Payment Crashes with VPI (1 Viewer)

[Cotswold]

Last year I had issues with an advance booking for an internal flight in Australia six months in advance and paying for it from the UK.
After filling everything in, at the end the credit card company sends an email with a six digit code. Then entering the code and clicking the verify button
it crashed. I tried it a second time thinking maybe I did something wrong but the same result. Then I tried another credit card with the same thing. After
probably hours talking to different people I discovered that the cause was my VPI. When the VPN was off it was fixed. The payment system gave no error message about the VPN.
Same thing today. Buying something in the UK from the UK, the same thing happened. After I switched off the VPN everything proceeded as normal.

(The only problem with the airline software was that when I tried to book it after the first crash, the price went up. Presumably their AI, or pre-AI software decided that there was an unexpected demand on that day, six months away, so jacked up the price. I had to abandon the process and try again the next day when it had realised bookings hadn't gone up and the price had dropped back down.)

 

[AccessBlaster]

I have read that booking from different devices (laptop vs phone} can also effect pricing. Presumably younger folks tend to use their phones. I am not sure how the algorithms sort that out.

 

[Isaac]

VPI ?

 

[Cotswold]

Yeh, I've just seen it! I should really check what I've typed.

 

[Mark_]

VPI ?

"Very Private Identification". Can't tell you more about it though, it IS private...

 

[moke123]

I have read that booking from different devices (laptop vs phone} can also effect pricing. Presumably younger folks tend to use their phones. I am not sure how the algorithms sort that out.

Back when I worked privately, we used to do it the old fashion way. Look out the window, see what kind of car they showed up in, and set our hourly rate accordingly.

 

[Cotswold]

"Very Private Identification". Can't tell you more about it though, it IS private...

It is maybe likely to be Veritable Professional Idiot

 

[Isaac]

Back when I worked privately, we used to do it the old fashion way. Look out the window, see what kind of car they showed up in, and set our hourly rate accordingly.

I just had a plumber come to my house, they all are sayign the same thing these days "we don't quote you anything up front, they come there and they quote you a quote after they look at the problem, if you don't like it they can walk away you owe nothing" - wouldn't even tell me what a simple service call + 5 minutes of work would be even as a hypothetical with fixed inputs! very annoying.

I was wishing I didn't live in a nice neighborhood with a 3 car garage. I'd have fared a lot better if I lived in a trailer and was offering iou's .

So the guy comes and quotes me $250. I told him I was appalled and told him I was thinking more like $150. He said "Ok, we can do that".

I thought is this what plumbers have come to at this point? a total BS negotiation?