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Calling Their Bluff

anguscheng.com

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Re: Calling Their Bluff

#11

Post by portaouflop »

YZF wrote: post #9
lmm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDPs are still very much useful and needed - short of the world agreeing on a single standard for what a driving license should look like, they're a lot more practical than expecting everyone to understand 192 different formats (and a few crazy countries like the USA even issue dozens of different license formats within the country). Delegating it to some random driving-related third party is slightly weird but not t…

There are many countries where just having a standard-ish license with English is perfectly fine. I think last time we had a thread on this topic someone mentioned a few countries where that wasn't true but most of Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, (edit: UK), and a bunch of other countries will just take your local plastic license as long as it has English on it.

There are many countries outside of the Anglosphere though…

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#12

Post by BLKNSLVR »

neom wrote: post #7
ricudis wrote: post #5

It's an excessively common scam nowadays that everybody is requiring an eVisa or electronic travel notice. Fun story: Once I was traveling to a country X that I was familiar enough with to know that thir governmental services web sites were awfully designed. We're talking about web design that would easily put Geocities to shame. They had recently introduced an eVisa scheme that I have to complete. Out of tirednes an…

I hear about this repeatedly with South Korea - just googled and sure enough the first result is a sponsored scam site.

I'm not sure how Google can't be held responsible for this. They're literally advertising scams. They're taking money for putting up an ad for a scam site.

I don't know how there is an excuse for this that's acceptable to any authority. It's their own platform that they seem unable to control.

Take some responsibility Google, you are profiting by facilitating evil (even moreso than by regular advertising).

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#14

Post by ricudis »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #12
neom wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear about this repeatedly with South Korea - just googled and sure enough the first result is a sponsored scam site.

I'm not sure how Google can't be held responsible for this. They're literally advertising scams. They're taking money for putting up an ad for a scam site. I don't know how there is an excuse for this that's acceptable to any authority. It's their own platform that they seem unable to control. Take some responsibility Google, you are profiting by facilitating evil (even moreso than by regular advertising).

Nowadays 90% of the "Sponsored" category that I see are scams and clickbait sites The most "innocent" of them are competitor ads trying to convert you from what you're actually searching for.

Unfortunately there are no incentives for Google to fix this. Apparently they make too much money out of it.

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#15

Post by henry2023 »

delusional wrote: post #10

Isn't this abuse of the chargeback system? I was under the impression that chargebacks were for resolving otherwise unresolvable conflicts between the buyer and seller. Here the buyer didn't even attempt to get a refund from the seller before the chargeback.

In principle yeah, it’s an abuse of charge back. In practice, Visa, MC, and Amex will just refund you without even asking any question.

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#16

Post by nicbou »

arwhatever wrote: post #13

I wonder how much of a bright line can be drawn to distinguish these sites that charge to “help” you through some governmental process vs like TurboTax.

My industry (immigration to Germany) has many of these services. The line is easy to draw: the cost should be proportional to the convenience it creates.

Basically, is it a service or an unlicensed toll booth?

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#17

Post by nicbou »

postepowanieadm wrote: post #4

There's a strange (for someone from Eastern Europe) zone around public services where shady individual thrive: like buying vignettes - you may buy "directly" from the state (nemzetiutdij.hu, eznamka.sk, edalnice.cz) or by some middleman that brings nothing to the process but has a ~20% commission.

In Germany there is also a strange zone where people bring sanity to government processes that have no business being this complicated.

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#18

Post by ricudis »

aredox wrote: post #8

This scam is everywhere: set up a website to "middleman" yourself into the application process of any online permit/certificate/authorization, make it look as similar to an official website as possible, game up your way to first place in search results through SEO, profit.

It's not even illegal in many places. There are still a ton of legitimate lawyery/agency business outlets that do the same in physical form: They just complete forms for a hefty sum.

Sometimes they would also submit the forms / get the response back for you, which could be a real service in places where normally you would wait for a couple hours in a governmental office just to submit a form.

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#19

Post by ricudis »

nicbou wrote: post #17
postepowanieadm wrote: post #4

There's a strange (for someone from Eastern Europe) zone around public services where shady individual thrive: like buying vignettes - you may buy "directly" from the state (nemzetiutdij.hu, eznamka.sk, edalnice.cz) or by some middleman that brings nothing to the process but has a ~20% commission.

In Germany there is also a strange zone where people bring sanity to government processes that have no business being this complicated.

In Greece, traditionally, we tend to consider Germany as the almost ultimate place in regards to reliability, efficiency, etc. It's a bit soothing to discover that almost everywhere everybody has the same issues (the difference in magnitude matters, of course)

Re: Calling Their Bluff

#20

Post by qweiopqweiop »

postepowanieadm wrote: post #4

There's a strange (for someone from Eastern Europe) zone around public services where shady individual thrive: like buying vignettes - you may buy "directly" from the state (nemzetiutdij.hu, eznamka.sk, edalnice.cz) or by some middleman that brings nothing to the process but has a ~20% commission.

In Spain it's the same thing but for appointments for government services.
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