hi all,
for those of you still looking for that perfect someone, might i suggest you stay far away from the fantastical ideal of a man in uniform. don't get me wrong, i love my husband more than i can express in words. however, being a military wife is pretty much the suckiest thing in the world. getting past living only and being deprived of physical contact for months or years at a time, you are the one stuck at home dealing with every little problem that rears its ugly head.
take this past week for example. customer service experience number one: in order to close on the sale of a property, you need a piece of paper from the mortgage company stating the amount of money that you owe on the mortgage. this seems like a very simple thing, call mortgage company; request payoff statement; bank sends payoff statement. however, when you are an army wife with a military mortgage, your name can't be on the mortgage papers so your husband has to verify that you are an authorized user on the account. great, unless your mortgage gets sold to a new company and they don't recognize the form that the previous company used so you are screwed once again.
before bryan left last year, we attempted to solve this problem by executing a power of attorney so that i could handle these issues and not have to have him for everything. however, the 'lovely' people at bank of america (quotations signify immense amounts of sarcasm) couldn't seem to get the POA that i faxed them 10 times attached to the right accounts. so instead of just calling and asking for a simple piece of paper you have to have the following conversation (after waiting on hold for 30 minutes to talk to a live human of course):
"thank you for calling bank of america today, how can i help you?"
"yes, i'd like to request a payoff statement for both of my mortgage accounts please"
"of course, ma'am. i would be happy to help you with that. can i get the account numbers please?"
"sure. i need statements for accounts ...... and ........."
"and can i get your name please?"
"yes. it is ashlea tobeck"
"i'm sorry ma'am, but i don't show you listed on this account"
"well that is because your bank doesn't recognize the authorized user form from our previous mortgage holder and since my husband is currently over seas, he hasn't been able to fill out a new one. i've faxed a copy of our power of attorney multiple times, but it doesn't seem to have done any good."
"well, i'm very sorry, but i can't do anything more unless the primary account holder calls to aut"
"i understand. does that mean that you will be staying about 5 hours late to accept his call from afghanistan? your normal american business hours are fantastic for those of us lucky enough to be on american soil right now, however, they do little good for soldiers who aren't. is there any other way to make this work."
"yes. if you fax a copy of your power of attorney to the following number, we will be able to talk with you."
"i see. i believe that is the same number that i have faxed the power of attorney to on several previous occasions. is there another number that i could try?"
"that is the fax number for the department that handles power of attorneys and authorized user requests. they will be able to process the information."
"really now. well i guess i will go drive to fed ex office and waste another $10 fruitlessly faxing this document yet again. thank you for you time"
"is there anything else i can help you with today?"
"so you can't do what i really need you to do, but if i asked you would do something else for me? so if i call and ask for the balance of the account, you will tell me that you can't give it to me because i'm not an authorized user. however, i can THEN ask for the payoff statement and that will work? don't mind my sarcasm, i'm just trying to figure out the system here."
"i'm sorry that i couldn't be of more help. please call back when you have faxed the power of attorney."
"actually there is one more thing you could do for me. can i get the direct line to the office where i am faxing this power of attorney. maybe if i call them while i am sending the fax, they can assure me that it has arrived in the proper place. at least then i will know the name of the disorganized person who keeps losing things on their desk."
"ma'am there isn't a phone number for that office. procedure requires that you fax the POA and we will attach it to the file when it arrives. please enjoy the rest of your day!"
I HATE CUSTOMER SERVICE. nothing should be this difficult. i have however in the past couple weeks of extensive research determined several key phrases that aid in getting what you need from a customer service representative.
1) could i please talk with your supervisor's supervisor please?
2) i'm sorry that it is inconvenient for you that my husband is currently fighting for your personal freedom. i guarantee it is more inconvenient on my end. (this of course only works if the company that you are calling doesn't outsource their customer service department to bangalor. they don't care much about american freedom sadly)
3) what was your full name again? i want to make sure that i spell it correctly in the letter that i'm writing to your boss.
4) can you give me the name of the head of your legal department, i'd hate for the lawsuit i'm sending to get lost?
5) sadly, as comforting as it is to you personally, expletives tend to get you transferred to the people who have had power point crisis management training who try to talk you down like you are going to plant a bomb in their office or something. yes it would be very therapeutic to rid the world of excess annoyance, but i'm not a psycho killer, i just want to pay you, however, if you don't want your money, i'll gladly hold on to it.
ok, rant over. or at least the part that you have to read. it should be enough for you to get a glimpse of what the past 7 days have been like. closing is done and house is sold, so hopefully i can get my hubby home for a bit and see if we can't make things easier for a while.
6 more days!
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