Useless Human

I'd go to shops to, if we had any left!

I'm not sure you can change energy suppliers offline these days, I guess I can try phoning, if I can get through, most customer services these days seem to be online assistants or bots, and when you do get to speak to a human they rarely know what to do either.

I don't use Websites to buy gifts. Going yo shop is for me less stressful than filling out forms and then waiting and stressing if it gets delivered on time etc.

I always have problems with tech and always have. I don't have anyone to ask, even those who are in any way understanding have given up because they don't know what I'm doing thats so different to everybody else, I can put in an identical search to someone else and get totally different results.

I don't have a smart phone, I don't know how to use one, I did have one for a while, I worked out how to call people and use the adress book, but not how to answer a call or do a text, I didn't improve over the next 2 or 3 months and eventually gave up as I was missing calls and couldn't text. I don't do things like whatsapp or facebook, I get confused by apps, now it seems that apps have apps! WTF!

I can uually come up with passwords OK, its everything else that does me in. I don't see the point of looking online for answers as looking online is part of the problem, I wouldn't get any sense out of it, or nothing that I understand anyway. 

My history of messing up tech is long and complicated, going back decades, I mean I even crashed a digital egg timer! I leave myself plenty of time to do things, as I know I'm probably going to have to have several goes at it. People say, 'oh these things happen to everyone at times', they may do, but it's more remarkable when things work the second time, let alone the first.

************************************************

I think some of my feelings of uselessness, were made worse by trying to do some clothes shopping and finding nothing that would fit, or I liked or was suitable. It brought up a lot of old messaging, about how I'm to big to be a proper girl, my feet are too big, my voice to deep, I'm to tall, I must be a slag, because of the size of boobs, I'm to fat. Most of the time I don't remember it all or can ignore it, but every now and again it comes charging in and swamps me, overwhelming any defences I have against it.

When I have weeks like the last one, I just crumble and end up playing emotional whack-a-mole with stuff.

I sympathise.

I get frustrated by these things as well. I couldn't create a password to get my car insurance. It met all the requirements they stated took me 45 mins, I thought I was stupid. Every other site was ok with similar passwords, and I had to have it to get the new car. When under time pressure I have the most issues.

I couldn't use a simple app on my phone.

I couldn't understand the DVLA instructions to put my number plate on retention.

I was too scared to renew my passport online for years.

The best thing is just to be leave it and try again the next day. Or find someone to ask. Or search online, often someone else has had the same issue.

I do ridiculously hard technical things then get floored some stupid thing everyone else finds easy. I have too many questions about the instructions. I try not to worry about it, but it is stressful.

I think one of the worst things is tother peoples reactions to my misfortunes with online stuff, I get told off, laughed at, patronised and finally ignored.

I dont have another browser, I have firefox and don't use any others because I either don't know how or they give me rubbish. I'd never use bing, the only browser I've ever found thats worse is amazon silk.

Sorry you are feeling bad about your struggles with online form completion. 

TheCatWoman said:

I give up, I feel totally useless and defeated and worthless. How does everyone else manage when it seems I can't even fill in a form correctly and get my name, address and date of birth wrong, it's not, but the form won't have

I don’t think everyone else does always manage. Those online forms for things like personal details and payments can be temperamental. I have found that if my browser is set to preventing tracking from cookies and websites, website forms don’t always allow me to fill in my details and make payment.

If you know how, you could try clearing all cookies and website data from your browser. Also, you could try using a different browser to the one you normally use, eg, from Bing to Google. That should be enough to clear the form and to start again from scratch.

Thanks Lotus, my card is unchanged as far as I know.

I know who I want to change too for my energy, I want to go from octopus who've done nothing but mess us about for over a year, the last straw was an email telling us that our meter eas out of date and saying we have to have a new one, I was fine with that, except when the confirmatory email came, it was for a smart meter. I don't want a smart meter, I doubt very much if one will work here as everything wireless has to have its own signal booster. I've told them this numerous times and they don't listen although when they do they agree that one wouldn't work for us.. I want to change to ecotricity as they're a comparable price and I've seen the owner numerous times on programes like Question Time and I agree with most of his politics.

All this internet stuff just makes me feel so useless, how can I fill in a form and it won't accept my name, address and date of birth? People tell me these things happen to everyone at times, but they all seem to happen to me, it's more remarkable when things go smoothly and its right first time. 

Sorry to hear how you're feeling - I think we've all felt like that at some point, so you're not alone.

I'm just trying to think how I can give practical help here.

First, the card - I'm sorry if I sound like I'm treating you like you're stupid - I really don't think you are - but my debit card used to be a visa and then a while ago it was changed to a mastercard; has this happened with yours? I did get a bit confused the first time I used it online after it changed. If that's not the case, do you have another card you can pay with, perhaps a credit card?

Secondly, when I want to change supplier for utilities, insurance, etc. I go to the money saving expert website ( founded by Martin Lewis) - you can put in all your details and it checks everything and gives you a list of suppliers and their costs. Perhaps you could try that?

Don't worry, it will all sort itself out in the end. Take a break and give yourself a treat before trying these things again.