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Welcome to The Lotus Position, an intermittent collection of extempore navel gazings, ponderings, whinges, whines, pontifications and diatribes.

Everything is based on a Sample of One: these are my views, my experiences... caveat lector... read the Disclaimer

The Budapest Office - Castro Bisztro, Madach ter

The Budapest Office - Castro Bisztro, Madach ter
Ponder, Scribble, Ponder (Photo Erdotahi Aron)

Saturday 4 August 2007

Blog, Blog, Blog, Blog Blog... Steganos

Victoria Satterly has been nice, so probably for that reason more than any other I decided to bite the bullet between the horns* and buy Steganos Security Suite 2007 which is "Vista Compatible" (hmmm... we shall see... well, we might have seen)

OK, enter existing product code for Upgrade price, enter card details, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and off we go to the Visa Secure site for verification. Visa Secure gives me the Secret Message I entered when I set it up, so I'm pretty sure it's them, and the site certificate is OK, so we enter the mystery characters from the impossible password and...

Back at the Asknet powered Steganos Shop - "The Payment Failed." But I'm in credit with Visa! Tried a few times more. No dice.

So I call Barclaycard (this is all taking place on a Saturday, by the way), and they can see no transactions and suggest I call the oneline people, but - wait for it! - this multi-billion $ operation's online department only keeps 9-5 Monday-Friday hours. Obviously parts of Barclaycard are run like a village post-office.

Anyway, I call on Monday and they can see only one transaction - which they approved but which the online shop declined! Eh?

Email to tech support at Asknet - they are prompt and helpful - at least up to the point of telling me that I "failed multiple risk-management rules". Bugger. Word about the bullion heist must have leaked out. OK I confess, I was hoping to scam myself a billion, $20 at a time...

What on earth are they on about??? Visa said, "Sure, here's the money," and they said, "Nein, danke, der risk ist zu fiel!"

The only other way of purchasing would be to use another payment method (I tried calling, but that just gets someone else to type things into the web form for you) - and what is the only other choice available? PayPal. Howls of derisive laughter.

So there you are. I strongly suggest that you try and remember whether Santa decided you were Naughty or Nice before trying to make a Visa purchase through Asknet.

Strangely though I found the whole experience calming. It inspired humility: it seems that there are things in this world that simply cannot be done no matter how hard you try - so get used to it.

* PS If you know of any more wonderful mixed metaphorical sayings like this (I heard this one with my own ears), drop me a line...

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