Letters: caught out by counterfeit currency

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This was published 10 years ago

Letters: caught out by counterfeit currency

LETTER OF THE WEEK

When I went to a bank in Greece with five €200 notes received at a currency exchange booth in Sydney, they were confiscated due to being judged counterfeit. An official police report and photocopy of the notes was duly sent, on my return, to the local manager at the exchange centre back in Australia. The response? Apparently the onus was on me to detect the bogus notes at the time of exchange, because once you leave the office, responsibility is denied. It doesn't seem to matter that you would expect real notes from an Australian office.

-Con Retsas

LOST AND FOUND DEPT

Leigh Cholakos' story (Letters, February 15-16) gave me a major case of deja vu. In transit in Kuala Lumpur after a trip to Japan in 2012, my husband and I accidentally left our DSLR camera (with all the photos from our trip) at the boarding gate. Between the time I spoke to an employee of the airline's baggage-handling company - who confirmed they had my camera at their office - at noon and the time I arrived at their office at 5pm that same day, the camera had vanished. The baggage-handling company's insurer ended up replacing the camera but, sadly, there was no compensation for the loss of all of the photos from our trip.

-Ivany Yanry

I lost my reading glasses on a Qantas flight to Perth. Fortunately, we had to return to the airport the next day and when I inquired at the customer service counter about them, the staff produced a box with spectacles in it. Glad to say, I found my glasses. Thank you Qantas, but perhaps some indication that having a lost property facility would be helpful.

-Josie Moncrieff

I spent a great day at Tokyo DisneySea resort late last month but upon leaving, I couldn't find my Suica card (the universal smart card for transport and extras around Japan). Optimistically, I left my details with lost and found and had to purchase another card to get me back to the city. What a surprise when a courier arrived eventually with the card. That's service for you!

-Jane McCabe

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EMPTY FEELING

After a heavy three-day conference schedule in Hobart, my colleague and I decided to take a chance and head to the airport in time for an earlier Jetstar flight to Melbourne.

On reaching the service desk, however, we were amazed to learn that, unlike other domestic airlines, such as Virgin, Jetstar would not simply transfer us (with perhaps a small fee) on two of the five empty seats on the earlier flight than we had booked. Instead, they would only cancel our original booking (which cost about $150 return each) and charge us $450 each for the Melbourne leg.

Needless to say, we were not willing to pay this amount. We finally boarded our return flight about 8pm on Saturday. Unfortunately, we spent a further two hours sitting on the taxiway in heavy rain and lightning, waiting for the storms to pass. The pilot was fantastic, updating us every 10 minutes on the weather, with our flight eventually leaving at 10pm. So, a rave for the pilot and a rant to Jetstar for their inflexibility and poor customer service.

-Tess Parker

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