Annoyances in Mexico

I've spent the last couple of days in Mexico City working on a two projects. I find Mexico City a bit too large for my tastes but interesting. I ate at a two very good restaurants. And I had a some very good meetings. But here are two things which annoyed me.

#1 - Telmex and the iPhone - Unlike the situation in Aguascalientes a few weeks ago I had a lot of problems with my phone in Mexico City. Two things were troubling. First, frequently I would get a message when trying to call "Call Forwarding Activated" and then would be denied the ability to call out. There was no rhyme nor reason to the problem. I tried to troubleshoot it with AT&T yesterday and they did not have a clue. But second, all of the calls come in as Blocked - so I cannot see who is calling. When the iPhone begins to sell in Mexico I hope both problems are fixed.

#2 - Capitalone - Last night I had a dinner at a fairly expensive restaurant and tried to pay for it with my Capitalone Mastercard. I am a good customer of Capitalone but they refused to authorize the purchase. I tried to call their helpline TWICE and both times was cut off by them. When I get back to the states I will call their fraud desk and then decide whether or not I will cancel the card. I spoke to a couple of friends who said Capitalone is often a problem on authorizations. Needless to say my balance was less than 2% of my authorized limit so there was not a credit problem and the total amount of the sale was $250 or a small fraction of my available balance. I paid for the dinner with another card but was annoyed that they would question my credit. Notice that a few weeks ago I made a purchase in another part of Mexico which was about the same amount with no problem. GRRRR....

The picture is from one of the archways in the office of the Secretary of Public Education which is one of my favorite public buildings. I had a meeting there this morning.