advance (like) australia fair

oh canada. how you disappoint me sometimes. i recently had  experiences that tainted my feelings about being home. i should have added these to the "things i liked about australia" post in my last blog, but i forgot. well, now i've remembered.

1- cell phones: it never ceases to amaze me that canada can be so crappy when it comes to cell phones. for years we've paid "tower fees" and "access fees" on our phone plans, been charged roaming when stepping 1 meter outside your calling area, get charged for calls going out AND coming in (same for texts) and have restricted times of day to use minutes. all this at ridiculous prices, on obscenely long contracts that you'd have to sell your first child (or 2) to get out of!

it's been argued many-a-time, generally by companies like bell and rogers, that canada is just too big and too sparsely populated to sustain anything else. well, not so! you see, australia is similar to canada both in geographical size and population size (in fact, we have about 12 million more people then australia). and they can do it.

sure, australian phone plans have their own faults, but i can far more easily look past them. first, australia has an "australia wide" cell phone number (or mobile, if you will). meaning that if i am on a cell phone (or mobile...), i can call another cell phone, anywhere in the country, at any time of day, and pay the same rate. perth to perth, or perth to sydney. doesn't matter. i don't have to guess if i'm calling a cell or a landline either because all cells have the same phone number style. landlines have a different one. so. much. easier.

add to that the fact that they don't charge you for incoming calls (because really, it's just ridiculous to do so), often have free calls/texts between the same company's users and that data plans don't add 40$ a month to your bill and bam! miles ahead of canada. and that's just the beginning. pay as you go actually works well there (back to the whole won't-charge-for-incoming-calls thing) and it's generally easier to upgrade your phone (without offering your kidney to them). all in all, their system puts us to shame.

i've recently had the joy of looking at my cell phone bill wondering why i got charged long distance. well, you see, when i went to another city it became my local calling area. for calling out. only. when i accepted an incoming call, i was billed long distance roaming. and the same for when i called my voicemail in another city. from my own phone, i might add. long distance fee. WHAT? stupid canadian cell phone plans. i will never get used to them.

2- banking: more specifically, online banking. if you've never had the pleasure of trying to get money transferred into your account from another bank, you're in for a treat someday. the process, involving emails and secret passwords, makes me think that canadian banks have forgotten to move ahead with the whole internet-thing. i also tried to get money transferred from out of the country. generally, a routine process involving about 12 different pieces of information (bank account, routing bank, other routing bank, codes, numbers, letters...) in australia, a simple BSB and bank account number will allow you to transfer money smoothly from one account to another. regardless of which bank you use. surely it's more secure to just transfer money without having to send an email (and then hope that the person on the receiving end either knows the answer to your secret question - my favourite band?- or else you have to send them the answer via email... it all seems a bit suss to me.

on the same note, i can pay bills/rent/plane tickets by bank transfer (because it's such an easy process). not so in canada. i actually had to get a checkbook. a checkbook! i know a lot of people still use them (i guess) but i don't. i haven't for over 4 years. it was all done digitally. so much easier. better to set up regular payments and transfers. no worrying that it'll get in the wrong hands. no need to balance it, because it's all there in front of me. easy.

the other thing banks here are missing is the visa-debit card. a visa you can use anywhere in the world and the money is immediately taken out of your account. i loved that card. i'm told it's just about everywhere else in the world. mostly it just facilitates your online purchasing without using a credit card, but it's also helpful when you go somewhere and your interact card doesn't work (hello USA) but you'd rather not rack up huge credit card bill. does it mean people won't ever use a credit card? of course not. but it means that you can buy things online and be a bit more responsible about it if you want. i never had a credit card in australia. it was kind of liberating.


canada, you could learn something from the aussies. because if they can do it, we can too. there. it's been said.
xo