FOAK: Credit card chargebacks

Has anyone any experience? I signed up in January for a 13 month
contract with an 'executive career management service'[1]

I paid by credit card.

The buggers went into receivership on Friday, so I'm looking to try and
get my money back off HSBC.

Anyone see any gotchas in this plan?

[1] Laugh if you will, I found it quite a useful service. Apart from
anything else it got me out of the house and talking to people in
similar situations. Bit like UKRM UR really
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Nope.

We bought a bunch of Speedferry tickets a while ago, actually paid for
with a debit visa card (Barclays).

We hadn't used a single ticket and they went belly up.

Barclays coughed up pdq, very little hassle IIRC.

 

That would be nice.

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What is it. What do they actually *do*. Or rather "did".

Did you see a few progs on Beeb1 recently with people trying to help people
who had fallen into unemployment. I had to switch it off at times, their
situation seemed so grim it made me wince. But one chap found a service
which was helping him brush up his act then, and this was the key element,
*they* then proactively went out to companies looking to fit him in
somewhere. *They* were building relationships with employers in the area.
Which is as it should be IMHO.

 

A whole gamut of stuff:
Psycohemtric testing to see what you actually want to do
Review by colleagues / friends / family to give an unbiased view of
strengths and weaknesses, both in professional terms and personal.
Skill review
Bundle it all together into a nice CV following thoughts of current best
practice (whatever that may be today)
Two minute profiles
Interview practice (video phone and real life)
Seminars on how to present yourself as a package, routes to market,
interviews, un-advertised jobs
Loads of databases on jobs and industry news.

So it goes on. Personally I found it pretty useful

Wasn't it just.

Useful at that level, I have no doubt. At my level, we are rather
expected to do that ourselves IYSWIM.

Well it's *kind* of what agencies should do I suppose. Very few seem to
(I know a couple) and there are rules about what you can charge for as
well. Who was paying their bill? In any event it does sound like a
useful thing.

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It is what HM Gov should be paying Contractors to actually do rather than
the open ended and hollow consultants they actually sluice money into.
People in middle and upper responsibility levels often need proactive help
and contacts to get them back into the market. They can already put on a
suit and write the bones of a CV.

 

Sounds like a plan

You'd be (possibly) amazed. But yes, even for me, that kind of help
would be useful. And the bones of a CV is really no longer enough[1].
To maximise your chances of even getting through the door, it really
needs to be top notch.

[1] This clearly is dependant upon your skills versus market desires.
Certainly for most jobs in IT that don't depend on a *very* rare skill,
CV's probably need to be something special, or you're just entering a
lottery.


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I tried that once, a few years ago. After they received a review from Sarah
(which I didn't get to see), they started avoiding me, not returning calls
etc.

 

Probably for the best

I actually dealt with all my reviews. What amazed me was how consistent
they all were. I genuinely wondered if all these people had somehow got
in touch and planned the whole thing.

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Or were given a bunch of leading questions.

 

The CV agency

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Nige,

Land Rover 90
Yamaha R1
Range Rover Vogue

 

Gosh imagine they came into UKRM and asked us to review you

 

Would also have been a possibility. The questions were very open ended,
though, and not at all leading.

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I'd really rather not.

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<adds FEARTIE to Catman CV>

 

**** em all right something something something something?

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www.lehuanet.com/ScotSpeak

 

Contains neither "jings" nor "crivens".

 

Oh Help M'Boab

 

Ah *hah*

Yep, bang to rights.

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Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
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Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk