Aside from the most obvious perils of traveling overseas such as lost passports, lost cameras, lost phones and lost minds, travel offers one of the great pleasures of life – some of the best Catch 22s that you can possibly experience.
These include things such as the phone that won’t work, where you email your phone company which tells you that the only way in which you can solve this problem is to call the phone company – on the phone that doesn’t work.
So they tell you that you need to pay a surcharge to allow you to speak to them at their expense. But in order for the phone company to levy that surcharge, a change to the set up is required which itself requires the account holder to speak to them. But the account holder happens to be in another country.
This is because because the rules won’t allow you to purchase a sim card without a residential address in Europe and so you needed a local resident who could purchase the sim card for you – and they are not with you.
You could, of course pay for the account holder to fly from Russia to Istanbul. Or pretend to impersonate the Russian account holder and speak to the operator in heavily accented English explaining you have forgotten all your Russian because you’ve been living in Turkey for too long.
There’s the TV with the remote in Turkish and the manual in Turkish that explains clearly, in Turkish, how to change the language or sub-titles to English. And you can’t even shout at the TV because clearly the TV in its current mode only speaks Turkish so shouting at it in English won’t make any difference. Perhaps if you kick it with Turkish shoes on that might work.
Then there is the car hire firm where only one of you has a licence but the money to pay for the hiring is on the other person’s credit card. But you can only pay on the card of the person hiring the car.
Or the WhatsApp calls you can’t receive because you registered your European number so that you can speak to people with that number but no one with your Australian number can now call you because like a dickhead you forgot to alert them, beforehand, to the fact that you were changing your number.
And then there is dealing with the BANK.…..
There was a time long long ago….when you just took travellers cheques, went into the nearest bank and got your money out….and when your bills arrived at home you got someone to drop in, open the letter and pay the bill for you. Now……
You open your email. There it is lurking obscenely and darkly. The third item email on the list. The Unforeseen Invoice that you omitted to pay before leaving home. Ok no problem, you open your internet banking…payee, amount, press pay. The pop up appears. A code is required. Please request a code – which you will receive on your Australian sim card.
Damn….you remember you changed your sim card from your Australian one to your Europe-wide one and forgot to change your phone number on the bank’s system. Your Australian sim card is back in the UK where you left it, when you got the new one.
No problem, let’s change the number. Open your banking admin interface, click on code authorisation, click on enter new phone number. No problem. Press save. The pop up appears. A code is required, please request a code to authorise a change of authorised phone number.
Damn. Fuck. Catch 22. Swear at bank. Walk around room. Swear at computer. Swear at stupid people from IT who don’t seem to understand that people do leave the country and use other phone numbers.
Open secure email interface. Write email explaining situation and suggesting that they need to do something which avoids such a Catch 22. Wait 24 hours.
24 hours passes. Open your computer. Open internet banking. Open secure email interface.
Thank you for your email. Unfortunately we cannot change your phone number for you without authorisation.
However you may download our secure authorisation app from the internet. Once you have installed this app, it will supply you with a code which you can use to authorise transactions without the need to receive an SMS to your authorised phone number.
Great, no problem.
Go to your mobile.
Search on PlayStore. Find relevant app. Download app. Install App. Open App.
Message: Please enter your code. To receive a code please request a code from your bank which will be sent to your authorised phone number. Fuck. Damn. Fuck. Catch 22/2. Swear at bank. Walk around room. Swear at computer. Swear at stupid people from IT who don’t seem to understand that people do leave the country and use other phone numbers. Catch 22/2.
Open secure email interface. Write email explaining situation and suggesting that they need to do something which avoids Catch 22/1 and Catch 22/2. Wait 24 hours.
24 hours passes. Open your computer. Open internet banking. Open secure email interface.
Thank you for your email. Unfortunately we cannot authorise the App for you remotely. Please call us on phone number xxxxxxxxxx and we will arrange to confirm your identity and then authorise the App over the phone.
Calculate; 15 minute phone call. Excess roaming charges. Potential cost more than I’m prepared to pay. Cannot call Australia. Catch 22/3
Open secure email interface. Write email explaining situation and suggesting that they need to do something which avoids Catch 22/1 and Catch 22/2 and Catch 22/3. Wait 24 hours.
24 hours passes. Open your computer. Open internet banking. Open secure email interface.
Thank you for your email. Please supply us with a phone number on which one of our customer service officers can reach you during working hours. They will then step you through the process to authorise the App.
Respond on secure email interface. Write email giving phone number. Wait 24 hours.
Sometime in another time and place (actually while driving along the freeway). Phone rings. Check wing mirrors, check main mirror, scrutinise road ahead, check cars around for sign of unmarked police car. Ok, no worries. Answer phone. Chris here
Mr Harris, this is xxxxx from Bank xxxx. I hope I’m not disturbing you at an inconvenient moment.
Client (me) breaks into spasm of silent mirthless laughter and just avoids colliding with large petrol tanker, before swerving off road, pulling up and saying…
No not all, I was just driving but I’ve pulled off the road…
Brilliant. I understand you want me to authorise you to install our online authorisation App.
Client (me)…sotto voce No I want you to fucking authorise me to shoot Donald Trump….. In louder voice. Yes, thanks
Ok, thank you Sir. I’ll just ask you a few questions to identify you.
Five minutes later, and some 80 plus hours after first trying to perform a simple internet banking operation, I am able to pay my bill.
This is Part 12 of the blog series “97 Days Adrift in Europe”. Links to other episodes and related content can be found below:
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Part 3 Travelling Idiot Style
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Part 4 Explaining Manspreading
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Part 6 Travelling South
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Part 7 Scribblings from a Trip
- Part 11 Prague