Part 8: This is how we do things in the bizarro world

By the time Wednesday the 28th rolled around, things looked to have quieted down. I had a pile of work from Disney, Expat Exposed was leisurely acquiring traffic, and we were looking for light-up shoes for one of our nephews' birthday. Then one of ExEx moderators called up. He had been phoned at work by TVNZ, wanting to do a story about Expat Exposed. Yes, our 3-week-old site with 28 (?) members. How had they gotten his contact information? Why were they under the mistaken assumption that he was one of the founders? In any case, we arranged that they should call me instead. You can read about the interview and the resulting furor (which led to 2 more TV appearances) on Expat Exposed.

Besides the media interest itself, what we found utterly bizaare was that it was move2nz that had contacted TVNZ about us. Because of lawsuit threats, I had to make sure TVNZ knew what it was getting into, and in the course of the discussion, it came out that the Bells had gone to TVNZ with this non-story of our existence and handed over personal information about an ex-member, who just so happens to be Trisha's husband. Yes, the same nice lady they'd threatened to sue. Why they didn't hand over my personal e-mail instead, we can only speculate about. All I can do is speculate, in fact, about why someone would consider it a retaliation to send us thousands of visitors and increase our membership count 14-fold. I suppose if you think very short-term, it sort of makes sense. Move2nz was also featured on the first news report, and apparently presented as "good migrants" who had the last say over evil Expat Exposed. I think they got more air time as well. Was it worth all the boost they gave us to be able to deride us for a few minutes on national television? And of course, they weren't on for the subsequent 2 appearances. Whatever floats your boat, I guess. All 3 programs are available here. No, I haven't watched them and I don't intend do. Why is everyone so surprised by that? Whatever happened to privacy laws? Something about how we were rude guests criticizing the tea and crumpets we were served. Hm.

• NZ$1700 for EOI, application and migrant levy.
• NZ$600+ for a full physical.
• Being fingerprinted twice, for about NZ$65.
• References from workplace and colleges. Financial statements.
• Cost of initial visit.
• The moving cost and set-up.

A $13,000+ cup of tea. From what I'm told, they started with a complete hatchet job and backpedaled to a fairer coverage with 2nd and 3rd. I declined to participate in the planned 4th coverage for reasons covered in the next installment.