lock down being announced in the UK. It got cancelled, and I've just gone in to book it again. I can't get one until the last week of August should I not want to travel into the centre of Birmingham or perhaps further afield. Makes me regret taking this driving malarkey so slowly.

22 hours ago, Pyfish said:

Someone tried a similar thing with my Dad a few years back where they said he owed them thousands of pounds but on further digging, it was nothing more than some scammer trying to get him to send across his details to presumably wipe out his account. I wouldn't worry about it buddy if you know you're not in debt and they don't bet etc.

It turns out that my mother was lying. I asked her if I could see these e-mails for peace of mind and she refused and then got angry. So I’ve asked my dad and he admitted it was the first he’d heard about it. I actually give up, it’s a shows a complete lack of class by making that up.

5 minutes ago, Pyfish said:

Someone tried a similar thing with my Dad a few years back where they said he owed them thousands of pounds but on further digging, it was nothing more than some scammer trying to get him to send across his details to presumably wipe out his account. I wouldn't worry about it buddy if you know you're not in debt and they don't bet etc.

I’m more than aware of its nature, but trying to delve deeper now churns up a plethora of ‘fixed matches’ pages. The only money I owe is to the University.

I must ask if any of you have encountered this. What I presume must be phishing scams targeting my parents about ‘bookmaker debt’s. My parents don’t bet and never have done, I’m the only person who does in our house but I’m in zero debt whatsoever. Has anyone else encountered this?

On 28/06/2020 at 23:43, Stan said:

What are the new rules? 

Sounds shit and I don't envy you at all in this position. They sound like horrible people to be around and live with. 

To be honest I haven’t been told any. My dad is talking to me but my mother is being her usual snappy and condescending self.

On 29/06/2020 at 00:26, nudge said:

Sounds awful, mate... Seriously, just get out of there as soon as you can, for your own sake. Even if it's just a tiny room in a shared flat. It's sad that it has to be like that, but you'll be better off long-term. So sorry that you have to go through this.

I’ve actually sat down and made myself a plan. I reckon, if I make some big sacrifices, I could have a few thousand saved after paying for and completing my Masters. After that I should have something lined up and, instead of getting my first car like all of my mates did, I’ll be moving out. It’s a shame but in that way I’m less fortunate. Meanwhile, my sisters are promised they’ll get a wad of money from the late grandad’s will to ‘spend on whatever they like’. Me? Not even a penny. Story of my life with them.

On 29/06/2020 at 09:25, Bluewolf said:

Strange situation you have here... I never got on well with my Mum and it was always hard going but my Father was always there to keep things on an even keel, my sisters could do no wrong and I always seemed to get the brunt of her anger or frustration and when my parents finally got divorced he took me with him and the girls stayed with my mother... At the time it seemed unreasonable but looking back I am sure my scallywag ways and coming in at all hours probably used to wind her right up so ask yourself if there is anything you might be doing that might be adding to this friction?? Having said that this was when I was 16/17 by the time I was your age I already had a little one and our own flat... 

I appreciate the situation must be getting you down, I don't think I have ever known a time where getting yourself your own space/property has ever been harder for the younger generation than it is now but it can be done if you are prepared to make some sacrifices for comfort in the beginning... Getting some space to yourself will help clear your head and give you time to think because being in a war zone battling all the time will be no good for your mental health in the long run... 

Rent wise I always paid my way but my parents encouraged me to save for a rainy day and were happy with what I gave them rather than demanding a set amount  each week so every time I got a pay rise while living at home I would pay a little more but I could have gone 2 months without paying a penny and they wouldn't have batted an eye about it.. They were good like that and if I was saving up for something they would take less... As @nudge says they should be supporting you not the other way around... 

I am lucky that I earn enough to cover all the bills even if no-one else in the house was earning anything so I don't see that paying rent is the be all and end all but we do make them pay bills/rent simply because life is not a free ride and they need to learn to budget/save and prioritise... We tell them it goes towards the food/council tax/gas & electric etc but in reality it goes back to them when they really need it.. 

Working towards finding your own space seems to be the priority at the moment... Try and keep the peace until then and put all your energy into that

Luckily I’m one of these fierce independent types and always make things work for me and then some. My savings went to them in the form of ‘rent’ - the remainder will pay for my Masters degree. I’ll have finished saving for that tomorrow as one of my best mates owes me that money for a multitude of favours and small lends. I’ve set myself a new savings plan up to start tomorrow, starting with a poxy £5-odd as that’s all I have for now. Keeping track of everything that comes in and goes out, I’ll be monitoring every little fold. By my 22nd birthday next June I should be well on the way to leaving them in the dust. I won’t likely come back unless I have to. At the end of the day I can relocate and do my PhD in History and the world will become my oyster. It should be good. Fingers crossed mate!

So - an update. @nudge @Stan

I went out for a very long walk this afternoon. I ended up going farther than I’d anticipated and had to find a trail back. I text my mother saying I’ll be home soon and then get lost with no signal. Get in and it’s the kitchen sink - apparently if I don’t abide by the ‘new rules’ then I’m going to be homeless. I then have every insult under the sun thrown at me before being told to find somewhere else to live. I send her a text and get the same response. So - it’s not looking good. One thing I do know is I’m getting closer to cutting them off when I do manage to afford my own place.

34 minutes ago, nudge said:

Yeah, taking on a large student debt doesn't sound great... do you have a job? If not, any chance of getting one (part-time, maybe?) or some other side gig for extra money to pay for a shared flat or something like that? Maybe try to enquire about any TA positions available at uni once you start your Masters? That's what paid part of my bills when I was doing mine, always a good idea to ask around. What about student housing? Any chance of getting that? 

I do hope you find a way out of it, that's a terrible situation to be in, especially  for a 21 year old, and I'm sorry to hear that your family doesn't support you. It's not how it should be... 

I do! I work behind a bar, and I get a fair few shifts in. I’ve been saving my money for ages and had intended to use it for a car but things change. With what they supposedly want from me at this time I’d probably end up with a hundred to myself each month from that, plus whatever else I could whittle up.

They’re strange. I can guarantee that tomorrow they’ll fully brush this aside if it doesn’t come up in conversation. Either way this is becoming such a regular occurrence and one I’m tired of. Will let you know what’s gone on in the morning.

43 minutes ago, Stan said:

Is there a possibility of you being able to move out or share rent with anyone?

Is a bit off they expect you to pay rent but not your sister.

Unfortunately there’s not. The ones I could try would have me on a sofa or they still live with their parents. Joys of being 21!

I’m the eldest: for some reason this is apparently a show of jurisdiction. Damn, I got a first in my dissertation and that was dismissed as nothing, whereas a near fail in her A-Levels was met with applause.

45 minutes ago, nudge said:

Get out of there as soon as you can.

The problem is that I could but it would mean taking on a large student debt to cover my back on my Masters. Otherwise I’d have gone sooner!

So - I need a bit of advice.

I don't get on with my parents. I've always had a very shaky relationship with my mother and am at a stage of breaking point with her. My younger sister has never had to pay rent, even when she had a job. As soon as I hit 16, I was expected to provide money for rent and did, even if it meant I had nothing for myself. I reckon that, having just turned 21, I've given them just shy of £10K give or take a little. That's a fucking tonne in my eyes, especially when I factor in that I have to buy my own food and things 95% of the time. This is despite using home as little more as a place to sleep and a place to keep my things.

Suddenly, as the pandemic draws to a close, I find myself being actively threatened to cough up £60 a week rent as well as pay for everything else. I'm set to embark on my Masters degree and have my savings in place to pay it off. Yet, no matter how I push this, they now want to milk me of nearly double this. I have nowhere else to go but I refuse to put my education down for their show of greed and lack of understanding. As almost a way of making me pay, they keep turning off the wi-fi whenever I'm doing prep research for September. What do you reckon I should say to them? It's so childish.

Thanks! @Stan @Pyfish @CaaC (John) @nudge

I studied History, and I'm not entirely sure what my Masters is in yet. I've got to choose between History, International Relations and Terrorism, International Crime and Global Security. I'm probably going to choose the latter as I'll get to work with my dissertation supervisor again plus it's a unique Masters.

4 hours ago, Stan said:

SkyBet used to do this as well.

Maybe all bookies do in some respect. 

Whenever I've raised it the excuse was 'technical issue'. They usually offered a free bet or returned stake as a good will gesture.

There's definitely a trend. A guy I went to University with had deep pockets. He put fifty on an eight-fold acca at something like 178/1 with SkyBet about a month before the lockdown. He tried to take it for half-an-hour as the results were coming in and at one point he could've cashed-out for over £5,000. They rejected his cash-out right until the results turned in the last kicks of one of the games and then they let him cash-out for around £14. He wasn't happy and they cited 'technical issue' at him too.

For me that £340 would've given me a nice bit of cash to put away towards my Masters degree in September. Profit margins are evidently too low on the bookies' end.

I recommend no one uses Mansion Bet for sports betting period. I had a fourteen-fold acca on composed of small odds on the German games this weekend at 108.6/1 plus Shakhtar Donetsk to win. I staked £10 and when I decided enough was enough and attempted to cash-out for £340 just before the end of the second-to-last game it was rejected. For five minutes straight I tried to cash-out but it wouldn’t let me. I had a live stream of the game showing on my laptop so I knew there was no reason behind it.

Suddenly there’s a very late equaliser. Obviously annoyed, I keep trying to take it before I hit the stake. Rejected me all the way down to 8p cash-out before finally letting me have it. I spoke to a customer service agent and was met with the excuse of ‘the cash-out was rejected due to an incident in the match regarding a red card’. I’d been watching this as I said and knew it was rubbish. The red card was given just before the final kicks of the game and not the goal.

Lesson here is to not trust a bookie unless they genuinely show they care beforehand. Because if they truly cared for their customers this wouldn’t have happened.

The acca would’ve won without this fixture. It may be passed off as me feeling salty but that’s just not the case. I wanted to cash-out for a tasty profit and they refused it, probably so they didn’t have to pay out. Absolutely refutable.

41 minutes ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Without trying to sound horrible as I know some on here do play UT, if you're spending that much on a yearly basis to get random virtual cards, you deserve to be fisted by EA in every way imaginable. 

My mate told me once that he spent a couple of hundred on Simpsons: Tapped Out for premium characters and donuts, but because he never made an Origin account and he changed phone, he lost the lot. 

Oh, I agree. Gaming should always come down to fun, yet it's a shame that quite a few people turn to this play-to-win mechanic.

Much like the bookies, they'll win everything back in the end.

8 minutes ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

EA are a joke really. They'll either buy out a copy just for the IP before butchering the IP themselves and then killing the company they bought out (hence the constant memes around it), show no regards to ethics or morals whatsoever (hence countries now looking at gambling laws after EA took it to extremes with Star Wars Battlefront 2) or both. 

I've done an experiment and research around the loot box mechanics EA employ. I saved 12,000 FIFA Points worth of coins (650K) and spent them all on 7.5K 'Premium Gold Packs'. I did this three times to ensure coherent results. I've just found them on my laptop. To simplify my findings;

• First 650K (£79.99 RRP) - Highest Rating: 93 Cristiano Ronaldo. Total Sale Price: 2.35M FIFA Coins.
• Second 650K (£79.99 RRP) - Highest Rating: 87 Thiago. Total Sale Price: 344K FIFA Coins.
• Third 650K (£79.99 RRP) - Highest Rating: 85 Neto. Total Sale Price: 182K FIFA Coins.

Aside from packing CR7 - an absolute anomaly, the packs were terrible. From the near-2M of packs I bought I made around 500K profit after their dumbfounded tax. They rig everything so I really do hope this changes and we get a carpet-ban. People spend hundreds each year and truly get fuck all.

6 hours ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

I'd ask for a detailed reasoning behind that as they can't just ban you without evidence of it. Not that I'd expect much from EA mind. 

I tried on the customer support number a couple of hours ago. Quite frankly, EA have lost my custom entirely. They could announce a new Burnout game and I won't show any interest. The chat went as follows; my account 'has been harbouring coins for some time' and dates to September in the first instance, then I've 'sent coins illicitly and breached their terms and conditions' across multiple editions of the game and have an extensive history of warnings. So, they've taken the action of terminating my Origin account and imposing an IP block for the EA servers. Meaning my Pro Clubs is now inaccessible, as is everything bar kick-off and career mode. This hadn't been imposed until about half an hour ago, since when I tried to get onto FIFA for a quick game with my mate and was immediately kicked off. I'm now in the process of changing my IP and seeing if that works. What a joke of a company - you're right in that nothing should be expected of them. They're genuinely the most senile company I can think of and I've dealt with a fair few since going to University.

I've thrown in the towel with FIFA for good. I could ignore the blatant monetization tactics, piss-poor matchmaking on the Division Rivals mode and the constant nagging of the gameplay. After over 1,000 games since FUT 20 dropped and having assembled a very strong team with Icons and multiple special cards I've worked towards so meticulously, I go online and find I've received a ban. A lifetime ban according to EA's live chat operators, for supposed 'coin distribution'. The only explanation I can think of is accidentally buying a silver Brazilian winger on quick-buy instead of placing an actual bid. Either way it's a joke. I can't access FUT at all since speaking with EA and am met with an error message about a catalogue and told I've reached my maximum limit for account creation. If I'd been cheating my way around then I'd accept a ban, but without reason? Not happy in the slightest!

Not that I'm particularly proud to be admitting it coming from such a small league, I'm having a little bet on today's only game to gain access to a live stream. I've got an X/2 on half-time and full-time at 3.8/1 with a £10 free bet which expires tomorrow night. Either way it needed using. It might give a nice return and I'll take a free £38 any day.

EDIT: I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to use it on the football tomorrow, at least I’ll know a little bit about it.