OT: NHS Fail

Feb 23, 2023 Last reply: 3 years ago 68 Replies
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But they should be reminded that the call was from them, from an unrecognised number, and the member of staff calling was acting in exactly the same way as a scammer. They do warm about not giving security information to a cold caller.

Banks and other financial institutions don't seem to actually follow the advice they give to customers to prevent fraud.

Oh, she reminded them OK !

My GP texted their inappropriate marketing shots, and other nonsense, from random different numbers. Hospitals often block Caller ID.

Dealing with GP/NHS is Kafkaesque. Their systems are stunningly incompetent, and they unfairly blame others when things inevitably go wrong.

I suspect the reason they prefer SMS is that most people delete text, whereas e-mails are saved, indefinitely, and form an evidential audit trail.

They also don't understand that people may not be able to answer their questions at the time.

I was starting a new job on a Monday and there was a chance that I was going to attend a once every 3 months course on the Wednesday. I had a hospital appointment on the Wednesday and did not want to miss it unless I was going to go on the course.

On Friday evening, an automated NHS system started ringing me and asking me to confirm or cancel my appointment, with no option for deferring the reply. It rang every hour, 8 am to 8pm, all weekend!

Yes. I cannot understand why we have to have letters, telephone calls, confirmatory letters, faxes within parts of the NHS, etc. What's wrong with Public Key Encryption and Email?

It is about time that banks were required to hold passwords to identify themselves to their customers!

That's what they are telling your to do with you mobile phone, up your arse.

That's what you get for being a stupid minority.

So you use handsfree mode, stupid.

Yep, because important callers like the cops, emergency people and the hospital often do that.

Yes, I'm an old fogey of the highest order and even I always have my phone with me and working. Bill

In that case I claim even greater old-foginess, I have a mobile but it's rarely with me. I am *far* more likely to reas an E-Mail sent to me than an SMS.

I actually have a 'virtual' mobile number which forwards messages sent to it to my E-Mail. I use that for 2FA authorisation from banks etc.

I only use my mobile phone when I'm actually mobile, i.e. on holiday in France or similar.

Except that we get to a stage where too much depends on this particular infrastructure. Lose the phone or be somewhere where the signal is poor and suddenly your 2FA access to too many services many be lost. And it's not cheap. Either you pay hundreds up front to own one, or you pay a fat wodge monthly.

When my iPhone 6s (on its second battery) packs up, I shall investigate going back to the clamshell I still have (not sure how good those are for texts or receiving the 2FA codes to complete a login). There are no apps on the iPhone that I would miss and the number of pix I've taken with it is approximately zero.

I had WhatsApp there for a while, with some family WhatsApp groups. But there's nothing of interest in rellies' posts: "Took the dog for a walk, here's a pic." "Took the dog for another walk, here's another pic." "Here's some selfies of us at Beachy Head". <Big yawn>

Ah, how d'ye get one of those then?

I work at a company that has design offices in one part of the country and the work site in another. People often do online shopping during their lunch-breaks, but there in NO mobile phone provider that works in the offices and at site.

Pretty lousy for some stuff. Very handy to get the code by SMS and to have it entered completely automatically into the field you type it into on the smartphone even if you are logging in on a PC and send the code on a new browser window on the smartphone.

More fool you with google maps and the weather apps.

Again, more fool you when a picture is worth 1K words.

About half of the ones I get are of something broken asking about how to fix that, or a big storm etc or a query about what a forwarded email means etc.

So far it's this century's most useful domestic appliance by a country mile.

It's a camera (stills and video) It's a telly It's a radio It's an mp3 player It's a worldwide road atlas It's a worldwide edition of the Yellow Pages It's a torch It's an encyclopedia It's a calculator It fits in your pocket

So yes, stuff it in the drawer and only use it very sparingly <rolls eyes>

its also a GPS based Sat Nav.....

Its also a calendar

It also browses the internet

Its a clock

its a contacts "book"

Its a audio recorder

So it actually allows you to de-skill to the point that a mains power outage of any length is a major issue. Why do you still wear a wristwatch?

My wife inherits our daughters cast off i phones so I do get to see some of the trivia that makes income for distant parts of the world.

What benefit do I get from Google knowing my exact whereabouts?

I'm not decrying the functionality just managing most of my existence with something less clever and better battery life:-)

>

and a credit card

it keeps your rail/airline tickets

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