Bkk Fun-their fail

At the end of September I decided I wanted to buy a monthly pass from  one of the new ticket machines. BIG MISTAKE

After going through the whole process and getting to the payment screen everything seem to be going fine. Unfortunately all was not well and the ticket machine did not give any thing, no ticket no receipt.

So we go to the ticket booth and the lady working at the time said we had to go to Deak to file a report. I had to buy a single ticket to get to Deák as I was in Nyugati Metro station.

By this time I was pretty annoyed, I get to Deák customer service desk, explain the problem to the girl. I could tell my the girls face she had understood what I said but she did not know how to reply in English, she just kept saying Igen, Igen (yes). So I said to my other half, please speak to her in Hungarian this is going to be painful enough as it is.

The girls initial reaction is,well the lady at Nyugati shouldn’t have sent you here and the machine probably didn’t take your money, so you should just check it online when you get home. This is a common thing in Hungary when people can’t be bother to deal with a problem (far to often) they just give you some lame reason, so as not to actually deal with any problem. At this point I said to my boyfriend well We’ve lost 1.5hrs of our Sunday just trying to buy a monthly ticket, so lets waste bkk times.

So we said to the girl, well the online banking  won’t update until tomorrow morning, if we don’t file a report now, how can we prove we were ever even at the machine? With a rather large sigh she agrees to complete the form. The first questions is what is the machine number, I’d taken a picture, she puts it in the system. According Bkk system the machine is located at a Hev station pretty far out. The next questions is the best “are you sure this was at Nyugati?”Because I always go around taking picture of ticket machine numbers, obviously the system is wrong. Fair enough these are new machines, but surely there is some logical system to installing the machines?Form complete She tells us that bkk have 30 days to deal with the request. We buy another ticket and go on with the rest of our day.

Monday afternoon I check the bank and surprise surprise the money has been taken. By chance I check the bank a few days later and I was amazed to see the money had been refunded. Which was of course fantastic, but very surprising as thing never happen that quickly in a country slowed by reams of paper work and beauracracy.

Today I receive a phone call from bkk, telling me I cannot get a refund. I do not tell the girl on the other end of the phone that I’d already received a refund but carried on the phone call to say that the money had been taken from my account ect ect. She told me I need to send a copy bank statement by email.

It’s just very funny for me that different departments do not communicate, so I will email my bank statement to them and who knows maybe I’ll get another refund!

Hungary is moving forward especially in Budapest in terms of improving public transport and simplifying things, but they can just never ever seem to get it right first time around. 😦

Finding My Feet

So after 6 months of a lot of up and downs I finally came to the realisation that actually with out all of these I wouldn’t be where I am now.

I finally have all the paperwork to work here! I can official say I am a resident of BUDAPEST! 🙂

I have a nice office job with normal hours…No more 12 hour shift!!!

My confidence in my self is finally returning….

I’m confident enough to go most places in the city on my own.  Previously I didn’t even feel confident enough to step out side the front door sometimes.

So its time I started looking to the future and How I can be my confident self again. As much as people speak English in the Capital I need to start learning more Hungarian. I want to be able to do things for my self and not really on other people so much.

In turn I’m hoping this will make it easier to make friends as an expat I have found it difficult to make friends with natives. Which I completely understand because they do not wish to speak in English all the time. It is easier enough to make friends with expats but most are students or just working here for a short period of time .

I have always been very independent and feel I have lost this in quite a big way since moving here…maybe this is one of the factors that has affected my confidence to.

So I am proud to say that I am finally starting to find my feet! I just need to keep pushing forward and eventually every thing will fall into place!

Bureaucracy is no one’s friend in Hungary

I would say it is difficult for foreigners in general to go to any Government Office in Hungary, but even Hungarians tell me they struggle. No matter who you speak to, there is no logic to the red tape and paper work,no one understand the system. Funnily enough I always get the impression not even the government employees really know what is going on.

Over the last 6 months I’ve visited many offices and the story is always the same.

You get your number, you wait ages, you get to the counter and they either claim you are in the wrong place, you do not have the right paper work or you’re not in the system.

I always get the impression they don’t want to help you or in reality they don’t know what the real answer is (because no one understands the system) so they tell you anything, like you need another paper, just to get rid of you so they don’t have to deal with it!

More often than not you go back for the 2nd or 3rd time with the requested paper work, you speak to a different person and they tell you it’s not required and amazingly they can deal with your request.

The below blog by mia some ups the immigration office very well and I had a similar experience.

http://miaworld.blogspot.hu/2006/08/i-hate-hungarian-bureaucracy.html

I can laugh about these experiences now, but at the time it is very frustrating and time consuming.

The moral of the story is!

If you do ever have to deal with these offices, take every physical piece of official paper work you own (original and copies) some one who speaks Hungarian and don’t forget your mothers maiden name!