Judy and her money troubles – with a dash of India thrown in to complicate matters even more.
Wayyyy back when Judy and I were at the Indian Consulate in Vancouver, we met a young man (I think I mentioned this, the Tibetan Indian with the doctor sister) who told Judy that Credit Union bank cards don’t work in India. So before she left, Judy opened a Scotiabank account so that she could access her money. However, when she opened the account and set up her pin# she was only given the choice to make it 5 digits. Not being the ultra savvy traveler such as me (haha – I think this blog proves the opposite but I digress), Judy didn’t realize the disastrousness of that fifth digit. So she hasn’t been able to withdraw any money from an ATM since she arrived. But being industrious (and a self declared ‘jewelry slut’) she figured out how to get money. She met a jewelry seller in the market in Puttaparthi (where she was staying with Priscilla) who would sell her something sparkly using her visa card. But he would charge more to Visa and give her the difference at a very reasonable charge. It was all working so well. Judy got money AND a huge jewelry collection. But on her last night in Puttaparthi, just before leaving for the airport to pick me up, she went for one last visit to Baba’s ashram. I guess there was a big, tightly packed crowd kneeling before Baba when the person behind Judy, opened her purse and took her money (only a couple hundred rupees) AND her Visa card!!! She doubts that the person even tried to use the card, it was just in with the money. But it meant that Judy now had no access to money. She called Visa to cancel the card and they said Visa International could send her a new card within 48 hours but Judy wasn’t going to be returning to Priscilla’s so she didn’t have anywhere to have to card sent. But it is okay because, again, she is a smart cookie.
Scotiabank has a link right on her internet banking page to send cash anywhere in the world!! Perfect, so she sent herself money via Western Union. That lasted for the first week. But now new problems. Only a week from the end of her trip, her Scotia account was basically drained. Her real cash was in her credit union account, which does not have a nice Western Union Button on their website. This tale again reminds me why I use the evil conglomerate of the big bank.
I don’t know if I mentioned that Judy bought a cell phone to use while in India (which is so brilliantly handy that I am basically ruined for easy travelling). So while on a long stretch of drive (on the way to Hampi – we aren’t there yet in the blog) Suresh said that Judy should have her Visa Card sent to his house so that she would have it when we went to Delhi. Excellent Plan! Of course, you being the intelligent audience that you are, you realize that nothing is easy in India. But at that point, we went with it.
Judy called Scotia Bank call centre (as it turns out it is in Vancouver – irony anyone?) She spoke to Calem. He was very nice but the new card had to be ordered through Visa International. Now keep in mind, Judy is calling from the car on the road, driving through the country side so her conversation was regularly interrupted with horn blasts, cow avoiding swerves and general mayhem. I’m sure Calem is still talking about Judy in the Scotia Visa break room.
Calem gave Judy the Visa International phone number for India. So far, so good. Judy hangs up and tries the number. It doesn’t work. Calls Calem back who assures her it is correct. Calls the number again, still nothing. Tries Suresh’s phone which has better range. Zip. Calls Calem back. Calem asks around, no additional info from his end. Judy hangs up. I suggest we attempt variations on the number. We guess that perhaps the India Visa International office is in Bombay so we try calling with that city code. We try all the codes of major cities. Suresh calls some info line to see if they know how to get through. Nope .
So I get Judy to call Calem back and I take the phone. I am pissed that this is so freaking complicated. I say to Calem that the number is not accessible and that he has to patch us through. Duh!! Oh, what a good idea. ARRRGG. So he calls Visa International and I put Judy back on the phone. He and Judy and the Visa International lady have a bit of a confab where I think Calem had to explain how this all works to the lady. But all is going well. Calem hangs up and leaves Judy on the line with Visa International lady. Judy is ready with Suresh’s address and her visa info etc. Just as she is getting started she interrupts Visa lady and says, ‘please give me a contact number where I can reach you, the number I have doesn’t work’ when (of course) the phone cuts out. At this point, we had been working on this for about two hours. So that was it, neither of us could face calling Calem back. So new Visa plan – a no go.
Next day, new plan. I would show Judy how to set up a Bank to Bank transfer so she could get money from her credit union account to her Scotia Bank account so she could use Western Union. So, there we are in incredible Hampi, World Heritage site (blog to follow eventually) in an internet place (which didn’t even have coffee!!!) trying to somehow get money out of the credit union. They don’t have a transfer system (I love you Royal Bank!). If you want to get money out of this cursed Credit Union, you have to set up a HyperWallet account. Now remember we are in a hole in the wall internet place (where if you recall that morning a monkey had invaded) where I believe security to be absolutely non-existent. But Judy sets up a HyperWallet account and deposits $1000. Great. The site made it sound so easy (you would think I would learn). They said you can send money to anyone with an email account. So Judy, logically, tries to send it to herself. Ummm, not allowed. WHY NOT???!!!! We still didn’t know how it all worked, it’s not like you can withdraw from an email account. But we blindly plodded on. Ok, so Judy sent $100 to my email account. It let her do that. So I open my email on Judy’s computer and it tells me that I have to sign up to Hyperwallet too. Ok. So I open the link and it takes me to the Credit Union site. Since I don’t know Hyperwallet from nothin’ I fill in my info (uncomfortably – if there was a key stroke trace on that computer some Indian hacker owns my life). So far so good (haha – you know what that means). Once I have set up my account, I go to sign in so that I can access Judy’s $100 bucks but the site won’t let me in because my email address is already being used. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I guess the computer had opened Judy’s Hyperwallet account info which was still open on the computer when I tried to link in. I haven’t confirmed this yet, but I don’t think Judy is going to have an easy time accessing that remaining $900 because I think I changed her access info by accident. So I set up another account, using another email address. By this time, Judy had left me to the easy job of signing up to go to Western Union. She had sent herself the last dregs of cash she had left in her Scotia account. By this time, I was seeing the computer screen through a haze of murderous red. My new email address still didn’t work. That was it!!! I had a total spazz and gave up. It was now 2 pm, we had been working on this since 10 am. Judy and Suresh had to take me to a Western restaurant and feed me Pizza before I could calm down.
So plan number two in the squat toilet. New plan – thankfully not involving me as I don’t think I could take another one and keep my sanity. Did I mention that Judy, who is the one with no money, has remained calm and collected during all of this. Maybe all of that Temple time has something to it.
Next new plan. Judy called Morgan, her son, to use some of his money to put into her Scotia Bank account so she could Western Union it. However, Scotia Bank doesn’t list the full account number on their internet banking site (for security reasons I assume) but since Judy had just opened the account she didn’t have the number memorized and the piece of paper she wrote it on was in the pilfered purse. Morgan gave it a go but the bank wouldn’t deposit the money without a proper account number. Keep in mind that each of these steps takes a full day since we are on opposite day/night schedules. So Judy finds out the next day that Morgan was unsuccessful. Next next new plan. Morgan goes to Western Union directly the next day to send the money to Judy. But apparently, Morgan doesn’t have any government ID so he had to go and get a BCID (what a trooper – this probably took him all day) and then go back to complete the transaction. By now, it is two days after the internet fiasco and we are about to leave Hampi early because we have a 10 hour drive ahead of us. Judy checks her internet. She had an email saying the deed was done and giving her the access code. So close!!! Next stop, Western Union office. Closed. Next one closed. They won’t open for 30 minutes but we were eager to get going so we decided that we would stop on the way. There are Western Union offices everywhere here.
But we were driving through agricultural nowhere land. Lots of trees and farms but alas, no Western Union offices. We finally drove through a town of slightly moderate size and found an office. Judy heads in and (wait for it….) it was closed. They close early on Saturdays and as they informed Judy, no Western Union office would be open until Monday. OH, FOR GOD SAKE!!!!
By now I am getting low too but off we went to our flight to Delhi. After paying for our taxi (Suresh’s brother) and something to eat on the plane, we landed in Delhi with only 500 rupees between us. That’s about 12 bucks. The pre-paid cab kiosk was inside the airport, the money changer outside. No reentry. But finally a bit of good luck, we had enough to pay the cab, then I changed some traveler’s cheques so we were flush again.
So now after what will be a hilarious post about our arrival in Delhi, it is Monday morning and we are about to head out to find a Western Union office. Sweet Sweet OPEN Western Union office.
Yes, I know that this has been a long post but I had to LIVE it, just be glad you only had to read about it.
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