A Break

Thank you God, for giving me a break.

Today, my London account was credited with £1,342.81!

That's how much money I lost to fraudulent direct debits from my account. How that happened in the first place, I still don't know, but I'm sure glad I found out before it got much worse.

Last Sunday, on my way to church with my cousins, I received an overseas call from my London bank's collections department because it appeared my account had been overdrawn. I couldn't believe it because I left it with enough money and I never used my debit card since coming back to the Philippines more than one month ago. I asked what the last transactions were, and none of them sounded familiar. She mentioned mobile phone accounts (notice the plural) and cable subscriptions, among other things. My heart raced as it dawned on my that these were not mine. Identity theft and account-hacking is quite common in the UK. I can now count myself as one of the victims.

It's a good thing that I left London with not much money in my ATM. I spent a huge amount paying for advanced rent on my room to cover for the months that I'd be here in the Philippines shooting my grad film. Besides, all money I had, I had to take and add to my film's production budget. As a result, I left just enough money to keep my account's required maintaining balance.

Because of that, it allowed my account to be completely overdrawn (read: zero balance) because of these automatic, unauthorized direct debits.

I asked the collections agent what I ought to do since this was clearly a cause for alarm - those transactions were definitely not by me and I wanted to stop it before more money got taken. She advised me to contact my bank.

The accounts specialists were helpful right off. They blocked these fraudulent direct debits that had been going on since August 2008.

August 2008! That's two years now! Just three months within my arrival in the UK! My friend who met up with me last Sunday evening asked how much money I lost. I didn't want to alarm her any further, so I said just a couple of hundred quid. Well, the truth is it's almost a hundred thousand pesos. It really is partly my fault for not being vigilant enough in scrutinizing every item in my account summary every month. Though to my defense, it was really difficult to detect cause they were small amounts that just accumulated over two years (some debits were as huge as £50 at a time). I guess I just never noticed because I use that same account's debit card for all my transactions. I almost never bring cash when I'm in London, and that makes it harder to monitor the spending and the balance after every card debit.

The bank people said that they'll start an investigation. When I asked, they said I didn't have to contact these companies who made direct debits anymore. If all went well, I could expect to see that money deposited back into my account by Tuesday, after two working days. They also made me call a security company for consultation and to help me regarding my problem. This company, Red24, gave me tips on how to increase security protocols for my bank accounts. However, when I asked if they're optimistic about me getting my money back, they said that there's no guarantee. At best, I'd get it back in no time. At worst, I would have to take it to court and find ways to prove that I really didn't make these transactions - something that looked extremely difficult as it seemed like I've been a victim of identity cloning (for all these direct debits to be happening consistently and over a long period of time). After that, there really wasn't anything else to do but to be stressed, and wait.

I avoided checking my account cause I didn't want to be disappointed, but today, I finally did... and there it was - my money back! I really didn't expect it to be resolved that quickly, and efficiently - though I'm crazy glad that it was.

It's a rough way to learn a lesson, but well worth it. I'm just thankful for the break!

Something to lift my spirit up amid the chaos of grad film preprod :)

Camerimage 2009, Łódź

01-06.12.2009

After a very busy term 5, I decided to fly to Poland to attend Camerimage. Mike had already left ahead of me, and I was really looking to get away in preparation for the coming end of term critiques.

I had an amazing time in spite of the freezing cold. I was able to watch Up In The Air before its worldwide theatrical release (and ahead of all the Oscar buzz it got; I got bummed missing Sketches of Frank Gehry). I got to attend workshops conducted by Oliver Stapleton, Don McAlpine and Tony Willis. I got to play around with the latest Arri’s and 3D cameras. They don’t lie when they say that the atmosphere in the city is electrified round about the end of November til early December. I had an amazing time despite not having a pass for the entire festival. I had so much fun I didn’t even bother taking that many pictures even though I managed to lug around my camera everywhere we went. I’m already looking forward to coming back next year.

The pictures I took and uploaded here don’t even capture half of the experience. You’d think the city was this empty shell of post-war buildings badly needing repainting. What it really is, during Camerimage, is a swarm of enthusiastic, like-minded brothers who have nothing but utmost love and appreciation for movies and movie-lovers.

Barcelona, Summer 2009

Barcelona is instantly my most favourite city. So far, at least.

When I first decided to go to Spain for a holiday, it was on a whim. It was sometime during the spring of last year after my trip with the Bajentings. It was my first time to stay in London for the holidays and so I had a lot of time on my hands. Instead of seeing more of the city though, I ended up going overseas.

I first entertained the thought when I heard that the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra was playing in London. I read about them long ago and was terribly impressed. That they were in London seemed too great an opportunity to pass, so I immediately looked for tickets. My close friends Nep and Tisay happened to have a stint helping the catering for their London show and they told me it’s been fully booked long before. I felt so bad missing the chance that I surfed the net and found out that they’re also having shows in Madrid and Barcelona and a few other European cities.

It was then that I started considering flying to Barcelona just in time to catch their show. It seemed outrageous at the time, but thanks to the internet, I was able to build up a solid itinerary and canvass options for airfare and lodging. Before I knew it, I was impulse buying tickets and making online reservations for a weeklong stay in Barcino.

I was sort of nervous about that because it was to be my first ever solo trip to a country that didn’t speak English primarily. I sorta knew how to speak Spanish, but it’s been so long since Span 1 & 2 with Sra. Carmen and Maita that I didn’t really trust myself to survive. Besides, I was heading for Catalunya!

The morning of my flight to Barcelona, I took a long detour to Stanford at Covent Garden, one of my favourite stores in London now, and bought myself an Encounter guide (back when it only had Barcelona, NY, Rome and Paris) and a Spanish phrasebook…and then I was off.

That turned out to be one of my most memorable and perhaps my most favourite trip ever. Barcelona had everything I was interested in – a beach, a vibrant arts scene, museums worth visiting, a mix of people comparable to London’s, grrrrrreeeaaat food, and a couple of friends who were grrrrrreeeaaat guardians (shoutout to Wil and Lola!). That I was there for six long days, by myself, made for a relaxed holiday with neither the pressure of dragging myself out of the hotel to follow someone else’s itinerary nor the annoyances or conflicts of a travel companion’s divergent whims.

I loved Barcelona so much that even after my camera got stolen on my first trip (please don’t tell my Mom), I still had fond memories of the city. Hey, at least I had the full Barna experience, yeah? The pictures posted in this album were taken during my second trip last summer, right before classes at LFS started :)

Did I mention how much I love Barcelona?

Paris, Spring 2009

23-24.05.2009

Last year, desperate to grab the first chance to step on French soil, I took the long way en route to visiting my Mom. This was back in May during the spring bank holiday. We didn’t have a class that Friday and I didn’t need to be back at school until Tuesday, so I decided to fly to Paris and from there take the night train to Bologna (which was also a first) to see my Mom.

Aside from seeing the Eiffel Tower (typical?) and watching the French Open, the trip was on the whole underwhelming, though by no means Paris’s fault. After all, I was only there for 25 hours, which simply wasn’t enough. The dearth of interesting pictures from the trip is proof of that (due in part to the fact that I couldn’t find a shop that sold a 35mm roll of film! I was incredulous at this new order of things. There wasn’t any film being sold within the 1km radius of the most visited paid monument in the world.)

At the very least, that stopover only whet my appetite for a full, genuine Parisian experience the next time the opportunity presents itself.