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SCMP Reporter

THERE'S a joke about the young son of a tycoon who was asked by his tutor: ''What is two plus two?''   The tycoonlet replied: ''Are you buying or selling?''.

  We were rather reminded of this when a reader, who we'll call Mr Reader, rang about the new-style bill from Hongkong Telecom, which he received last week.

  He rarely uses his line for IDD, and overpaid the last IDD bill he received in July last year.

  The new bill revealed that he had been about $250 in credit for the past 12 months.

  Mr Reader asked for a refund. A cheque, please.

  ''Sorry, that'll take a month,'' said the person at Telecom.

  Now it cannot have escaped the notice of customers who receive the new bills that if they don't pay their accounts in full within 12 days they risk having their lines disconnected.

  However, Hongkong Telecom itself clearly regards a month as an adequate delay before getting its own cheque book into action.

  Mr Reader pointed out this imbalance to the employee at Telecom.

  ''Ah, but we're computerised,'' was the response.

  Of course.

   Chequemate  STILL with the territory's cuddliest monopoly, another reader, who we'll dub Mrs Reader (no relation), called to say that her new-style bill was wrong.

  When the payment details had been transferred from the old computer, Telecom had managed to forget the last two cheques she had sent, so it looked as if she had not paid a bill in three months, and the outstanding amount was pretty large.

  It would be best to skip over the part that Telecom had the nerve to demand that Mrs Reader provide it with copies of bank statements to prove that she'd paid.

  But it can't escape attention that Telecom says this ''affects only a very small number of customers''.

  Ten? Fifty? In fact, ''very small'' turns out to mean about 2,000.

   Over and out  MONDAY was a bit of a sad day for Eddie Au Yeung, the former managing director of Kingly Commodities who had his registration revoked by the Securities and Futures Commission.

  In the 1960s and 1970s, he was one of the territory's best-known radio personalities. In those days, Radio Television Hong Kong was known merely as Radio Hong Kong.

  Every Christmas, Eddie would be happy to do something off-the-wall to raise cash for Operation Santa Claus.

  In 1964 he promised to jump into the harbour wearing only a bathing costume and his specs. And unlike some others who could be named, he actually carried out his promise.

   Changelings  A COUPLE of ex-exchange people have appeared in funny places.

  Mark Hanson, the head of the exchange's listing division who joined Peregrine, has popped up at Crosby Securities, where he's going to be doing corporate finance stuff and also doing some work on its Sri Lankan business.

  And Gary Knight, chief executive of the Futures Exchange until the end of last year, is still in the territory.

  He's doing work for Dharmala Capital, the finance end of chicken legend Dharmala Holdings. He is also advising an unnamed European bank, and working with partners to set up a company based in Hong Kong, which sounds as if it will act as the Asian agency for specialist derivatives operators in Europe and the United States.

   Endless circle  QUITE a few people are looking forward to the day when Clement Mak Shiu-tong takes control of Asia Securities International - if he ever does.

  Clement has been seen in the lobby of almost every merchant bank in Hong Kong trying to raise finance for a staggering project called Sun City, a strange city of the future with a street plan that shows lots of circles. It is to be built in China on land now producing turnips.

  He bought Double Kingdom hoping to inject Sun City into it, but it hasn't worked out, so now he's trying again.

  Unfortunately, $1 billion for cities of the future in China isn't so easy to come by these days.

  Still, if he could get his deal together, it would at least mean merchant bankers wouldn't have to look at Clement and his circles again.

  Mail-crazy  IT'S always heartwarming to see a company doing it's bit for the environment, which was why a colleague was impressed to see that the Regal Hotels group had put, on the back of its latest glossy and rather large mailing: ''As part of its concern for the environment, Regal Hotels is committed to reducing envelope usage''.

  The idea was that if you received a duplicate copy you'd fill in a form and tell the firm.

  Then the first duplicate arrived . . . and after the seventh copy it became pretty clear why Regal was anxious to avoid reducing envelope usage.



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South China Sea

Telecom meltdown on those IDD refund pay-days