I'm going to share a story that show these things can go both ways. I had a first time caller book a 4 hour morning trip for Oct 17th. He called from a local number and lived in the Victoria area. He gave me his name, tel and a credit card number. When I get a credit card number that is a booking....why would I have it otherwise? I take this number so that if someone books a date 6 months out I know I won't remember the conversation but having that credit card number tells me that date or time is booked and anyone else inquiring about that date is out of luck. I've gotten in the habit of telling people no charges are applied until the trip is done. I rarely get burned so its a small risk...last time would be more than 10 years ago. Most of the time I will give local people the starting time and directions to the boat and tell them I will call them the night before the charter to discuss weather and make sure everything is a good to go.
So the night before comes and when I finish dinner i give him a call and get voicemail on his cell. I leave a message that I want to change the starting time from 7am to 8am based on what happened the during today's fishing. I call again later and get voicemail again so hang up. I'm assuming he is out and getting in late...so now I have to stick to 7am as agreed to in the first call. So I drive to Sooke and have the boat ready to go by 6:30 and sit and wait. By 7;05 no sign of them so I call his number. He picks up and says ohhhh yehh, well the two of us couldn't get a fishing license because the system was down so we thought we couldn't go. I told him I have emergency paper copies for just that occasion. I told him I was on the boat and was waiting for him. He says well why would you do that when I didn't return your call? I said because every year I have a few people who don't call me back until the morning to say they are just a few minutes form the marina...they didn't call because they were out for dinner and it went late...or they missed a ferry and got in late....in either case they thought I would be in bed so didn't call. I have a credit card number and have to show up...better that then I assume your not coming and sleep in to leave you standing at an empty boat early in the morning. I said you obviously got my voicemail why didn't you have the courtesy to call me? Gave me some song and dance about being out of camp for only 7 days, family, friends, no time to busy. THAT burned my butt. To busy to call....yeh right. So at that point I said I'm sorry but I will be running your card for the charter. He laughs and says go ahead and see where that gets you. The conversation ended...he then calls back a few minutes later and says maybe we have both cooled down a bit....I said not really...what is pissing me off was you saying you were to busy to call. He apolagizes and admits he should have. I told him that I'm reasonable and if you had I would have told you about the paper licenses I carry and if at that point you said well I didn't know and made other plans...I would have said no problem, not really your fault and hopefully we can do it another time. So he says well how about you put $100 on my car to cover your gas and time this morning and I won't dispute the charges. I knew that was the best resolution under the circumstances so it ended there. Later that night I ran his card for $100...DECLINED. And I left a voicemail for him to call...no response. Tells you why FishinTofino collects up front!!!
can be a little cranky if the nucks lost the night before but he should be used to that by now
