Greg's trip to Nanjing and more banking/money problems

Greg got his Chinese corporate credit card just before his trip to Nanjing last week. He had a presentation to 400 Chinese customers.  His presentation charts had to be converted to Chinese and he had a translator.  He was more nervous than normal.  He took the high speed train to Nanjing.  He said the pollution was worse than Shanghai! When he arrived, he gave his new corporate card to the clerk at the hotel.  It was denied.  They would not take VISA either.  He called ICBC Bank to find out why. After finding someone who spoke English, they said it wasn't activated.  After a few hours, he determined the wrong phone numbers were on the application that his admin filled out.  So, he had no way to activate it remotely. He needed to go to a bank with his passport. He called me at 10pm and asked me to try to activate it since they had our home number listed. When I called, they said their systems did not register my home number correctly and I couldn't activate it either.  Greg had to find an ATM to get enough cash to pay for his hotel. At least his presentation went ok, :-).

Update: He got his card activated after visiting a bank in Shanghai.  He found out today that it has a $5,000 limit.  That won't get you very far if you have to get airline tickets too. He's going to Hong Kong this week.

Greg is on the left

High Speed train to Nanjing