Ordinary Gweilo

I’m sure I have previously mentioned the frustrations of using badly designed computer systems that assume that you must have a postcode or zip code.  Hong Kong is one of several countries that doesn’t have either, but often they insist that you enter something anyway.

I have just had a very aggravating experience with one of these systems.  Typepad (the people who host this site) sent me an email saying that they couldn’t process my credit card payment because the card company thought that the address didn’t match.  So, off I went to the Typepad site to check my address, but I couldn’t see any problems.  Plus, they have successfully processed payments from me in the past, and absolutely nothing has changed since then.

Typepad replied to my complaint by saying it was the card company’s fault (but, of course) and that the message indicated a problem with the street address and the zip code.  So I entered the street address in line 2 and tried again.  Same error.  Remove the zip code.  No, same error. 

Eventually, after a long process of trial and error I discovered that the second line of the address is actually the name of the estate, the "city" contains the street address, and the "state/province/region" contains the town. 

How am I supposed to know that Typepad and the card company are using this logic in comparing the address?  Why should it even be my problem?  Anyone looking at the address information I have supplied could tell instantly that the details are the same, but the computer system lacks this basic common sense and just treats it as an error.  What a load of nonsense.