Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
Sunday, November 22, 2009
One of the completely unexpected challenges that Frank has faced at his new job has been his attempts to purchase software for the school where we work.
First, Frank tried to purchase some software from Adobe for himself. He downloaded a trial version, and when the trial period expired, he tried to buy a license from them. Adobe kept the transaction pending for three days and then refused his purchase without explanation. Thus, instead of paying $400 for Dreamweaver, he was thrown back into the local software market where one can buy a bootlegged copy of Dreamweaver for $3. Albeit, a bootlegged copy in Russian.
Next, he tried purchasing some proxy software for the school. His credit card was rejected once and then again. Next, he tried Paypal. Paypal took the money out of his bank account to pay the software vendor--and then, in mid-purchase, they sent him an e-mail cancelling the purchase.
After much gnashing of teeth and a long time in telephone-tree hell, Frank got through to someone at Paypal in the States (or somewhere in India?). "Sir, we need to verify who you are so we're going to ask you a series of questions." "Alright," said the ever-patient Frank. "First question: in which state does Alejo _______ own property?" Now, there's a trick question if ever there was one. Alejo is the fellow from whom we bought our house in Seattle three years ago. He now lives in Mexico. As Frank was preparing to protest the nature of this question, the telephone connection died.
Frank then bravely opened the window and leaned out in sub-freezing temperatures in order to get a better cell phone signal.
Starting over, he got back into the phone queue hell at Paypal. From the other room I heard him (somewhat less patiently this time) trying to explain that, yes, he was trying to purchase software here in Mongolia despite having a mailing address in the States. And that, yes, Paypal was now in possession of $750 of his money and that they had cancelled payment to the vendor....
Finally, that particular purchase went through. It seems that Paypal rejected the purchase because they detected that he was accessing his Paypal account from a computer in Mongolia.
Less than a week later Frank started in on the next marathon effort to buy anti-virus software. This time it only took a series of e-mails and repeated attempts to use his credit card at the company's website.
I won't go into Frank's attempts to straighten things out with another of the school's software purchases, but suffice it to say, the details are hilarious.
