As you know I got my permanent Indian license for car which was valid for 20 years. They gave it to me based on my US drivers license (no driving test needed). They actually weren't supposed to give me 20 year license, it was only supposed to be for the duration of my visa, until Dec 2011.
Today I just wanted to take bike test and add bike to the license. But they realized the 20 year expiry error and took my license away. Now i start fresh with learner's license only, and even after I take driving test, it will have to get renewed every year. Sure this is no big deal if I leave in 2012, but if I stay longer...
I was better off having the car license for 20 years. No cop would have noticed that I don't have the bike certification. But I will have to go back to take the bike test in 1 month, then get a permanent license valid for only one month. Ugh.
I meant to spend only 2 hours at the RTO, then go directly to work. I ended up having to be there from open to close. It was raining and I spent the whole day is soaking wet jeans (yes I illegally drove my bike to the RTO).
On another note, I met a nice family while spending the whole day at the RTO. I stopped at their home on the way back for coffee and offerings to Ganesh (Hindu festival going on now).
There I met a guy whose job interested me very much. He works in a call center, but not a legitimate one. Everyone knows about internet scam schemes, well I met someone involved in this. This guy's "company" has a website that americans think is a payday loan site. Americans fill out form for loan, but get rejected, meanwhile their SSN and other personal/financial details have been collected. Several months later, they get a call from a "debt collecter" saying that they owe money for payday loan, and they get threats of credit score cuts, seizure of assets, etc. The american thinks that they have been a victim of ID theft. They usually choose to pay off the small amount ($200-500) rather than take the case to court.
I was not surprised by this scheme, but rather surprised that a very kind person was working for such a company. He has moral issues working at this job, but stays there because no other jobs are available.
I don't have a good lesson for this story. Only to say that no one is 100% good, and sometimes we compromise our morals and justify our actions...
Not surprising. A friend of mine works in a call centre. One day he got a call from some guy claiming that my friend had won a lot of money and that he had to make a small transfer to be able to get the whole money(similar to the nigerian scams). My friend told him that he knew about these scams and he was not interested. The guy on the other line said it was not a scam and gave him a number to call as proof. The number started with the ISD code +92(pakistan). Initially, my friend didn't knew it was from that country.
ReplyDeleteSo anyway, my friend called that number and the same guy picked up. They talked for hours and both became affable. The paki guy briefed my friend about the details of the scam. Basically, pakistani's are avid fans of indian television and it's crappy soap operas. Since indian channels are banned, they smuggle indian DTH equipment(videocon, airtel, bigtv etc) to pakistan and sell it at black market prices. But they also need subscriptions. So they call up random people in india and trick them into depositing money into Mr. X's accounts. This X is another guy living in india having an indian bank account. He spends 80% of the money on DTH subscriptions and sends it to pakistan. The other 20% he keeps.
And guess what? My friend has become another one of those Mr. X's working for paki scamsters. If the victims ever went to the police, my friend would be the first guy in jail and interrogated. If he revealed the paki link, he'll be fu#ked for life!! I tried explaining to him about the risks but his pursuit for easy money has made him stupid.