They have to be!
Are they insane? $14.95 per day?
I’m petty sure they don’t get a whole lot of boaters paying those prices!
Related Posts
16 Comments
Comments are closed.
Are they insane? $14.95 per day?
I’m petty sure they don’t get a whole lot of boaters paying those prices!
Comments are closed.
Sort of like the shock I got last night when wanting to park on Davie Street in Vancouver. In the Shoppers Drug Mart lot – $19.00 for three hours. WHAT??!? So left there and parked on the street at a meter for $9 for 5 hours. Unreal.
As far as I am concerned, wireless internet should be free at all customer based locations such as coffee shops, marinas, hotels etc. It’s SO cheap for them and it buys them TONS of good will. Why don’t business owners understand this, I wonder.
Yeah, some of them just don’t get it. Here in Oriental, NC, they DO get it!
Just be careful about where you turn on your computer. If it connects, you WILL get a bill! That’s how they get you. No one would pay that amount on purpose, but your computer will connect automatically if there is a WiFi signal, and they will use the computer’s address to find and bill you. Sneaky! And they will claim that, since the notice was up, that you were aware of the charges and accepted them. My son got caught that way one time.
I got a bill like that once from a coffee shop! There was no statement about fees on the opening screen, but there was a statement in the food menu! I got unpleasant and the bill was removed. Clearly, the waitress hated it, as I’m certain it cut heavily into her tips.
I’m not one that demands everything be free, but don’t nickle and dime me if I am already paying for lodging or such.
BTW, you can generally get free pumps-outs where you get gas, if you ask. Same reasoning. The exception seems to be state subsidized programs, where the fee is locked-in!
I think they would have a hard time collecting on a bill like that. There is no way I would pay.
They’d never collect.
So, how did you post this then Mike? Did you pay the $14.95?
bob
Nope. Found a free signal, although it was a bit intermittent.
We bought the Virgin Mobile mifi hotspot in Annapolis about a month ago. Unlimited Internet for $40.00 per month with no contract. It runs of the Sprint 3G network and is usually fast enough to stream Netflix movies.
hmmm… that sounds interesting! I may have to look into that.
And we all thought that the boating life would be simple and free!
hehe… yeah right.
No, they’re not insane, Mike… just greedy. Very greedy. IIRC, that’s more expensive than the on-board WiFi on the train was four or five years ago, back when Internet at 135 km/h was cutting-edge technology.
For a business to run a basic WiFi hub- at least here in Ontario- costs about $55 a month, plus a one-time purchase of $60 or so worth of hardware. I doubt it’s much more expensive down there. Perhaps this is just one of those places that thinks boaters are rich and like to spend?
My old Toshiba has a little switch on the side- “kill power to WiFi radio”- to avoid both interference and billing issues.
The issue Helen mentions is not an uncommon trick, but it’s a scare tactic- not actually legit, although some companies might try to pretend it is. If it happens, let the local police know that you found a fraud artist trying to get into your laptop to scam you out of credit card data. They ought to know what to do.
Greedy and stupid. Perhaps they should pay me for some consulting and I’ll let them know the error of their ways.
Enjoy that $14.95 per day, it’s going to seem cheap later. In the last 6 months crossing from Mexico to Australia (well, almost- we’re in New Caledonia now) the internet access has generally been quite a bit more than that- and the bandwidth is truly lousy.
Here in Noumea, it’s 1000 local francs, or US$11.71, for an *hour* at an internet cafe!
In Vanuatu, it was around $5… per hour. Fiji was the best deal, you could get connected for about $1/hr.
Soak it up… and if you’re heading this way, brace yourself!
Hmmm… pretty sure there would NOT be daily updates of this blog if I had to pay those rates.