Hi everybody!

It looks that I tend to only write here only about outrageous things that are a little bit funny.

Do not make a bad impression about how things are going with me. I would say that I have very little to complain about (well, since I moved to the UK that is). I will try to write something nice next time. :-)

P.S: I've finally finished the article about the temporary Romanian passport. Read it below!

I just renewed my car insurance today and I've noticed that all the websites are exactly the same. Therefore I looked deeper into it and got to these pages:

http://www.admiralgroup.co.uk/business/our_companies.php
http://www.bglgroup.co.uk/about/brands_and_products.php

Reading them, it became obvious how to become the world's richest person:

The recipe is:

1. Ask "nicely" the government to pass a law to oblige all the citizens to buy your product (say... car insurance)
2. Create the competition: create several "sister" companies that will sell the same product (ex: Admiral, Elephant, Gladiator, etc)
3. You make sure that the customer buys from you : create a comparison website for the products that you sell (confused.com, comparethemarket.com)
4. You create the main company in a tax free heaven: Gibraltar and move all the profits there before you are taxed.

How to increase the profits even more:

1. If the government won't force people to buy more of your products (probably because they would riot), when you sell your main product force the people to read your advertising regarding other products (life insurance, accident insurance etc)
2. If this doesn't work online, disable online payments and make people call so you can explain them all your products and ensure that you try all selling tactics as longs as possible. You also provide them with a different price than the one online, hoping that they won't notice.
3. If your product costs you too much (the claims too high), get the government to pay more to the police, maybe they can arrest any of your clients that are increasing your costs.
4. If you really have to pay a claim, find any reason not to. Get your more experienced people into this department and pay them a percentage of the money that they save you. This department will be able to get you to pay less than you agreed for.
5. Increase your product fee every year and automatically charge the clients. Make sure that if they do not want to renew they are not able to cancel online; Force them to call a premium number (where you charge every minute 5-10 pence) and keep them on hold for half an hour.

And the top of hypocrisy: 
Even that you provide no product, and you damage the society, proud yourself with your professionalism and service. Here is a quote from a letter received from one insurance company: "I hope you have been happy with our service so far. We have set our sights on achieving the 'perfect' service"

Simple!

What is a Romanian temporary passport good for ...

07/03/2011 12:00
I start planing my trip to China. As my passport pages are almost all full, I'll have to replace it.
I understood from a friend that Romanian embassies are quite useless because they need 6 months to replace a passport. If this is incorrect information, everything that followed might have been avoided.

13:00
I buy a plane ticket for Romania to go and replace the passport (£140), departure 11/03/2011, return 17/03/2011.

11/03/2011 8:00
I arrive in Romania

11:00 @ Romanian Passport Service
I'll need to wait 15 days for a regular passport to be issued (and I'm leaving in 7 days). Also, they won't release the passport to a 3rd person or mail it anywhere.

However, it looks that there's a solution: Temporary Passports are issued in just 2 hours! But... there's a note on a wall stating that Japan does not accept Romanian Temporary Passports and if we have one, we need to apply for a visa for Japan before traveling there. I figure that if this is the case, some other countries might not accept it either; I wonder why is Romania issuing temporary passports if they are not good worldwide.

I ask and the clerk at the Information desk from Romanian Passport Service doesn't know if China accepts these kind of passports. Of course, he has no idea where these passports are accepted or not and advices me to call the embassy where I want to travel to find out.

While I was there I notice that, although Romanians have a long tradition in queues, they have no idea how to to organize one. From 3 offices that receive applications, the clients manage to queue only to one of them and, when they find out their mistake, they start shouting at each other and at the staff, arguing that they do not organize this properly. The staff kindly highlights that they are not receiving their salary directly from the applicants therefore they should not tell them what to do. Please notice the word "directly" as it was very important in this argument... Still, I notice that the staff is way more polite than usual Romanian clerk.

12:30 @ Romanian Passport Service
I just finished talking with Chinese consulate from Constanta (as the one from Bucharest is closed) and they assure me that the Temporary Passport is fine for China and there's nothing to worry about it. For this reason I decide to apply for the temporary passport (£50) but this has the unfortunate effect of voiding the current one.

I also inform the clerk at the information centre about my findings and he thanks me about it and assures me that he'll pass on the information to the next clients.

13:30 @ Romanian Passport Service
My paranoia tells me that I should create a backup plan therefore I decide to apply for the regular passport too (£60). However, in order to get it I have to surrender the temporary passport that I have just paid £50 for. I will also have to go to the notary and pay £20 more to give the power to my parents to pick up the passport for me as it will be ready only on 25/03/2011.

The clerk notices that my Identity Card is going to expire shortly and tells me that I should renew it before it expires as it will be more difficult after this.

For those who do not know, the Identity Card serves exactly the same purpose as a passport with the exception that the Passport is valid only for abroad (you cannot use it in Romania at all) and the Identity Card is valid only in Romania.

14:00 @ Romanian Passport Service
I pick up the Temporary Passport. For once, I am happy that in Romania everything is going well and I have solved everything in one day...

Few days later...
I arrive in the UK and apply by post for the Chinese visa. You see, this is possible in the UK, compared to Romania where you have to queue for half a day.

2 days later
I receive a call from the Chinese embassy who informs me that they cannot put the visa on a Temporary passport.
Well, if I insist, they will issue the visa on the temporary passport but:

• I have to write, sign and send them by post a paper with a declaration that I will "support any consequences" of this action. 
• I also have to go to London, to the Romanian embassy and get a paper from them that the temporary passport is valid.

Obviously, I ask them nicely to return my documents and I only loose £12 paid for post

1 day later
I receive the documents from the embassy and send the temporary passport back to Romania by DHL (£20 more down the drain). I was strongly tempted to use it as TOILET PAPER before sending it back as this is all the temporary Romanian passport is good for.

7 days later
I get from my father the proper passport from Romania back by DHL (£40 more down the drain). Lucky me that I had the backup plan and the notary paper already made as they would not have released it and they certainly do not post any passports!

It could have been worse: Without the backup plan I would have had to go back to Romania to apply for the new passport, wait another 16 days and return to pick it up. Or better yet, I could have flown to China to be refused entry.

You have to love Romania!

Comparison on how to pay a tax in Romania vs UK

How to pay a tax in Romania...

22/09/2010 14:00
A while ago I got a letter from the court stating that I have to pay them. However there’s no mention on where to pay it so I went to ask where I should pay it. The answer appears to be simple: Post Office or Tax Office.

15:30

I arrive at the post office and find out that I have to complete a form by hand. I’m asking the clerk if there is any commission to pay but she ignores me. I figure out that the quickest way would be just to complete the form and I’ll see from there.

The form contains the sender’s and receiver’s address twice, has nowhere near enough space to write the whole address and the space allocated for the bank account is 2cm wide and some bright mind gave this format to the accounts: RO44TREZ70220330108XXXXX. According to the model I need to overwrite printed text so I complete everything quickly and I return happy and confident at the office. As there is just one person in the queue, I am happy that I won’t have to wait for long. At this point I am quite amazed how every store is so empty compared to the UK and the extra paperwork I find here won’t matter and everything will go quickly. I’ll be back at the court in no time, finish this task and I can continue my other tasks as planned.

The customer in front of me has to pay the electricity bill; Do not be amazed, in Romania, the people still have to get out of the house every month for every bill they have to pay and walk or drive somewhere to pay it. I quickly calculate that this would take an average of 1-2 working days / month for each paying citizen…

10 minutes later, the lady finishes with the customer in front of me and I smile happily at her, waiting to be greeted. The clerk continues to stare at her computer for an extra 2-3 minutes. Finally, she raises her eyes and give me a very friendly “what do you want?”

I give her the completed form, she starts to read it for a while which turns into minutes… It appears that “unfortunately” I have to complete the form all over again as I have an extra space in the spelling of the amount that I have to pay. Yes, I had to write the amount in numbers and letters too.

While I go back to complete another form at the desk the queue starts piling up. I calculate that the 5 people that just arrived would take her at least 50 minutes and I start to lose my patience. I figure out that I made a mistake on the 2^nd form so I start writing the 3^rd form. On this one I do my best to write it correctly. While reviewing it I see that there’s a field that I’ve missed so I quickly write the amount in letters as this one is exactly as the other one. However, it appears that I had to write the amount in numbers in here so I start writing the 4^th form.

The 4^th one is correct so I return to the office and as I don’t have the patience as yesterday, I ask her if I really need to queue again. Fortunately I do not, so she handles me next. She informs me that I have to pay 1.1% commission, which is more than the commission of sending 20000GBP from UK to China.

As I’m accustomed from UK with paying no commission to the banks and also do not agree with the idea of a commissioner to charge a percentage in order to cross the street with the money, I give up and go home.

So one hour and a half later I have accomplished nothing.

Next day - 23/09/2010

09:30

I got the idea of just going to the place where the account is open to deposit the money. This works worldwide so it has to work here. However, I have the fortunate idea of calling the branch where the account is opened and they inform me that they only deal with companies and no cash. Therefore I decide to go to the last available option, the Tax Office.

My father informs me that there are more bureaus and he gives me the address where he pays the taxes.

Once at the tax office I go to the information desk where there’s a gay clerk. Obviously he cannot help me in any way. He sends me to pay at post office and I wonder why they have even have an office. After I tell him that the commission for sending money at the post office is unacceptable and I am not willing to pay for it, he informs me that I should go to the accounting department at the headquarters, 4-5km away.

10:30

I arrive at the headquarters for the Tax Office where they kindly inform me that I have to go to the Post Office. After I’ve explained what happened yesterday they tell me that the Post Office staff are incompetent and they should have informed me to use a different service. They give me a stamped and signed paper with instructions for the Post Office and off I go.

12:30
Back at the post office and armed with the new instructions, they finally decide that they indeed have a way of not overcharging me (!) but it is impossible to pay as the computer does not want to accept the payment. After I insist the clerk calls the supervisor and she discovers that she should have uncheck the box which says "fine" and everything goes smoothly. I pay and go happy to the court.

13:30

I arrive at the court where they accept my payment and tell me that in order to make sure that I won’t be charged again, I should go to the tax office and prove them that I've paid.

14:30

Back to the Tax Office’s Headquarters: I show them the paper and this time they look me up in the computer. As they can't find that I need to pay this tax they assume that the request from the court has not yet arrived. However, they advise me that I should go to “Fiscal Office” and check if I owe anything else to the government. At this point I figure out that there is another, different, institution in this county that does exactly the same thing. We have so far Tax Office and Fiscal Office, none having access to the other’s database, both with the attributions to get money from the people for exactly the same thing.

Anyway, as I am the Tax Office, the clerk is so kind to inform me that I have 2 fines to pay and my mother has some taxes to be paid. Lucky me, there’s no data protection act here or I should have carried my mother here to find out what these taxes are. They print the list and advise me to pay it promptly.

15:00

At the Fiscal Office, It appears that I can be found in their database. Happily I give them the proof of payment in order to clear everything out. To my surprise they inform me that I shouldn't have paid at the Post Office. They rush me to get my money back or I’ll lose them.

15:20

At the post office they inform me that unfortunately the clerk went home and it is not possible to get my money back. They complain that the clerk should come back from other part of the city... However, after I insist a while they find a way to get my money back.

I sign the papers that I got the money back and leave them my phone numbers just in case they can think of something else I need to sign.

16:00
I pay everything at the Fiscal Office. I think that I have to get back to the court and inform them that I've moved the money to the right place. Also I should go back to the Tax Office and inform them the same.

17:00
I get back home and tell my father that I and my mother have some fines & taxes to pay. I show him the print and we figure out that these taxes are already paid but he did not inform the Tax Office. Maybe I should do that too…


How to pay a tax in UK...

Debit Card/Direct Debit. It takes 5 minutes.

Conclusions
- The beneficiary (the court) gave me 2 solutions, both wrong. However if you don't pay it in the right place you get sued.
- The Post Office made me complete a form 4 times (while they could have done that on the computer) just to find out that this could be avoided.
- The Tax Office gave me the wrong account as they did not bother to check in the first place.
- The Post Office were about not to serve me as they can't use a computer.
- The payer has to tell the beneficiary and 2 other institutions that he/she paid somewhere else for them.
- I had to drive 100km to pay one tax.

... and the Romanians wonder why their country does not work!