Here's one for you - it's a person search.  I'm trying to find my tax
accountant (he is a Chartered Accountant in good standing) in
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  His name is
Douglas R. Reid, CA and had a company called Reid & Company located on
Howe Street. He then went to a company in the lower mainland called
Cryopak Industries and left about two years ago.  Can you locate him
and get a telephone number for him?

kyro-ga,

If he's still working in Vancouver, he's taking the ferry to work.


Douglas Reid, CA is listed in the BE Yellow Pages under the heading of
"Accountants -- Chartered" as operating his CA business out of
Nanaimo, BC.

You can see his full business listing here:


http://business.superpages.ca/listings.jsp?SRC=mytelus&C=Accountants+Chartered&S=BC&PS=45&R=N&STYPE=S&paging=1&PB=R



Mr. Reid is also a member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of
British Columbia, and was honored as a "Milestone Member" in 2000 for
his 25 years of membership in ICABC:



http://www.ica.bc.ca/kb.php3?pageid=414



I trust this answer, though brief, provides you exactly the
information you were seeking.

However, please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that
you have everyting you need.  If you would like further information,
just post a Request for Clarification, and I'll be happy to assist you
further.


pafalafa-ga



search strategy -- Google searches on:

[ "douglas reid ca" OR "douglas * reid ca" OR "reid douglas" ]

[ bc yellow pages ]

---

Request for Answer Clarification by kyro-ga on 26 Apr 2005 11:27 PDT

It turns out that there is more than one CA named Douglas Reid working
in BC.  I called the contact that you gave me and we agree that we
don't know ech other.  I then called the Institute of Chartered
Accountants of British Columbia and the receptionist said that she had
a number for Douglas R. Reid, but she would not give me the number. 
She told me that the best that she could do is call him once and leave
a message for him to call me.  That is less than helpful but better
than nothing. Is there anything else that you can do?

---

Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 26 Apr 2005 12:06 PDT

kyro-ga,

I'm trying to come up with a witty musical joke about "double Reids",
but it's not quite happening.

Too bad, though, that the Douglas Reid I uncovered wasn't your man. 
Perhaps there is more I can do to pinpoint the other one.  But first,
it would be very helpful to understand a bit of the context.

Are you contacting Mr. Reid for business reasons?  If so, it's hard to
see why he wouldn't respond to your message via the ICABC.  If this is
a contact for personal reasons, then I am quite limited by the Google
Answers policies in the extent to which I can dig for more
information.

In either event, it would be helpful to understand a bit more here, if
you can, but do bear in mind that this is a public forum.  Any
information posted here can be seen by anyone.

Looking forward to hearing back from you on this...


paf

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Request for Answer Clarification by kyro-ga on 26 Apr 2005 13:58 PDT

I didn't realize that this was such a public forum.  In any event, the
call was business oriented and the right Doug Reid called me after
being contacted by the ICABC.  It turns out that he's not practicing
anymore and has moved on to other things. He was able to give me the
contact information that I was looking for, however. Thank you for
your quick responses - I won't hesitate to use this service again. 
I'm not sure what your policy regarding compensation in situations
like mine. Could you tell me how much this is going to cost me?

---

Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 26 Apr 2005 14:27 PDT

Hello kyro-ga,

I'm glad the information I provided allowed you to make contact with
Douglas R. Reid.

As for the matter of payment, once your question was answered, your
account was automatically charged the fee that you set for your
question.

I trust you feel you received your money's worth.  But if you have any
questions or concerns, please either (a) let me know by posting a
follow-up comment or (b) contact the editors using the email link at
the bottom of this page.


Hope to see you back at Google Answers one day soon.


paf

I guess the lesson to be learned here is to be careful when pricing your questions.

There is no good way of handeling this situation.  You can request a
refund but I'm not sure it will be accepted as such because
pafalafa-ga has done some research and should be compensated.

As a neutral observer it seems as though perhaps the answer should
have been presented as a clarification since the researcher had no way
of confirming that this was indeed the correct man.

I don't dispute the fact that the researcher should be compensated
fairly.  Clearly, having had no prior experience pricing questions, I
have no idea what fair compensation is.  My only point is that I found
the right Douglas Reid and I would think that ought to be worth
something.  The only thing that I did different after hiring Google
than I did before was calling the ICABC out of frustration as opposed
to reviewing its website, which I did prior to hiring Google.  In any
event, it's not going to break the bank and it wouldn't dissuade me
from using the service. I'll just be a little more saavy next time.

kyro-ga,

There's no way for either you or I to change the price of the question
at this point...your account has doubtless already been charged once
an answer was posted.

As I mentioned earlier, if you feel strongly the price should be
adjusted, then you would do well to contact the GA editors to discuss
the matter with them.

I do hope we'll see you back at GA one day soon.

pafalafa-ga