Bogotá Directory|Arepa of shame

THE AREPA OF SHAME:

The Arepa of Shame is awarded to those individuals, companies or websites that have excelled in the art of cynicism, awkwardness and making it difficult for consumers to give them their money. It takes a certain stupidity to win this most prestigious of accolades and arepa medal winners should wear their arepas with pride. Send an email to nominate a winner.

Current title-holder

-Helm Bank- One of the recurring themes of the Arepa-of-Shame winners is the concept of making it difficult for your patrons to give you their money. Well that's one concept to grasp when your are a cobbler, or a fishmonger for example. Perhaps the vagaries of running a business escape you in your desire to concentrate on cobbling or mongering fish.

Now suppose you are a bank, and your business is based upon the construct of taking people's money off them, how could you possibly get that wrong?

Banco Hell

Helm shows us how. Damn right it is nice at Helm, everyone gets to wait in their plush atrium, perched atop bright orange comfy chairs as birdsong wisps through the air. They even have the TV ads where the customer enters their tranquil foyer and requests a room for the night. "Sir" they advise him "This isn't a hotel, it is a bank"

Well please Helm bank, for the benefit of banking customers the length and breadth of Colombia... Please please please be a fucking hotel because as a bank you are completely useless. Getting banking services from you is like trying to get a Tel Aviv butcher to sell you a nice joint of gammon.

As such, and fittingly, here is your arepa of shame. Please have the maid bring it to room 406, and I could use some clean towels too.

Previous winners

-moonpig.com- Dagnamit! Don't you just hate it when someone has a great idea then makes a hash of implementing it? Moonpig is that great idea. Here's the concept, UK, Australian and USA expats can design and send greetings cards online and have them delivered locally to recipients in the UK, Australia or the USA. Great for those of us that live in a country without a serviceable postal system.

So it is potentially a genius idea, but it doesn't work, design your card, register to send it, and you have an empty "cart" so you have to design it again.

So when you have designed your card, registered, designed it again... Try and pay for it! You cannot, it is simply impossible.

Damn you moonpigs. You probably don't even know what an arepa is but you just won one.

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-All About Colombia Forum- Nothing is quite as gratifying as when the expats roll into town, criticise the way that Colombians do business, and then goof it up themselves.

Colombian websites are notoriously lumpy, so a very special commendation goes to Norman the owner of allboutcolombia.com. Norman established the site as a discussion forum for all things Colombian, then pooooof, it vanished the weekend of 12 and 13 June. Bogotá Directory understands that US hosting company Fat Cow let them down somewhat, so Norman can share his arepa with them.

Visit allboutcolombia.com, it might be there, it might not be.

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-EPM UNE of Bogotá- An inability to bill one's own customers is always heartwarming. UNE whilst having the slickest & best quality wireless local loop in Bogotá, fall back on that old staple "making it hard for customers to give you their money."

UNE has a fantastic online invoice checking facility which recognises you are a customer but refuses to believe you have a telephone. They also fail to bill customers occasionally, forget to add the amount to the next month's invoice and choose instead to record customers as debtors with credit reference agencies.

Congratulations UNE you crazy Paisas! Enjoy your delicious arepa of shame.

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-TurBus of Chile - Aviatur.com rapidly relinquished their arepa and it headed south to Chile. Turbus is arguably one of the most sophisticated bus networks in Latin America, their website is so fantastic that you can even choose how much your seat resembles a bed, and then click on it to pre-book it (clicking on the driver´s seat doesn't work)

However, TurBus will not let you buy a ticket without registering, not such a great problem, except for they won't let you register without a Cédula Chilena, so it is off limits to all foreigners, oops! That's TurBus embracing tourism.

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-Aviatur.com - Because their "online payment" process requires one to send 5 emails, go to the bank to withdraw funds, go to Aviatur's bank to deposit the same, go to the internet café to scan the receipt, send the scan in another email, send a 7th email to confirm they received it, then call them. Well done Aviatur!