ShaneBoon.com

Today I received a direct marketing letter from GE Money advertising a personal loan.

So I ask myself, “how did GE Money get my address?”. It surely wasn’t from the time I did enquire about a loan with GE Money, that was several years ago and from a different address.

Luckily for me, the answer was down the bottom of the letter. “For this mailing, your details were obtained from Veda Advantage Solutions Group Ltd. and have not been disclosed to GE Money.” It then goes on to explain how I can opt out of future direct marketing campaigns.

But what a relief! My privacy hadn’t been invaded by GE Money. And I didn’t need to worry, GE didn’t have my details. Hang on, who does? And isn’t this letter from GE?

I got into investigation mode. Veda Advantage Solutions Group, or VSG as they abbreviate it to, is part of Veda Advantage(VA), a credit reporting agency. VSG is the company set up to utilise the data VA has collected and send out personalised mail to people whose details they have on file.

RED FLAG!
Well at least for me. While my details aren’t being sold to a company, the company is able to ask for letters to be mailed to people who have previously applied for a loan. Is that a step into my privacy?

So I check out their privacy policy. Turns out the following details about me are available from other sources free to the public:
- full name
- address
- date of birth
- driver’s licence
- court judgements and bankruptcies
- current, previous and disqualified directorships
- proprietorships
- company secretary details
- public number database

Since when was my drivers licence number freely available?

I would be fine if GE was only getting that info, but someone is profiting off my details without my knowledge. White Pages do profit from my details too, but I know my details are being used by them, and I CHOSE for them to use my details. Chose being the appropriate word. I got no choice with VA.

I follow the credit reporting process. I know that if I apply for a loan etc the company I’m applying with has my permission to access my file. But does the company who holds that file have the right to sell access to my details behind my back, considering they never asked me?

RED FLAG!
“your details were obtained from (VSG) and have not been disclosed to GE Money” There is a third party in this? Who has VSG given my details to? If not GE Money then who? I follow the disclosure down the bottom, but who is the middle man?

It disturbs me that VA has in their privacy policy that it’s ok to provide third partys, or they prefer to call them “secondary parties”, with any of my details freely available to anyone. If that’s true, why didn’t Brett receive the same letter? Or is it because he’s only ever applied for a home loan and not any other type of credit?

I’m not pleased to have someone selling access to me, with out my permission, and I don’t like the inference that I can opt out. I never opted in and I can assure you that whenever I applied for a loan I never granted a credit agency access to on-sell my information to be marketed to.

So really, I’m annoyed my credit history is being accessed to junk mail me, and the company that is accessing it can not name themselves, just hides behind GE Money. I intend to get to the bottom of this, I’ll keep things updated.

Rye pier (Taken with instagram)

Taken with instagram

Given recent activities involving the Sea Shepard’s main vessel, the Steve Irwin, they have felt the need to outline 10 reasons why they should not foot the bill for the safe repatriation of the 3 activists who illegally boarded a Japanese vessel. The Australian Government have stated the cost would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Here I will rebutt every claim the Sea Shepard organisation has made for them being blame free.

(1) This is a government responsibility.

So it is the government to remove “car jackers”? Essentially these 3 men are pirates. It is not the Gevernments responsibility to safely return and set free pirates, because lets face it, 3 men who board a ship that is not theirs at night are acting like pirates not protesters. Our Government should not be allowing pirates to be in our waters, and should be asking the Japanese Vessel to drop off the 3 prisioners on their way home to face charges of Piracy in Australian Waters.

(2) The expense would not have occurred if the government had lived up to its campaign promise of actually doing something to end illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean.

These things take time. Campaign promises are not law until they are acted on. Some movement has been made, but this is not what is wanted by some hardline activists. Under International Law, which is what governs the waters Japan hunts in, Japan is allowed a quota. Australia needs to convince other nations that this is a bad idea. Other countries don’t think so. Unlike our parliament which meets for a set amount of days each year, the global community does not do the same. They have their own countries to run first, and global issues not affecting them fall down the list. It is not easy to change an international agreement. Kyoto was agreed in the 90’s, as soon as it was agreed countires wanted to change it for the better. come forward to 2009 and Copenhagen and the international community, with all global leaders in one big room could not reach agreement.

So, what im trying to say is this: Living up to a campaign promise, like never having a carbon tax, is not easy to do always, let alone trying to makes changes on an international level.

(3) This was not a Sea Shepherd initiative, we merely assisted. This was an Australian grassroots operation by Forest Rescue, an Australian organization, that took place in Australian territorial waters.

Would Forest Rescue have been able to to have boarded a ship 16 miles off the coast of Western Australia? I think not. Was it Sea Shepard which enabled and promoted Forest Rescue to take this action? Yes. So the actions of Sea Shepard has aided piracy? Yes. Are they expecting the Australian Government to fund their consequences of supporting piracy? Yes. I’m not spokesperson for the Government, but I’m sure they wouldn’t disagree with me about the Australian funding piracy

(4) Australia should bill Japan for the costs. The Shonan Maru #2 had no business in Australian territorial waters and had no business detaining Australian nationals onboard a Japanese ship in Australian territorial waters.

Japan will incur costs. If Australia refused all non Australian vessels entry into Australia’s “Contiguous zone” then nautical transport would increase because of the extra distance and time it would take ships to bypass Australia. Suddenly Sea Shepard would be complaining about the cost of fuel and asking Australia to change its laws to allow foreign vessels into the “Contiguous zone”. You can’t have it both ways!

(5) If the government had acted quickly instead of believing the false  coordinates given to them by the Japanese whaling industry then the three men could have been taken off the ship close to shore.

Close to shore or not, they illegally boarded a vessel at sea. If their punishment is being fed, watered and kept safely on a vessel for a month or two until such a time as they can be dropped off for federal authorites to charge them with piracy, then they have it good. They chose to board the ship, they knew a possibility would have been kept captive by the Japanese for a substansial period of time. They can accept the consequences of their own actions, like the rest of us do.

(6) The Australian government’s deal with the Japanese is to transfer the men while not having the Shonan Maru #2 slow down so they can continue to tail the Steve Irwin. Why would Sea Shepherd be expected to contribute to an operation that undermines our effectiveness and enables the rest of the whaling fleet to avoid us?

The Shonan Maru #2 has a job to do by its employer. That involves it maintaining a certain speed which is unviable for the 3 men to be removed from the ship. If the Sea Shepard wished for the men to be returned to its ship it too would have to slow down. It seems to me they want 12 but not a dozen.

(7) When a wealthy yachtsman is lost or in trouble in the Southern Ocean, no expense is spared to save him/her and they are not asked to pay for the costs. Why would we be asked to pay when Australians from another organization are simply doing the job that the government said they would do, but are not doing?

It is a life of death situation with a wealthy yachtsman. Leave him there and he dies. Rescue him and he lives. Winching him up provides training for our armed forces. Sea Shepard are a wealthy charity, the 3 men are not in a life or death situation. No immediate rescue needed. As for doing the job the government said they would, see earlier point about changing International Laws, and time taken. I have faith the Australian Government will patrol the seas when International Law changes.

(8) If the Australian government had a ship on station monitoring the situation, this would not be much of an added expense.

If the Sea Shepard did not engage in piracy requiring the Australian Government to sent a customs ship, then it would be cheaper for all. Last year cameras managed to get behind the scenes and capture some horrific treatment of live cattle, in Indonesia, which had come from Australia. Why can’t the Sea Shepard act in the same lawful way to expose what it finds as illegal actions by the Japanese fleet in in their whale research missions.

(9) Perhaps the Prime Minister and the Attorney General could take some of the funds from the recent pay hike they voted in for themselves to help offset the costs.

The Sea Shepard is able to afford new vessels each year to send down and harrass the Japanese fleet. Why don’t they use some of this money to cover the costs of their consequences? because they are only activists, not protesters. They only care about lighting a fire, not controling the burn and putting it.

(10) The government has blocked and denied our request for tax status in Australia for eight years costing us a great deal in potential resources that would have allowed us to be more effective. In fact, if they had granted us such status we might possibly be in a position to give a donation to the Prime Minister to help her offset the cost of the government’s folly in allowing the Japanese whalers to continue to terrorize the defenceless whales of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

Would Tax status in Australia be about saving money to be able to fight legal battles? Or is there more to it. Maybe the Australian Government does not want to be seen to be supporting Southern Ocean Pirates? Or is this just an excuse to pad out to number 10. It would sound a little odd to only have a list of 8 reasons. Why not invent another 2 to make the number of reasons sound better? The list does not benefit from the extra 2 reasons, merely makes me want to throw up at the lack of effort Sea Shepard and Forest Rescue are willing to take for their own un government supported actions.

I should clarify that I am not pro-whaling. I am anti-whaling. I do not support the actions taken by the Sea Shepard. While I support the sentiment, The Sea Shepard is to the green movement, in my mind, the same as Al Qaeda is to Islam.

You know the blog from our trip that Day Eight was the day we hit Lake Eyre. Well what most of you may be aware of from our Facebook pages is that we are engaged, simply waiting for the law to change to have our relationship legally recognised and equal to our hetero counterparts. (Note I didn’t say ‘marriage’, because oddly I’m against the term ‘gay marriage’ but that’s for another time)

So, that day on the Lake bed, while we were waiting for the spectactular sunset over the lake, while being isolated and virtually alone on the lake, I was the one who dropped to one knee and popped the question to a smiling beaming Brett. It wasn’t the day or quite the place I had been planning to do it. I’d planned to do it Day Fifteen, when we were flying over Lake Eyre.  If I’d waited this long Brett would have asked the question somewhere between Day Ten and Day Twelve. So I suppose that makes it a pretty mutual agreement!

I now like to joke that because I proposed I get to keep my last name, and he has to change his.

Until Next Time…

Over & Out.

Wine, wine, and more wine! We returned to our accommodation with a tipsy Brett. The night before after getting back from Adelaide I went through the Barossa tourist guide and marked on the map the ones we were going to the next day.

We decided after breakfast finished at 10 to drive to the furtherest one away from us and work our way back. Brett had a flick through the brochure where I’d made markings on each add and noticed one I hadn’t circled on the map but made the notation of ‘P.G’ meaning Pinot Gris. As it was 10 minutes further away I’d discounted it, but we tried anyway.

If you are ever in the area you must goto Tearo Wines. Its not because of the wine. All the wine has a cute little story attached and is nice tasting wine. It’s because the staff there are so warm, lovely. She was also very helpful in suggesting wineries to go to.

I decided to turn off and go and visit the whispering wall. Highly fascinating! And ten times more exciting than the Big Rocking Horse. However, it didn’t match on looks.

The Whispering Wall is the dam wall built at the start of the 20th century, is recognised as an Australian Engineering Milestone. This may seem odd but three of the engineering milestones we’ve visited(unknown to us until plaque seen at milestone) have been dam walls. We only remember three. The Gordon Dam in Tassie, the Barossa Dam, and the Umberumberka Reservoir out of Broken Hill. I don’t get our fascination with dams…

Anyway, one person stands on one end of the dam wall and the other on the other end. Simply whisper a message and the other person will hear you loud and clear on the other end. No yelling necessary. As we all know, and if you don’t by now you soon will, I am not someone comfortable with exposed heights. I can handle an aeroplane, but a bridge is something different if I’m walking across it. So why did I volunteer to walk to the other edge of the dam wall, across the top, with a sheer 36m drop to one side? Brett claims it’s because I was being kind about his blisters on his feet, I’d forgotten about them. I’m just crazy I think.

For each winery circled on the map I’d made a notation on why we were going to that one. Of course I’d forgotten that as we got going. We rocked up at one place which didn’t have much of what we wanted to start with. Then as I was looking around I noticed there was a chocolate liqueur, and a cider! I’m a recent convert to cider, and this was the reason for going!

It made me question every winery after that. I didn’t need to question having lunch at Maggie Beer’s Farm Store. Yum yum yum! When we found out that Maggie wasn’t doing the cooking demonstration we left.

With the exception of the stony woman at Wolf Blass all the staff at the large wineries were bubbly, engaging, and delightfully helpful, even if some were busy.

Ten bottles of wine, and a six pack of cider later we arrived back and ventured out for Chinese for dinner. This time they were open.

We packed the car at night to make a quick getaway and had an early night.

Until next time…

Over and Out.

Have you heard of the Big Rocking Horse? No? Maybe it’s siblings then. How about the Big Prawn? The Big Merrino? Ok then. How about the Big Banana? Ah ok now we’re there. The Big Pineapple? Yes you now say. Well there is a massive metal rocking horse in the Adelaide Hills. Where else but Adelaide!

That was the surprise Brett took me to that morning. I was expecting something more romantic. But it was a nice surprise none the less.

From there we continued through the scenic hills, and decided we might have lunch out in Glenelg.

After lunch in a park, which was freezing cold, we decided to go into Adelaide and see what tourist information would have in store for us. Again tourist information defeated us. There was virtually nothing to do in the CBD. We could pay to see the pandas but we’d have to book a time to view them, and as the environmental scientist said ‘They’re just black and white bears who struggle to have sex.’

So after walking aroun we got the details for Coopers’ Brewery and headed out there to see about a tour. Upon arriving around 3pm and the gate locked we rang to ask about the tours, figuring the tourist information guy knew these things. Sadly no. He was a dumbshit who didn’t know they only did tours once a day at 1pm. As we were catching up with friends for dinner we decided to go back and have a walk around.

After dinner we headed out, Brett giving me directions when I distracted him from his phone. Half way home I commented we were passing an airport. Apparently according to google maps we shouldn’t have been.

I was being told off for missing the Northern Expressway. It turns out when we’d come to an intersection and I’d asked if we continue up Main North Road and got a yes was the point where the expressway came off.

That is something I’d like to complain to the South Australia Government about. Signage. It’s not a lack of signage(we passed a sign telling you there was school sign coming up), it’s a lack of appropriately placed, large enough sized wording, and continuous signage to attractions. It’s easy to get lost without signs. It’s easy to make a wrong turn when you don’t know until the intersection that the lane you’re in turns. The signs in the National Parks have writing that is so small, you need to be right upon it to be able to read it. Then if you’re travelling at 110km/h you don’t get to read it all. Pick up your game SA.

Barossa wineries tomorrow!

Until next time…

Over and Out.

The Big Rocking Horse, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

When we drove through Orroroo almost two weeks ago, we knew we would be coming back so we bypassed Magnetic Hill. We headed south by first heading 35km north. How boy scout directional of us!

It really does work though was a little anti climaxal. We headed south via Brett’s google maps directions. This was thrown into disarray when we came to a cross intersection with the road we wanted to take being closed. Panic on one persons behalf, not mine, ensued and I just made a snap judgement and drove. As the quote in the movie ‘Drive Thelma, Drive’!

I found our way to the road we were supposed to be on quite easily, and we were soon on our way to Jamestown, Clare, and finally Nurioopta.

It was a scenic drive, we stopped in Clare for lunch. While I say scenic it was littered with annoying showers. Those kind where they last only for a small amount of time and aren’t that heavy. Just annoying.

We checked into our Travel Auctions won accommodation around 3:30pm. We browsed the Yellow Pages for places to eat and decided on the local Chinese restaurant. Basic enough you say. Sure I say. It’s a Tuesday, shouldn’t be too busy. Should be able to get a table easy enough I say. Sure you say.

WRONG! I should have called because then I would have known they were CLOSED!

We settled for the local chicken place instead of Red Rooster, which was the wrong idea. At Red Rooster a standard is expected, at the chicken shop it’s not the Red Rooster standard.

Anyways…

Until next time…

Over and Out.