mark@sickkids.UUCP (Mark Bartelt) (06/22/89)
In article <1989Jun19.162903.21776@eci386.uucp> clewis@eci386.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes: > UNIX Review > is just being stupid - either ignorant of geography (Canada's probably > in Europe somewhere) [ ... ] I realize that I'm resurrecting an old topic here, but what the hell ... It's surprising how many companies lump Canada in with their "rest of the world" category. One of the sillier examples of this is Citibank. I have a Citibank (US) Visa card. Their billing centre is in North Dakota (maybe South Dakota; I forget), and for years their bills were mailed from there. Around the end of last year, the bills started arriving from Europe. Not even from the same place: Sometimes from the Netherlands, sometimes from Denmark. I'm sure that my bills are enjoying their European vacation, but it does slow down delivery a lot. I presume that what's happening here is that Citibank transmits the data electronically to Europe, where the bills are printed and mailed. This makes sense for bills sent to European customers, but is a really stupid thing to do when the bills are going to Canada. It's not only slower, but the postage is higher as well. [ The mail-from-Europe syndrome affects even organizations which you'd expect would know better: For a (short) while last year, Canadian members of Usenix were getting their copies of ;login: mailed from Europe. Fortunately, in this case the solution was easy: A quick e-mail note to Peter Salus fixed things. ] Because of postal delays, I've had a number of these bills arrive after the due date, and others so close to the due date that it wouldn't be feasible to get the payment to them on time (unless I used an air courier service!). I've written to them explaining that I have no intention of paying any late fees or interest charges resulting from the tardy delivery of their bills. I haven't gotten a reply yet. Curiously, since this started happening, I haven't been charged any sort of late fee or interest charge, even when the bill (and, therefore, the payment) arrived well past the due date. I wonder whether they silently extend the due date for their international customers ... Mark Bartelt UUCP: {utzoo,decvax}!sickkids!mark Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto BITNET: mark@sickkids.utoronto 416/598-6442 INTERNET: mark@sickkids.toronto.edu
jyegiguere@lion.waterloo.edu (Eric Giguere) (06/23/89)
Yeah, this is another of those American mentality problems... I just recently
sold an article to a large-circulation American magazine. Communication
with them through the mail was always sent to me via Amsterdam. As someone
pointed out, this slows things down considerably. Also I'm SURE it must be
cheaper to just put a stamp (isn't mail to Canada the same as the US rate?)
and drop it in a mailbox rather than SHIP all the mail first to Amsterdam
(no electronic copies here) and then mail it. Oh well.
Eric Giguere 268 Phillip St #CL-46
For the curious: it's French ("jee-gair") Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6G9
Bitnet : GIGUERE at WATCSG (519) 746-6565
Internet: giguere@aries5.UWaterloo.ca "Nothing but urges from HELL!!"denise@dptcdc.toronto.datapoint.com (S. Denise Neufer) (06/26/89)
In article <14675@watdragon.waterloo.edu> jyegiguere@lion.waterloo.edu (Eric Giguere) writes: >cheaper to just put a stamp (isn't mail to Canada the same as the US rate?) If you ask the U.S. post office they will tell you it is about 10 cents or so more. If you put a standard U.S. 25 cent stamp on a letter (this is the cost of mailing a letter within the U.S.), I have noticed the letter makes it here just fine. Denise {uunet,utzoo}!denise
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (06/26/89)
In article <645@dptcdc.toronto.datapoint.com> denise@dptcdc.toronto.datapoint.com (S. Denise Neufer) writes: >>... (isn't mail to Canada the same as the US rate?) > >If you ask the U.S. post office they will tell you it is about 10 >cents or so more... The cross-border rates used to be the same (on both sides) as the internal rates, but a few years ago some negotiations activated (on both sides) an old clause in the US-Canada postal agreement that permitted raising the cross-border rates. >If you put a standard U.S. 25 cent stamp on a >letter (this is the cost of mailing a letter within the U.S.), I >have noticed the letter makes it here just fine. In general, you can get away with an awful lot if your letter/parcel doesn't happen to pass by an alert postal employee, and there aren't many of those. They tend to be cranky about insisting that there be a stamp on the mail, but otherwise they seldom pay much attention to the details. For example, once in a while a reply card I'm sending back to some company has a preprinted label with my address and is sufficiently ambiguously designed that the Post Offal decide it's addressed to me and deliver it back to me. My standard response is to throw it back in the mail. It generally makes it the second time, cancelled stamp and all. -- NASA is to spaceflight as the | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology US government is to freedom. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu