To be so drained and fed up of constant electronic forms and passwords and apps?

[Bananabreadandcupofcoffeethanks]

Hate it so much I can't express it. Nothing works right for me, you need a fairly recent smartphone for apps to work for example.

Then with electronic forms. Fuck me. I'm trying to fill in a whole complicated form for an appointment and cannot get the 'electronically fillable' form to work. So now I have to print it, and hope the printer works, and then take a photo and scan or something.

I don't have the energy to do this now. It is now a whole multi step process with lots of little bits to get the task done.

I just fucking hate it all when it comes to appointments and job applications and whatnot, and then everything needing an app, or an account with a password that needs xyz to meet criteria.

God needed to get that off my chest.

But what happens to the council's income when people stay at home and do internet shopping and then the shops in the town close?

Result will be no parking fees at all and no rates from the shops, who close down because every bugger is staying at home and ordering online.

So, to grab a few shillings more now will lead to no shillings at all in the near future.

I had an email from our council telling me I could access my council tax via my gateway account- what fucking Gateway account?
I emailed back saying I don't have an account, got sent a link where I had to type in my PIN , I don't have a PIN !!!!

I shall join in the rage. Somehow my LastPass and my icloud keychain keep getting into fights with each other about which is the correct password, my LastPass has stored umpteen options for various accounts. It also makes me long into it anytime I want to log into anything on my phone, inputting my master password a million times.

My microsoft, outlook and hotmail accounts are all really confusing and I'm never sure which one I'm supposed to be logging into. Only one of my finger digits works to login, and thats only if I hold it at an awkward angle.

Pubs that wont give a menu, but require an app. F off! I've walked out before.

And why do we need several hundred parking apps? Everytime we go somewhere, it seems to need a new app. If you have to rob us by not letting us pay on return instead of guessing at how long we are going to be, why not let us just tap our cards, or phones to pay? (or coins for the reluctant)

I think I'm quite techy, I run a tech based website, I try to stay on top of latest technology and I think I'm pretty intelligent. But its all too much and all too confusing to have to do this with every single f-ing thing we do.

Just been catching up with this thread and I can't tell you how bloody relieved I am that so many others harbour the same simmering resentment that I do that I can't do anything without an app, umpteen passwords, and being data mined by every institution and corporate entity.

It's the erosion of choice I can't abide.

If I want to pay cash into the bank, I want to hand it to a person over the counter, not stuff it into an envelope and push it into a machine. If there's a problem I can go back and say "I brought it in on x date, Kevin counted it and here's my receipt" and Kevin can be asked about it. Machine in wall could swallow said cash and it effectively disappears into the ether.

With banking especially there is the argument that branches are no longer necessary because everyone is doing it online. But we don't like it!! Back in the day, loans and overdrafts could be organised via a quick face to face chat with a manager. Now it's all automated so if computer says no, that's it. Is it fairer to be at the mercy of an algorithm or given that information held online might be incorrect or out of date, is it more of a disadvantage?

I'm not a complete Luddite but glitches and confusion over-rides convenience so often.

I'm at the point where my world is shrinking because on the rare occasions I take an interest in an event or something there are multiple technological hurdles that put me off immediately.

My son was telling me about booking concert tickets to the tune of several hundred pounds, and there were at least three stages of app downloading to go through between paying for the ticket and receiving a digital code that was "the ticket". He's only in his 20s but he found it frustrating too.

I actually run a business as a sole trader. This year I'm going to do my own tax as I can't afford the accountant 🙄 I'm putting off getting the technology for that because it terrifies me. Especially with something like HMRC I'm very worry about fucking up.

Anyone else feel like going off grid and living on foraged mushrooms? Preferably the magic kind?

I was in a branch of Boots recently-all the human till operators gone and, instead, a bank of automated tills. There was a young woman standing by to help and I asked her to pass on my dislike of these tills and how I would avoid the branch in future. I hoped that if enough people said similar, Boots would get rid of them.

She was very nice but explained that the only comments that Boots were interested in would be how to make the machines easier and so, it didn't matter if people complained about there being no other option but to use a machine, they would not be removing them.

Similarly, in our town Barclays which used to have a queue reaching outside the front doors will be closing because apparently, there is no need for it any more.

Its really is just lies and, like Boots, I imagine they won't listen to any complaints about it either.

We used to be able to say, 'sod it. I'll go elsewhere but increasingly, there isn't the option to do that so our threats are empty and there is little we can do.

Similarly, in our town Barclays which used to have a queue reaching outside the front doors will be closing because apparently, there is no need for it any more.

The Barclays in a town near me closed a while ago, but recently they've opened a pop up in the town hall....what with realising that people need and want to speak to a person. It can't be a very nice working environment for the staff to have to turn up in cold, municipal buildings, likely with crappy facilities, no parking etc.

...you phone your bank and they cheerily say "oh you'll have to do that in person in your branch".
Oh fuck off.....my nearest branch is a good 45 minutes away and probably only open for 12 minutes on a Tuesday when there's 31 days in the month and the full moon falls on the second Friday. And you'll turn up and 6 minutes of the 12 is being used for staff training.

I thought I was a Luddite but this thread has made me reconsider. I like phone parking, never carry cash any more and have zero need to ever go into a bank - I’ve been a First Direct customer for over 30 years.

My iPad and phone store all my passwords so there’s no need to remember them. I detest self service checkout but only because I refuse to work for shops and pay for the privilege.

I’m 70 this year. Surely if I can cope people half my age can too?

My bugbear is paying cheques in. Especially when they are a refund for something I paid for by bank transfer. And I have to hear a bullshit excuse about "money laundering" (see also: GDPR).

I’ve had the reverse. Barclays won’t send me a cheque, they’re insisting on bank transfer but only if I send them a copy of my bank statement to verify the account. It’s a relatively small amount of money so I’ve told them to go fuck themselves.

have zero need to ever go into a bank

I had to go in person to sort out the Power of Attorney forms for a family member. During lockdown - that was fun.

I was listening to Radio 4 today and a woman was saying she had gone into a car park, tried to load the app and it didn’t work, so she left. Then got a fine for £100 through the post! Anyway she sounded awesome as she refused to pay, got her MP involved etc and they finally waived it. Good for her! I was nodding along in the car.

I'm with you. To get anything nowadays, you need to have a passcode sent to your phone. To get to the passcode, you have to come out of the website.By the time you log in again, the passcode has expired. Who invented this load of idiocy?
I'm also sick of hearing 'you are number x in the queue. Your call is important to us. So why not answer it then?
Also sick of solutions x y and z being available. My problem never fits into a category - I need to actually talk to someone.

I've been reading these comments whilst waiting on the phone to speak to my GP surgery- 'you are no 17 in the queue' You know the story....
Recently we were wanting to sort out an investment which was due to mature. I tried to do it on line but, as with previous posters, passwords got messed up and the 'reset your password ' link wasn't working. After about 30 minutes of trying and going round in circles I gave up and tried phoning the company.

To begin with, all was well, then it started with the security questions - first school, mother's maiden name and so on. Usually you only get 3-4 questions. This guy carried on - 'what is the name of your older brother?' I don't have an older brother. OK so 'what is the name of your oldest child?' I don't have any children. I have never had children!' 'Well it's a security question and you have to give an answer! Give me a name. Any name. Make one up.' You are kidding me aren't you. If it wasn't so serious it would be funny. This is a Government organisation! In the end we went 'old school' and asked for a form, an actual form that we can fill in and send back. We sent it first class and recorded delivery as the maturity date was looming large. We did get our money back but there is another one due soon, so we returned that form with the first one.

I'm with you. To get anything nowadays, you need to have a passcode sent to your phone. To get to the passcode, you have to come out of the website.By the time you log in again, the passcode has expired. Who invented this load of idiocy?

A properly designed mobile website can trigger Android to automatically transfer the 2FA back into the page.

Notice the use of the word "properly" in that sentence.

No it wasn’t, laughing blackly at the name! I guess they are not living up to their name!

To get anything nowadays, you need to have a passcode sent to your phone. To get to the passcode, you have to come out of the website.By the time you log in again, the passcode has expired.

This has never happened to me. If it did I’d order on my iPad.

Fairly sure the thing about being asked every time about cookies arose from an EU directive.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1661447520924499?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V

🤣

Which - despite being out of the EU - the UK has to follow.

Hard agree with all of this. Waves arm around. I often find myself quoting Blur. Modern life is rubbish!

It is in the Privacy and Electronic Communications regulations, which are UK law (based on EU law). The government is proposing some new data protection laws and it does want to get rid of cookie pop ups. By the way I had yet another one from MN last night!

The thing is, if you do business in the EU, you need to keep the pop up.

Fucked if I am going to spend a pennies development work to have some iffy code that tries to guess if a user is in the UK or not.

So that's another "freedom" that's useless.