A public scam

A couple of months ago I had to catch a bus from an unfamiliar location. Since I didn’t know if I had to hurry or not I accessed the mobile site of HUR. After entering the bus number, however, I was presented with a page saying it costs 1.50 kr to access the service. Now it’s not much, but at that moment I couldn’t be bothered and just hoped I would catch the bus.

Last weekend I wanted to find out when the first bus came Sunday morning. I didn’t feel I had a choice and selected OK to pay the 1.50 kr. At that point, however, I was presented with an error:

Unfortunately, we can read your mobile number which this service requires. This error probably occured because you’re trying to view it in a normal web browser, or your cell phone is set up to use an internet gateway…

(My translation, probably not 100% correct.)

Well duh, you don’t think I’ll be using the WAP gateway as you suggest? I have better things to use my time and money on than surfing on my cell phone using wap. With GPRS at least I don’t have to wait three days trying to access the site. Seems HUR have elected to not get any customers on this service as everyone I know use an internet gateway and GPRS instead of WAP.

Tags: ,

4 Responses to “A public scam”

  1. Ida says:

    wow! how things have changed! I’m pretty certain tha tabout a year ago or less I accessed HUR via my cell to get bus times, and it was free and easy!

    btw google’s web service is excellent, here I can use it for movie times and everything!

  2. Jonas Rabbe says:

    btw google’s web service is excellent, here I can use it for movie times and everything!

    Their mobile web service? I’ll have to try that, I don’t know if I’ll get much out of it here in Denmark, but it’ll be fun to look at either way.

  3. Malene says:

    Over here (montreal) we can access stm.info and get schedules and even route suggestions for free (just enter starting and ending point and desired time of departure/arrival and it’ll give you 3 suggestions!)

    Also, all bus stops have a number assigned and by calling the stm you can get the next three busses of any route at that stop.

    I think HUR is a little too focused on profit… seem to have forgotten they’re supposed to provide a service.

    Why don’t you call them and complain? Where does it say you can’t use GPRS?? Tell them you want your 1.50 back.
    :grin:

  4. Jonas Rabbe says:

    They never got my 1.50 because they couldn’t figure out my phone number.

Leave a Reply