Delusions of Connectedness

Now that it’s almost time for us to resume “normal” life, we’ve been taking care of a few housekeeping matters like cell phones and banking. Hah! That’s what we thought we’d do, anyway. This blog has been rant-free...until now.

“Hey, we’ll just stop in at the friendly neighborhood Verizon store and claim the new phones they promise us every two years,” we said. Nope. We got our phones in IL and this is CA, so the computers can’t talk to each other. At all.

At the store they said, “Go online!” but online they said, “We can’t help you here-give us a call!” The helpful agent on the phone suggested that we have phones delivered to a friend in IL and then get then con said friends into mailing them to us here. What customer service! We’re still looking into how that can be resolved, but it may be that when I go to Arlo and Sally’s wedding I will do the phone trade thing then. “Verizon: Our network may be big but we’re really very provincial!”

Then, we wanted to arrange to pay our rent electronically to our new landlord. While we were at our nearest Washington Mutual branch, we thought we’d update our address and order new checks. Well, because our account was opened in IL they recommended that we just close that account and open another one here in CA because the computers can’t talk to each other. At all.
Annoyed but undaunted, we spoke with another banker about electronic money shifting. “Too bad you upgraded to an interest bearing checking account, because it would have been free with the basic account!” they chirped helpfully. Absolutely no way to transfer money to the landlord without spending $30 and 30 minutes of my life every month. And had anyone mentioned that we definitely need to close the IL account and open one locally?

Above please find our child clutching her favorite piece of Wells Fargo swag. You have been warned, Earthlink and DirecTV...