The Saga of the Photo Bank

A few years ago, before our trip to the South Pacific, I bought myself a SmartDisk digital photo bank. It’s basically a 30 gig hard drive with slots for reading various digital cards. It offers a way to backup our pictures during travel and free up the cameras’ cards for additional picture taking. In a package about the size of two decks of playing cards, it is a lot easier to tote around than a laptop. (Of course, it doesn’t do anything other than store photos so it didn’t replace my laptop on this trip.)
I got into a routine of dumping pictures into the Photo Bank as we finished up each country, cleaning up the camera cards for our next outing. That seemed to work well for the first few weeks. However, we took a lot of pictures at the temples in Cambodia and, even though we were only there three days, our cards were nearly full. So, as soon as we settled in at the New Seven Story Hotel in Singapore, I decided it was time for another dump. Only one problem. I can’t find my Photo Bank.
The last time I remember using it was the night in Bangkok when I had copied all our Thailand pictures. I hadn’t used it in Cambodia and couldn’t remember seeing it so I can’t be sure if I left it at the Angkor Holiday Hotel in Siem Reap or at the Sananwan Palace Guesthouse in Bangkok. I sent e-mails to both hotels explaining the problem and asking if the Photo Bank had turned up when the room was cleaned.
The problem is that we’re now into the nomad part of our trip. We leave the next morning for Tioman Island in Malaysia and I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to check my e-mail again. As it turns out, wi-fi is available at the Paya Beach Resort and at a very reasonable rate. No e-mail replies that first night but we’re here for two more days so I’ll hope for the best. Unfortunately, for the rest of our time on Tioman, I’m unable to get on-line as their system is “down”. Now the rate doesn’t seem so reasonable and there’s no offer of reimbursement.
I don’t get back on line again until we’ve checked into the Golden Landmark Hotel in Singapore. No reply from either hotel. So, I fire off another e-mail (a little snarkier this time) asking for a reply even if they found nothing. This time I get a reply from the Angkor Holiday Hotel that they’ve found the Photo Bank in the room safe. They suggest I contact our temple guide, John Teng, to help with its return and John agrees to handle the matter. (In the meantime, I get a response from Bangkok that they found nothing in the room.)
John and I exchange e-mails trying to decide how to arrange the return of my Photo Bank. We’ll be leaving Singapore before he can ship it here and I have no idea how accessible Dumaguete is. We finally decide that the best thing for John to do is hang on to the Photo Bank until our trip ends and we’re on our way home. The only shipping company available in Cambodia is DHL and they’ve told John that it will take three days and cost $89 US. (I’ve already checked out replacements at Sim Lin in Singapore and I could get a similar item for $100 US.) John’s going to pay the costs out of his own pocket and trust us to reimburse him.
John sends me a tracking number so I can follow the progress of the package. It’s picked up in Cambodia on Tuesday morning (adjusting for the date line) but doesn’t leave Cambodia until 2 pm the following day. How can they deliver in three days? It leaves Hong Kong on Thursday night, goes through Wilmington, OH and arrives in Toronto at 8 am on Friday morning. It leaves Toronto at 1 pm on Friday afternoon and, since we’re about an hour outside the city, I’m sitting by my doorstep that afternoon. No such luck.
The package seems to have vanished into thin air. There’s no further record of it on the DHL web site and no answer at any of the phone numbers for DHL. On Monday morning, I check back with the DHL web site and find that the package arrived in Hamilton at 5:30 am Monday morning. Where do you suppose it spent the weekend? The web site also shows that the package left Hamilton at 8 am that morning. Hamilton’s just next door so I should have my Photo Bank by lunchtime. Right!
By that afternoon, I’d had it. An angry telephone call to DHL elicited the response that they don’t work on the weekends and 3 days means “3 working days”. Silly me, I thought three days from Tuesday morning would be Friday morning. I am assured that the package is on the truck. Shortly after I hang up the phone, the doorbell chimes and here’s the smiling DHL delivery person. It’s only taken 8 hours to get a package from Hamilton to Burlington (you could walk to the DHL warehouse from my place in about 90 minutes). It took longer to get the package from Toronto to Burlington than it took to get it from Cambodia to Canada.
Oh, well. At least I’ve got it. When I open the package it is obvious that someone has been checking out its contents. My first thought is “pictures from the area of Thailand - they’re checking for child pornography". Hope they weren’t too disappointed.
Now I just have to get John’s money to him. This is complicated by the fact we have only an e-mail address and web site for him. His family lives in Pnohm Penh and he just rents a room in Siem Reap for sleeping. He doesn’t have a mailing address so we arrange to send him the money through Western Union. I want to send him some extra as a thank-you but John insists on only the actual expenses. Of course, with the exchange rate and the Western Union fee it still costs me over a hundred dollars but the pictures are priceless. It’s a small price to pay for a senior moment.
Two weeks later the saga continues. I pick up the mail and there’s a bill from DHL for $30 for custom duties and processing of the package. I phone to complain about the idea of paying duty on an item I bought in Canada two years ago but I’m told that it’s now a Canada Customs and Excise problem and I should talk to them. DHL gives me a phone number to call but all I can get is a recorded message about their backlog and a suggestion that I visit their web site. When I check out the web site, I find that I can send Canada Customs an e-mail but I am not allowed to include any personal information or the e-mail will be automatically rejected. So, I can send them an e-mail about my problem as long as I don’t tell them who I am or specifically what my problem is. I don’t think that will work.
I check out the locations of the various Customs offices in the Burlington area but the only phone number available for any of them is the 800 number which I’ve already tried. I finally decide to drive out to the Hamilton airport to see if I can speak to a real, live Customs agent. I bring with me the documentation to show that I had bought the Photo Bank at Henry’s in Toronto. The lady listens to my story, takes my documentation and goes off to check with her superiors. Fifteen minutes later, she’s back to tell me the problem is the way DHL keyed in the information and I need to get them to fix the problem. She agrees I don’t owe any custom duties but suggests I’ll still have to pay the processing fee to DHL. Like hell!
Now it’s off to the DHL office in Burlington. I insist on speaking to the manager and I go through the routine again and show him the paperwork. He isn’t sure what to do and indicates he’ll forward the information to their head office. He still thinks it’s a Customs and Excise problem. I tell him I don’t care whose problem it is as long as it gets straightened up. I also tell him I have no intention of paying a processing fee for their mistake. I leave it at that.
A month later and I haven’t heard from DHL. Doreen still thinks we’ll be hauled into small claims court. Just think how much hassle I could have saved myself if I’d checked the room safe one last time before we left our hotel room.