Hand in the Visa Jar

Something probably not a lot of people know is that whenever I use my Visa, I go home and almost immediately pay it off. I need a Visa for travelling, and I get points on it so it's more convenient than debit. It's also ultimately more secure.

Something else to know: I almost never use my visa for a Taxi! I almost always pay in cash, even those $40+ rides to the airport and back. Which reminds me - Hey I'm in Holland still! Hello again from the land of windmills, tulips, and mosquitos in October!

Now to the point: Thanks to the wonders of internet banking, I can check my visa bill remotely - hey there it is in another browser tab ("Hello Visa balance!"). So imagine my surprise when I see some Toronto cab rides appearing - like yesterday! Now to be true the first "odd" entry I noticed was this:

13 Oct 2005 NG TAXI MARKHAM ON 50.00

Now I was in Toronto on the 13th (a Thursday) , but I'm really pretty sure I didn't take a cab to Markham that day. Oh that reminds me of something else! I always use BECK Taxi. There is a Taxi stand at the corner of Yonge and Eglinton and there's always a few there. Okay but honestly I let that one go because life has been busy lately and who knows.

Ah but then I get these:

19 Oct 2005 KEN MARKS - TAXI TORONTO ON 25.00
19 Oct 2005 AIRVISE SERVICES LIMOUSINTORONTO ON 35.00

Now see, I know I wasn't anywhere near Toronto on the 19th, and I also know that the only cab ride I took recently was to the airport using who? That's right - BECK Taxi, and I paid using what!? Oh yes, Cash. At this point I sent an alert using the messaging system in my bank's website to start tracking these suspicious transactions. I got a message back today saying they're looking into it (I chose the wrong dept. to send it to apparently so it took a little longer to find the right person). Oh and looky here:

23 Oct 2005 ANYO LEASE/GAS/TAXI TORONTO ON 44.00

Wow, whoever this is they are taking some serious taxi rides! So no update on how this gets resolved, I'm confident it will though since I so obviously am not the one using my card that's in my wallet, with me in Amsterdam. I wonder if whomever this is knows those little cameras in the Taxis record images?

Is there a lesson here? Yes! Always double-check your bills, I probably would have let that first $50 slide as having come from somehwere.

Continue reading... | Posted 03:53 PM to Personal - (20) Comments

Hello from Holland

So I landed safe and sound early this morning (or was it late last night!?). I have to say although the direct flight was good I think next time I'd risk the heathrow transfer. Air Canada just has more flights through Heathrow daily so they're not as likely to be full. Luckily I was on an aisle seat but the legroom wasn't great. Other than that in economy at least there isn't as much to seperate KLM and AC. I think I felt I got about the same stuff, and the A/V setups on 747s and old A300's equally suck.

So far even the little bit of Amsterdam I've seen is beautiful, I can't wait to get out exploring. I'm staying in someone's apartment which has a few quaint features like the fridge in the bedroom and the shower in the kitchen. but it's huge and in a good area of town, and way better I'm sure than some average hotel. It's 200% better than where I stayed in London. So everything's setup and for now it's off to find somewhere to get some Lunch (breakfast!?)

Posted 06:19 AM to Personal

Cheltenham Badlands

I think the Cheltenham Badlands [ flickr ] are the new Whitby Mental Hospital [ flickr ] for Toronto area photobloggers this year. By that I mean they are this years previously undiscovered photographic treasure.
Like many such locals, I found out about this one from my semi-daily perusal of daily dose of imagery back in July. My jealousy of Sam runs long and deep and if you haven't checked out his site you're really missing something.

If you look at the satellite image on Google Maps you might think it's pretty small. In it's own way it is small but so worth it. It's hard to believe something like this exists in a place like Ontario, except Ontario is just so freakin' huge. The up and the downside of the sites popularity is that this type of shale seems to be quite fragile and the back of my head wonders how long its natural beauty can last. When you see families with small children and those big three wheeled strollers running around it makes you wonder.

My own pics of the Badlands can be found either from the photo gallery here (dig for it) or on flickr. Something about the shale reacts very differently to various light conditions which is why the red is inconsistent between frames.

Posted 12:01 AM to Personal