Hi dufton (?),
Sounds as though you had a great time. However , my bank ( NAB) advised me
how to avoid being charged an exchange rate every time I made a transaction
with my Mastercaed whilst overseas. They are giving me a Travellers Card
loaded up with pounds stirling , then I pay all my bills in Uk in stirling
and avoid exchange rate rip offs at each transaction. I can reload it in
GBPs on line if I look like running short at any time.
Tony
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of dufton
Sent: Tuesday, 29 January 2013 11:56 AM
To:
Subject: birding-aus Digest, Vol 82, Issue 58
Re booking overseas trips
We went to England and Scotland in May 2012.
We booked all our accommodation ahead but directly through the owners or
managers of the accommodation via the internet.
In all cases we were given a lower price and in most cases did not have to
pay ahead although some in the busier towns required a deposit.
This may not be the case for very low cost accommodation but I always make a
good nights sleep a priority to get the most out of every day - we hit the
ground running and are up from dawn to dusk when we travel so it makes good
financial sense as we can do more every day if we are feeling healthy and
well rested.
We always pay any deposits by credit card as if you do not receive your
service - eg the accommodation is not available - then you can submit a
claim at the bank and they will refund your credit card and then try to get
the money from the accommodation - in fact you can do this for all credit
card purchases for example plane tickets where the airline collapses. I
always have a separate special card just for use overseas which I close when
I return it is pretty safe.
We had fantastic service at all the places we stayed in despite the
amusement of trying to work out the different types of plumbing.
As our time was very limited (3 weeks) it saves us a lot of time not to have
to spend time looking for accommodation and we used google map trip planner
which gave us a good idea how long we would take to get from place to place
and how long we could afford at each place - we always would love to stay
every birding place longer no matter how long we are there anyway. When we
told locals how short a time we had they were super helpful pointing out
best places and special birds we might like to see so we had a fantastic
time -thank you all you wonderful British bird watchers. Birdwatchers in
general are a lovely tribe to belong to anyway.
Stranded by the floods and not able to get home to Brisvegas - missing all
the those great birds - sigh!
Leonie
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of
Sent: Tuesday, 29 January 2013 11:00 AM
To:
Subject: birding-aus Digest, Vol 82, Issue 58
Send birding-aus mailing list submissions to
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"Re: Contents of birding-aus digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Birding in Bundaberg Qld (Trevor Quested)
2. Ex-TC Oswald Seabirds (Graeme Gallienne)
3. Strange bird behaviour at Weipa (Alan Gillanders)
4. Re: Cautionary tale re paying for overseas birding trips
(Peter Shute)
5. Re: Cautionary tale re paying for overseas birding trips
(Tony Russel)
6. Lesser Frigatebirds at Horshoe Bay, Mgnetic Isand, Qld
7. Thousands of Fork-tailed Swifts and White-throated
Needletails
8. Re: Cautionary tale re paying for overseas birdingtrips
(Chris Brandis)
9. Australasian Swiftlets and Fork-tailed Swifts, Toomulla, N
Qld
10. Re: Cautionary tale re paying for overseas birdingtrips
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 06:58:24 +1000
From: Trevor Quested <>
To:
Subject: Birding in Bundaberg Qld
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Thanks Mike Carter for asking about us. We are not in a flood area and just
lost a lot of trees from the horrendous winds. Chris Barnes is ok but I'm
not sure about his house. It hopefully is safe but the water was still
rising when we last spoke. Nev and Jann Capell were evacuated by boat as
their home went under. They are with friends. Sad news about Bill
Moorhead's home. It is right in the line of the raging Burnett River.
Trevor Quested
Sent from my iPad
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 07:02:01 +1000
From: "Graeme Gallienne" <>
To: <>
Subject: Ex-TC Oswald Seabirds
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hi all,
Yesterday I was flood bound at home at Cedar Creek (just NE of Mt Tamborine
on the Gold Coast) and a bit jealous of all those birders getting out to the
coast and recording all the unusual seabirds. However, my husband called
out as he'd noticed an unusual bird so I ran outside with my bins and as I
watched from my verandah throughout the day I saw quite a few Sooty Terns,
adults and juveniles, several Common Noddies, at least one Pomarine Jaeger
and a different unidentied smaller Tern which appeared to be an immature as
it had mottled plumage on its breast. All were very unexpected as we are
about 11 kilometres from the coast as the bird flies and my property list
has risen by 4 species as I also recorded a group of 4 Hardheads blown by -
although common in the SEQ area, not so here.
Cheers,
Sandra Gallienne
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 07:46:13 +1000
From: "Alan Gillanders" <>
To: "birding-aus" <>
Subject: Strange bird behaviour at Weipa
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Greetings from beautiful Yungaburra,
I received this interesting missive about Oswald related bird behaviour and
was wondering if someone on this list could help out.
Regards,
Alan
Hello.
I was wondering if your organisation could give me some help in explaining
an unusual bird behaviour that I observed during the worst part of Cyclone
Oswald up here in Weipa last week please?
I am currently working on the Schergher RAAF Base approximately 40 kms east
of Weipa and on the Sunday 20th at around 11.00pm I observed literally
thousands of medium sized birds circling our illuminated basketball court.
The birds were later identified as Bridled Terns with a sprinkiling of
cockatoos. These birds manically circled our centre in about a 100 metre
radius with the wind gusts often blowing them into each other until
disappearing at day break. The next night being the eve of Tuesday the 22nd
(and by far our worst night of our storm) they were back at nightfall again
continuing their manic circling until around 3.00am when they began falling
randomly out of the sky and in large numbers into our flooded compound where
a group of men often waded thru thigh high deep flooding to rescue 224 of
the fallen birds that were too exhaused to fly anymore. I tried releasing a
few after a few hours but theyt would barely get off the ground, bank to the
side and crash la nd where we would grab them and put them back into our
shelter again. We dried them off the best we could thermally and gave them
shelter until transferring them to a local wildlife refuge for release
during the day on Tuesday. Fortunately we only couldn't save a reported 4
of them but the rest were released without incident later that day. Haven't
seen them since. Is there a name for this behaviour, what causes it and is
it common because I have never seen anything like it? Straight out of
Hitchcock movie lol.
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:26:33 +1100
From: Peter Shute <>
To: Peter Marsh <>
Cc: "" <>
Subject: Cautionary tale re paying for overseas
birding trips
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
This sounds like an inside job. Even if you had used a credit card to pay
them, would the bank refund the money? I think they would if you had paid
the right people and an insider had passed the card details on to someone
else. But would they be interested if you had paid the wrong person?
Peter Shute
Sent from my iPad
On 28/01/2013, at 4:26 PM, "Peter Marsh" <> wrote:
> Dear Birders,
> I appear to have had a very lucky escape when paying for a birding
> trip in
East Africa. I had a recommendation to a local birding company in the
country concerned and communicated with them a number of times regarding a
private trip I was organising. This communication was all done by e-mail
with them using a single e-mail address. After a number of exchanges I
received an e-mail (apparently) from the same e-mail address asking me to
send the money to them via Western Union. I did this and received an e-mail
from the (apparently) same e-mail acknowledging the receipt of the money. I
also received advice from Western Union that the money had been picked up..
>
> A few days later I received an e-mail (again from the same e-mail
> address)
asking if I was still interested in the trip! I responded referring them to
their acknowledgement of the money. That night I had a phone call from the
company advising that they knew nothing of the money or the acknowledgement.
I sent them copies of all the exchanges. I have now received advice that
someone at their end has been arrested and that the birding company will
recognise the payment and my trip is on.
>
> In researching the situation I have come to understand 2 key things
>
> 1) NEVER SEND MONEY TO A BUSINESS THROUGH WESTERN UNION. It might be
> fine
for sending instant cash to a friend or family member through WU but should
not be used for business transactions. This is because the security is
pretty small. If you receive a request from a bird guide to send money
through WU I suggest you phone the guide and say you need bank details.
money sent through a bank is more traceable.
>
> 2) NEVER RESPOND TO AN E-MAIL FROM AN ?UNKNOWN? PARTY BY HITTING THE
> REPLY
KEY. My tech savvy brother has made me aware that it is quite easy for
someone setting out to do a scam to send an e-mail appearing to come from
e-mail address A but for the reply to actually go to a different e-mail
address B. If you have the genuine e-mail address in your address book and
use that to address the e-mail rather than hit the reply button you know
what address the e-mail has actually gone to.
>
>
> I stress that the birding company and Western Union appear to have
> behaved
honourably at all times. I also appreciate that it is only through their
efforts the perpetrator of the attempted fraud appears to have been caught.
I will, however, be more careful in the future and thought it worth sharing
this experience with other birders who might be thinking of chasing birds in
distant parts of the globe.
> regards
> Peter Marsh
> ===============================
>
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message:
> unsubscribe
> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> to:
>
> http://birding-aus.org
> ===============================
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 09:09:35 +1030
From: "Tony Russel" <>
To: "'Peter Shute'" <>, "'Peter Marsh'"
<>
Cc:
Subject: Cautionary tale re paying for overseas
birding trips
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Hm, doesn't all this indicate that it is unwise to pay anyone overseas in
advance - unless you know them personally. I'm heading off to UK in April
and have been advised not to pay anyone in advance ( except the airline and
car rental). By all means book, but only pay accommodation and guides etc
either during or once you have received the service, not before. I've even
been told not to book accommodation in UK until the morning before you are
certain where you are going to be that night because there is so much accomm
available it's easy to find somewhere a day in advance. This last bit also
covers the possibility of a pre-booked and paid trip not going exactly to
plan and losing one's deposit.
BTW, this is not a birding trip, I'm not even taking my bins. I might have a
look at a few birds but I'm not much interested in ticking overseas birds,
only Aussie ones.
Tony
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Peter Shute
Sent: Monday, 28 January 2013 8:57 PM
To: Peter Marsh
Cc:
Subject: Cautionary tale re paying for overseas birding
trips
This sounds like an inside job. Even if you had used a credit card to pay
them, would the bank refund the money? I think they would if you had paid
the right people and an insider had passed the card details on to someone
else. But would they be interested if you had paid the wrong person?
Peter Shute
Sent from my iPad
On 28/01/2013, at 4:26 PM, "Peter Marsh" <> wrote:
> Dear Birders,
> I appear to have had a very lucky escape when paying for a birding
> trip in
East Africa. I had a recommendation to a local birding company in the
country concerned and communicated with them a number of times regarding a
private trip I was organising. This communication was all done by e-mail
with them using a single e-mail address. After a number of exchanges I
received an e-mail (apparently) from the same e-mail address asking me to
send the money to them via Western Union. I did this and received an e-mail
from the (apparently) same e-mail acknowledging the receipt of the money. I
also received advice from Western Union that the money had been picked up..
>
> A few days later I received an e-mail (again from the same e-mail
> address)
asking if I was still interested in the trip! I responded referring them to
their acknowledgement of the money. That night I had a phone call from the
company advising that they knew nothing of the money or the acknowledgement.
I sent them copies of all the exchanges. I have now received advice that
someone at their end has been arrested and that the birding company will
recognise the payment and my trip is on.
>
> In researching the situation I have come to understand 2 key things
>
> 1) NEVER SEND MONEY TO A BUSINESS THROUGH WESTERN UNION. It might be
> fine
for sending instant cash to a friend or family member through WU but should
not be used for business transactions. This is because the security is
pretty small. If you receive a request from a bird guide to send money
through WU I suggest you phone the guide and say you need bank details.
money sent through a bank is more traceable.
>
> 2) NEVER RESPOND TO AN E-MAIL FROM AN ?UNKNOWN? PARTY BY HITTING THE
> REPLY
KEY. My tech savvy brother has made me aware that it is quite easy for
someone setting out to do a scam to send an e-mail appearing to come from
e-mail address A but for the reply to actually go to a different e-mail
address B. If you have the genuine e-mail address in your address book and
use that to address the e-mail rather than hit the reply button you know
what address the e-mail has actually gone to.
>
>
> I stress that the birding company and Western Union appear to have
> behaved
honourably at all times. I also appreciate that it is only through their
efforts the perpetrator of the attempted fraud appears to have been caught.
I will, however, be more careful in the future and thought it worth sharing
this experience with other birders who might be thinking of chasing birds in
distant parts of the globe.
> regards
> Peter Marsh
> ===============================
>
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message:
> unsubscribe
> (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
> to:
>
> http://birding-aus.org
> ===============================
===============================
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
http://birding-aus.org
===============================
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:47:58 +1100
From:
To:
Subject: Lesser Frigatebirds at Horshoe Bay, Mgnetic
Isand, Qld
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On 26/1/13, as a result of Oswald, George Hurst counted at least 60 Lesser
Frigatebirds at Horsehoe Bay on Magnetic Is off Townsville, Qld.
Chris Corbett per Joan Wharton
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:53:21 +1100
From:
To:
Subject: Thousands of Fork-tailed Swifts and
White-throated Needletails
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On 27/1/13 Larry Corbett, Chris Corbett and Rosemary Payet watched a dense
flock of thousands of Fork- tailed Swifts and White-throated needletails
for 2 hrs (12.30-2.30pm along Cungulla Rd, from Aims Rd to Cungulla Beach.
Rosemary Payet per Joan Wharton
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:57:20 +1100
From: "Chris Brandis" <>
Cc:
Subject: Cautionary tale re paying for overseas
birdingtrips
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="utf-8";
reply-type=original
I booked a hotel in Singapore via a booking agency but I was delayed.. I
rang them to get the booking transferred but they stated I had to cancel,
hotel policy, and rebook and pay again.
I said I would get back to them but I did not.
When I got to Singapore Airport there are instant accommodation agencies
just outside the gates so I booked into the same hotel. When I got there
they said that it was not there policy and I could have transferred without
a problem.
Trouble is finding the hotel contact number as on the web they all seemed to
go through the same agencies.
Cheers Chris
|
