Apcoa parking: you've been clamped

Recently I was in a private car-park in Dublin and I paid for 2.5 hours of parking, it was 2 euro per hour. When I returned I found that my car we being clamped. The clamper, who was from Apcoa parking claimed that I was 9 minutes late. A fact which I disputed. The clamper asked for a fee of 11 euro for each minute that I was late.



When I asked him if he thought that what he was doing was reasonable or moral, he gave me the Auschwitz Guard defence, i.e. he was just doing what he was told.

Can anyone think of a worse job than working for Apcoa. You'd go round clamping people, seriously annoying them and then dealing with the consequences.

I was told that I could appeal my fine, but I'd have to pay it first. I wonder has anyone every got money back from Apcoa after appealing to them?

Is there any legal protection, if someone returns to their car and Apcoa says that they are one second late. Are Apcoa legally allowed impose any arbitrary fine?

Apcoa have a notice saying that if you tamper with the clamp then they'll fine you 3,000 euro. I wonder is that more of a threat or a promise. Suppose someone were to break the lock with a metal cutter, then what would the real fine be?

I wonder would the following business be legal:
Buy a metal cutter and some locks that Apcoa use on their clamps. When anyone gets clamped, go to them, (before Apcoa) and offer to cut the locks. Any locks that are cut will be replaced. The fee charged to the car owner would be significantly less than the Apcoa fine.

I heard a story recently of a clamping firm that kept clamping builders as they worked on a site. Whenever the cars were clamped, the builders would get their angle grinders and cut off the locks.
This continued for a while until the clampers got very annoyed and threatened legal action if the cutting continued. Though they persisted in clamping. Then the builders started pouring glue into the locks. So the clampers were unable to unlock the clamps. The builders were then on hand to offer their services with the angle grinders. The offer was taken up. After that the builders' cars were left alone.

Sometimes, people do indeed turn the tables on clampers, for example in London last year some residents in a apartment complex blocked the clampers exit until they released the clamps for free. Click here to read the details.

Don't visit areps.at

A nasty virus has been going round facebook today.
In a way it is very simple. Someone visits the site: areps.at,
It looks quite like a facebook login page. They give their username and password then their facebook account is hacked into and all their friends are sent a message asking them to 'Check areps.at', some of them do and so the virus spreads.



If it happens to you, then you should immediately change your password.

Motivating players well

Back-ground: Chelsea lost the Chapions League Semi Final on 6-May-2009 after a string of penalty claims were turned down

It does nothing for the dignity of the sport to have footballers frequently throwing themselves on the ground looking for free-kicks and penalties. It makes the players look like cheats, which is indeed what they are. But one of the consequences, just like the boy who cried wolf, is that when Drogba genuinely should get a penalty, referees bear in mind that most time he goes down he is just looking for the foul and wasn't actually fouled. I don't have sympathy for Chelsea, because they cried wolf too many times.

However, I don't think the real problem is with players' ethics, but rather with the way they are motivated. Right now if a player is in the box and his half tackled, then falling over is a good option, quite frequently it will yield a penalty. We need to introduce incentives not to fake it. For example:
1: Play on advantage more often, then if no advantage is accruing pull back for the foul

2: After the match a video referee should look through the match for instances of diving. Those who are caught will get multi-match bans for bring the game into disrepute. Currently if a player is caught smoking hash he is dealt with harshly, if he dives, then he is rarely punished. Clearly the priorities need to be changed.

3: Referees should bear in mind that if a player is fouled he can still sometimes remain on his feet. Too often a referee will only give a free kick if someone falls.

Players often have very short-term horizons, they think that if they give away a corner then the danger has been averted, or if they get a yellow card, then they haven't hurt their team. So perhaps it is time to use a sin-bin for yellow card.

And finally, when a foul happens at the edge of the box, the important thing is not where the first contact was, but rather the last. If the first contact is outside the box, but then as the players move, contact continues into the box, the referee should play on the advantage until in the box and so a penalty should be given.

Nasty side of facebook applications

I saw a rather nasty application on facebook today. It looked rather innocent at first, just a harmless IQ test that someone could take and possibly compare scores with friends. However there was a tiny bit of small print which I almost missed, it read:
Subscription service 4 items/ week, €2.50 per item + €2.50 to join. 18+. SP MTL 015260014. To unsubscribe txt stop to 57151

After being asked 10 general knowledge questions, I was then asked to submit my telephone number. I guess if I had done so then they would have taken €10 from my mobile phone account each week until I noticed. I reckon I'd prefer it if they would just mug me. There is a certain integrity of purpose about mugging which these quiz masters lack.

I'm certain that the scores of my friends which were displayed were not genuine results. In particular if the quiz just asks ten general knowledge questions, how could my friends possibly end up with scores such as 132, 126, 121, 116 and 109. I've asked one of my friends whom it was claimed took the test, she assures me that she did not.

If you want to see a version of the scam,click here.

If this is not currently illegal, then the law needs to be changed. As it stands now, plenty of people will do a one off quiz online and then for the rest of their lives the cheats will steal 10 euro per week from them.

I'd strongly encourage anyone affected to lodge a complaint with the Irish Consumer Agency, start by clicking here. Note the company behind the scam is Blinck United Ltd, The Digital Hub, 4 St Catherines Lane West, Dublin 8.

I'd define a scam to be a business where a majority of the customers would not have proceeded with the transaction if all the relevant facts were made clear to them before hand. Using that definition, this is clearly a scam. However that definition can't be used in a law.

I wonder are new regulations required to stop cheats like Celldorado?

I'm really interested to know, do they confirm ownership of a mobile before the mobile account is charged? For example, if I asked local politician to help me and he did nothing, then could I go to the celldorado scam site and then sign-up for a couple dozen services under a made-up name but using the politician's mobile number? Even if the politician's mobile is paid for by the state, I'm sure he would eventually notice a mobile phone bill in the thousands of euro per month. That might just prompt them to bring in some new regulations. Needless to say, I couldn't possibly condone such a strategy.

The ones who caused the problem

The Irish economy is in a terrible state and I think that the time has come to apportion blame. It is very clear that there is one group who caused the ridiculous property bubble and they now deserve our contempt. They are responsible for the mess we are in and if there were any justice in the country they would be the ones who should be brought to account.

We can't possibly blame the people who sold their homes at the top of the market. They weren't being greedy, they were simply accepting the market price for what they sold. The bubble was not caused by foolish buyers who risked money they did not have to purchase property they could not afford at absurdly inflated prices. No.


There is one group to blame. They made a huge contribution to the property price inflation. This group of people was not driven by any altruistic motivations they simply want to make a buck. And indeed they did very well out of the economic growth. Without them there simply couldn't have been a boom. They fascilitated just about every property purchase. It is time to name and shame them. Though no doubt many of you have already guessed who they are. They are of course the furniture removal firms and their greedy employees.

Now let's spare a thought for the victims, such as the bank executives who have lost out. For example poor Jake DeSantis .

It will all be free in the future

Do you remember the days when companies used to charge for personal email accounts? Ah, perhaps you are too young. Well in future a lot more is going to come your way for free. For a start, right now mobile phone calls are absurdly over-priced. If you have a local wifi network, then you can now use skype on your phone for free. This is only the start.
Good news for people in general: Mobile phone charges are about to collapse.
The bad news for mobile companies, their profits will follow the prices and then will come the bankruptcies.


The music industry is falling behind the times. They cannot stop the sharing of music files online. If thepiratebay.com gets shut down, then you'll find 10,000 other similar sites in 200 countries round the world taking their place. So, the future is free music for all. Revenue will come from concert sales. Giving away free music online is a way of advertising concerts.

Cable TV is coming to an end. Why pay for 100 channels on Cable, when there are millions available online for free. Pay-TV is on the way out. It just can't compete with the pirates who stream films and live sport for free. Watch out for more embedded advertising, for example 5 second ads in the middle of sports matches.

Film industry are powerless to stop web-users sharing films online and so DVD sales and revenue from TV will plummet. Similarly cinema attendance will drop as everyone will have access to films even before the official release date. But the bottom line is that people want to see films and the film industry wants to continue making them. The obvious solution is to have embedded advertising. If the major source of revenue is from product placement, then film-makers will no longer see file-sharing sites as the enemy, but rather as their friend. Of course I expect the film industry to fight the file-sharers for a while more, but sooner or later they'll realise that the war is over and they've lost. It is time to re-build the industry in this new barely recognisable land-scape.

Most of the current crop of commercial TV stations round the world will go bankrupt. A few will see the new technology as an opportunity and will thrive. But most will want to cling to the past, with middle aged management who harp back to the good old days. Round the world state supported TV stations will limp on with hand-outs and money forcefully taken from the populations in taxes and licence fees. Their viewing figures will plummet.

Morally I think that is objectionable to forcibly take a licence fee from someone. It is an abuse of power. On the other hand, sharing a file with my neighbour is so much more noble, even if I've never met him and he lives in Ulaanbaatar.

But for those who are interested in making money, there will still be plenty of oportunities, but things will be different and they'll need to be very adaptable.

Locked Public Tennis Courts

I went for a jog this evening and passed some public tennis courts. It was a beautiful evening, the sun was shining, it was a nice temperature but all the courts were empty. The courts were locked! There was a very high fence round them.

I continued my jog and a little while later I saw a couple of children playing tennis on a road. They had no net and indeed no protection from on coming traffic. There weren't too many cars on that particular road and I guess the kids assumed that if one came round the corner they'd probably have enough time to get out of its way.

As a consequence of having locked courts:
* Fewer children in the area will play tennis than would otherwise be the case
* Bored children will get up to mischief rather than play tennis
* Children who do want to play will risk their lives by playing on the road
* Other children who really want to play on a real court will risk their lives by climbing over the high fences which are round the courts, since the gates are locked.
* Those that have the power to lock the courts will get a kick out of the fact that they have the power to prevent children playing.

From an insurance point of view, how can a child be allowed run through a park but not allowed on to a harmless tennis court?

I reckon the people who locked the courts are not stupid, they are just very poorly motivated.