Wednesday, June 23, 2010

waste of time

Bloody hell really. Who would have thought eCommerce is such a time
consuming and wasting task. Well, seem so today. Took me bloody an
hour to do 3 bookings with 3 different airlines.

1) Cathay... It's online payment is obvious sub-contracted to Sinopay,
an mainland online payment company. Well, CDN visa cards block them.
And when I tried to use it, I got warning all over the map. This yah
oo company mixed a HTTPS (secured transaction connection) with non-
secured ones all on the same page. Hello? So how the heck do I know
that the forms with all my personal data had transmitted securely via
the world wide web to the destination for payment. I did not know.
Talk about this airline losing out potential revenue. I sent a blunt
email to the airline what's wrong with its online payment system and
of course, no respond back.

2) United.... Thanks to the content screening to protect our citizens,
the site was slow to start off with. Then after putting in everything
single details about my trip and my credit card info... I was frozen
in the track!!! Why? I was in the "US version" website! I need to
be in the CDN version in order to buy a ticket. Hello? Where was
that indicator on the website? I failed to see it. If it were
there, might be buried along with all the ads and promotions..... How
did I notice it? It was when I tried putting in my CC billing
number. The country was "hard-coded" as United States. So I went all
the way back to select the CDN version of the site and started again.
20 minutes later, I got the bloody ticket! One-way!

3) Delta.... Geee..... Visa's secure verification system must be
having one hack of a problem. The airline website kept kicking it
back out with "your credit card could not be verified". HUH? I use
PayPal.. Got as far as "Pay" then the airline website said "Sorry,
your account does not have a US address". What? Since when PayPal is
only valid for US? This is a world-wide eCommerce system! What the
heck all these I T types were thinking? I banged away with two Visas
both rejected, then PayPal... Finally, I had to use a HK non-visa CC.
And that, I am not so sure how secure it was from HS*C. I wasted
another 20 minutes but seemed eternity.

All in all... My bloody pressure went up by miles... My eyes were
blood red seeing pink ready to rip some phantom I T idiots up for not
doing proper testings.... Ridiculous. The eCommerce was to make
business easier. My experience with all 3 airlines were totally
pathetic! Now, I am going to try the Maple Leaf one just for kicks.
No, I need to get my PVG-YVR & YYC-HKG done pronto before we head back
to the dark ages to buy tickets. Seems my Shanghai travel agent is
more reliable then anything else!

No comments: