PCCW always lives up to expectations. That is, if your expectation is that they will rip you off.

They’ve now confirmed my earlier suspicions on the huge charge I got for international roaming for their Netvigator Everywhere Pocket WiFi.

Here is what they promise: up to 20 megabytes per month for HK$388.

I used 20 megabytes in the period from November 2nd through November 10th. Here is what they charged me: $1,822.24

How can that be, you ask? That’s certainly what I asked.

After checking with our record, I would like to let you know
that due to the bill-cut off date is 9th on every month and the
activation date of $338.00 data roaming monthly plan is 30th October
2009, we have calculate prorate of the related monthly service fee and
usage. Therefore, you may not able to enjoy the full 20MB roaming data
usage from 30th October 2009 to 9th November 2009 and it should be
around 7267KB only.

20480KB (1024 KB = 1 MB) / 31days x 11 days (30/10/09-09/11/09) = 7267KB

Since you have over used 13643KB roaming data service during 30th
October 2009 to 9th November 2009 and the extra usage will cost $0.1/KB,
your bill statement of November 2009 reflected the $1364.30 extra
roaming data service fee.

So I called them on October 30th. I told them I am going to the US and want the international roaming for the month of November. They told me okay. They did not say that there was a cut-off date. They did not say that I could not apply for the service for a single calendar month. They did not tell me anything about pro-rating the service for the first 9 days of the month.

In other words, they ripped me off.

My response to them:

I find this to be a highly deceptive practice and thoroughly unethical.

In essence, you are telling me that you have a service plan that charges $338 for 20 megabytes of data within a 30 day period, I used 20 megabytes of data within that thirty day period, and you are charging me $2,000 for it?

I activated the international roaming in order to accommodate my needs for a 10 day international trip. I told the person on the phone of my needs. I was not informed of any pro-rated dates or periods or usage amounts.

I insist that you should only charge me $338 for the usage of 20 megabytes within that 10 day period that occurred within a single calendar month.

Let’s see what happens next.

I’m not Mr. Party Host but I do enjoy having people over to the house and last night threw a BBQ party for my former staff and their spouses. Having returned from the US just two days earlier and still being seriously jetlagged, I was resolved to do it nicely but also keeping things as simple as possible. I had neither the time nor the energy to do a lot of pre-cooking or preparation but still wanted to have a decent spread for my guests. Actually on Friday night I’d only succeeded in sleeping from 11:30 PM to 1:30 AM and then managed to grab another hour of sleep right before the guests started arriving.

Most of the food came from a relatively new place in Sai Kung town. I was drawn to it by the name, Cowboy BBQ. A small shop, they have a huge selection of marinated meats and seafood and other stuff to choose from. We went for chicken wings, pork chops, beef short ribs and three kinds of sausage. (I wouldn’t call this gourmet but everything was good. The pork chops and short ribs were really tender and a nice enough marinade that didn’t seem to have any MSG. I never got to taste the beef – two pounds were gone within minutes.)

Across the street at the wet market, we loaded up on fresh prawns, a few kinds of fishballs (fish, lobster, squid and beef) and a variety of veggies. I love the wet market, as I’ve said many times before; I always forget to bring my camera along when I go there. Even though Sai Kung’s wet market is said to be one of the most expensive wet markets in HK, I still find the prices reasonable and the quality almost universally high.

We did some simple seasoning on the prawns and put them on skewers with chunks of red and yellow pepper and red onion; had enough so there were at least 2 for everyone, and people basically inhaled them. Very fresh, simply prepared, they were outrageously good. People also seemed to love the corn on the cob that we got there, fresh and sweet. We also sliced up a zucchini and tossed that on the grill as well.

Polished that off with some hamburger meat from Wellcome along with the various dry goods we needed. (We toasted buns on the BBQ and provided lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, pickles for a “build your own burger” bar.) (And there was more, as one guest brought along some marinated lamb chops and another brought Filipino-style meat loaf. I never got to taste the lamb but the meat loaf was seriously nice.)

So all of the shopping was done in just 90 minutes. And the cost for everything was well under HK$2,000. Guests brought along a few cases of beer and half a dozen bottles of wine. I sampled from two of the bottles and there was some nice stuff there.

Everyone commented on both the variety and quantity of the food. But I’m of the “I’d rather have to much than too little” philosophy and also wanted a lot of choices to make sure that everyone could find something they’d like.

Despite the recent drop in temperatures, about half the group was content to spend the evening out on the patio (mostly because there’s no smoking in the house), enjoying the view and the peace and quiet that you get up here. And no longer constrained by any loyalty to what is now my former employer, people were enjoying my finally being able to tell them what really happened on various projects we’d worked on for the past 8 years.

It was also fun to note that some of the women who came to the house for the first time were initially so terrified of my dogs that they were scared to come in the house but by the end of the evening, they were sitting on the floor posing for photos with them. My dogs have that effect on people, they always win everyone over.

Anyway, it was a modest way for me to say thank you to my team for their hard work and amazing loyalty through the years. And, as the saying goes, a good time was had by all.