Things are Never Ever As Simple as They Seem

1. ING Direct
Frustration Level: AH!
I'm trying to set up an ING Orange Direct account. The sign up process seems simple enough. Except after filling out all the information, I get an e-mail saying I have to give them a call to complete the process. Fine, that's easy enough. So I call them. And apparently they have my social security number wrong on the account. Did I type it in wrong? Probably. That's my fault entirely, but instead of being able to just go online and fix it, I need to wait for them to mail me a form, then I need to sign that form, then I need to mail (or fax) that form back in order for the account to be officially set up.

2. AT&T
Frustration Level: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!AH!AHHHH!AHH!
A couple of days ago I notice a $106.41 charge from AT&T on my bank statement. "What is this charge from AT&T," I think to myself, "I don't have an AT&T account... anymore." For my last job, I made the mistake of agreeing to sign up for a cell phone plan for work with my credit card. My company reimbursed me for the phone and my monthly payments, but I knew the situation wouldn't be pretty if I ever had to leave the company.

Fast forward a few months and the job isn't working out. Tying up loose ends isn't too hard, except for figuring out what to do with the phone... that has a two year contract existing as a parasite on my bank account. That last day of work was awkward to say the least, as it took forever to go through AT&T customer service and have them transfer my number and account to my boss's main AT&T account.

What was supposed to happen? The account would be transferred to his collection of AT&T numbers, and he would pay the lowest monthly rate possible for the additional line from then on out, or until he hired another employee who would use the phone.

The customer service rep tried to convince us to hold off on the transfer, since the $100 rebate on the phone was still processing. My boss decided to just transfer the account then and there (without the rebate.) The customer service rep agreed and said that the account would be transferred with the next billing cycle. That would be the end of it, right?

Well, that would be the end of it for anyone else on this earth. But for me, that was only the beginning.

Fast forward another couple of months, until today. I call up AT&T to try to figure out what this mysterious charge on my statement is. Of course I can't remember the old phone number off the top of my head (eventually I digg it out of my brain), and the first few minutes of the call are fruitless as they tell me my name doesn't seem to exist within the system. Great. Finally I remember the number and viola, my account does exist and... oh look, they're still billing me for auto payments. What else? They have no record of the conversation I had with their customer service department and my boss in October. Ok, now what?

I talk to one guy who is a complete waste of time. He basically says since they have no record of this conversation taking place, I have to get my old boss to talk to them again in order to transfer the account. I also have to be on the phone at the same time for all of this to work, because I need to give permission with him on the phone... nevermind that I did this in October.

But wait, 15 minutes more of my bitching brings out the fact that my account indeed has the conversation about the transfer noted on it. It says something about how the transfer didn't go through because we were waiting on the rebate. That's wrong, I inform him, but he doesn't seem to care what I say.

Finally he transfers me to "transfer services" where they basically give me the same spiel. Oh, but here's the best part, they find all of the proper authorization on the account to transfer it over, BUT, here's the big BUT, it's more than 60 days old so it's no longer valid. WHAT? At this point, I'm ready to punch something. And I rarely get this pissed off. But this is just ridiculous.

So they get my old boss on the phone. Great. He's a busy guy. He's a VERY busy guy. He doesn't have time for this BS. His time is money. And this stupid phone is already costing him enough money.

Hopefully the transfer went through this time. I hung up because my personal cell phone, on Verizon, was blasting through my monthly minutes (heck, I may have gone over on this annoying call), I hung up before the entire process was completed. I figured the rest of the transfer had to be done on my boss's end, so there was no point waiting on hold for another hour.

Now, after all of this trouble, wouldn't it be nice for AT&T to just refund us the money for the past two months when the account should have been on the lowest plan ($39.99 a month or less) and instead charged me (and ultimately him) $108 a month? Nah. He noted my account, but I have to call another number and argue with them for hours until maybe they'll refund me the money. Now, ultimately this will be my bosses' money, but because the account was in my name at the time, I have to be the one to call up and complain about this and try to get the monthly bills changed.

You know what, I felt bad about it so I did call back up and tried to do this. I was sent to the wrong representative and then when she forwarded me to the "right" rep, I was put on hold for seven minutes. The first few minutes I had some lovely make-me-want-to-go-hunting-for-large-animals-and-cut-open-their-flesh wait music, but then there was silence. Eventually, I hung up.

So now....? Well, I need to file a reimbursement form with my old company after putting them through all of this trouble. If they were a big company I wouldn't feel that bad, but they're a small startup and I really don't want to make them have to deal with this crap.

Well, that's my frustrations of the day.

Merry Christmas to all, from the Frustrated Jew.