Let me tell you a little tale about the Oak Bay Marine group.

I signed up for a trip with them about 6 years ago. When I called them with my credit card, I asked about their trip insurance. I was working in a demanding job at the time, and I wanted to know what my options were if work intruded. The young lady on the phone said, no problem, buy the trip insurance, and you'll be covered. So I did.

Three days later, the paperwork came, and the terms of the trip insurance were death of you or a family member, or your hospitalization were the only things that the trip insurance would cover.

So I called them back, got the supervisor on the phone and explained my plight. Too bad, was the answer. Well, I'd like to cancel the trip, then. Nope, was the answer.

So, they'd lied to me, and weren't going to allow me to cancel the transaction. Fine, that's why we use credit cards in these things, to protect ourselves, right?

So, I called Visa, and canceled the transaction. Everything seemed fine, until three months later, I got notification from Visa that they had contacted the vendor, and they were going to reinstate the charge! It seems that Visa's policy when dealing with purchases of accomodations and trips is to rely more heavily on the word of the vendor than on the customer.

So, this, as you might expect, steamed me. I called the Visa folks, and asked for some explanation. They explained how, for purchases made more than 50 miles from home, they tended to rely on the vendors.

At this time in my life, I was traveling a lot, and was running about 5 to 8,000 bucks a month through the card. Visa gets about 2% of every charge you make, so at this rate, as a customer, I'm worth $1200 a year to them. The charge in question was for about $400.

After we did that math, and I told them that, if they charged me this, they were going to lose a business customer, Visa ate the charge. However, Oak Bay ended up being able to keep my money.

Oak Bay Marine Group lied to me and stole my money. It will be a cold day in hell before I ever do business with them again, and I recommend that you keep your hand firmly on your wallet if you choose to book with them.

Oh, and as it turned out, I got sent to Tokyo during the time I would have been fishing.