By Randy Zwitch - March 23rd, 2010  Category: CCMBA 2010D Ah, technology. You’ve made our lives so easy. No longer do we need to read a map, we can use Google Maps or Mapquest at a moment’s notice to get us from Point A to Point B. And for those of us who can’t even plan that far ahead, there’s always GPS. Computers have made traveling so easy, sometimes we forget that these systems don’t always get things right. And every once and while, you’ll see a spectacular routing failure, as I did today when booking my flight to Shanghai.
I live in Philladelphia, the home of US Airways. Domestically, I always default to them because I’m a status member, so I get all the perks that goes along with that. Not to mention, since Philly is one of their hubs, they are also one of the lowest cost airlines flying out of PHL. But in my CCMBA travels, I’ve had to step outside US Airways (except for London), and I usually fly Star Alliance member Continental. Today, I tried to book a flight from Philly to Shanghai, and here is one of the lower cost results:
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By Randy Zwitch - February 8th, 2010 Category: CCMBA 2010D| Residency 3: Delhi There’s something quite discomforting about sitting in a shop, and watching a bunch of men speaking in a different language than you while holding sharp objects in their hands. Especially when they are attacking the packaging of an expensive purchase, poking and slicing with scissors and knives like they needed to stab the scam out of the package! And yet, there we were, Pat and I, just watching as this group of 3-4 gentleman were getting into this endeavor with the zeal of children opening Christmas presents.
Salesman: Oh, look at this. This is rayon, I can see through the packaging, and they are not done opening it yet. You must return this immediately. What is the address where you bought this, what is the phone number?
Excellent question. The rickshaw driver took us to this store, and now we’re starting to wonder if he was also in on the scam. Asking the rickshaw driver for the address is probably the wrong move, as we don’t want him to know that WE know something’s up if he is in on it. Looking at the bill of sale for the rug, it was amazingly devoid of the address information, but did have a telephone number. Armed with this information, Pat and I were finally able to leave the store and have the front desk find the address for us. But the question in my mind was: can we actually roll up into this shop as a bunch of pissed off Americans and demand the money back?
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