"Just email me your credit card number..."

Part of the reason I want to go to France is to experience a new culture. However, like a lot of Americans, I am finding certain cultural differences to be...frustrating.

For example, several months ago I booked a room in a French hotel (and later cancelled it), and they asked me to confirm the reservation by emailing my credit card number and expiration date. Eh-heh. Je pense que non.

I solved the problem by calling the hotel in France using a phone card I've had since college. The card miraculously still had minutes.

I thought the concept of emailing a credit card was isolated to the security-ignorant hotel, but when I reserved an afternoon excursion touring several chateaux in the Loire Valley, the request to email my credit card number was repeated.

It made me wonder--what are these businesses thinking when they ask me to email a credit card number? More disturbing still--how many other Americans have accommodated the request, putting their identity at risk and risking that all of their funds will be cleaned out while they are on vacation. Obviously a sizeable number have emailed their numbers, or companies would no longer make such absurd demands.

I'd like to step on my soap box for a moment and encourage everyone to never email information that might compromise their identity or financial information. Additionally, I'd like to make a request on behalf of the naive and ask that no one request that anyone email confidential information.

(I've stepped off my soap box--for now.)

I ended up calling the Loire Valley excursion company. The first phone call was interrupted when my phone card ran out of minutes (I retract the previous miracle statement), so I had to call and recharge, earning a whopping 10 minutes for $10 and a $1.50 service charge.

I'd like to step back on my soapbox and ask that all "service charges" and "convenience charges" be renamed to something more apropos, like "annoyance charge" or "gouging charge."

Perhaps someone ought to take away my soapbox. This ranting could go on for a while.