Category: General

It’s time for a bitch session. I really try not to do this too often; but damn it, if a business sucks people should know…

I recently tried to order a gift for a friend on-line, which I wanted shipped directly to my friend. There is a particularly good on-line geek store that I frequent (and I’ll plug somewhere else) that I wanted to use for the purchase. They have a wonderfully secure policy regarding instances where the shipping and billing address do not match: They contact the credit card company and verify that the shipping address is listed as a valid shipping address for the card. I think this is wonderful as it is great at thwarting purchases made on stolen credit cards. Now, I’ve done third party shipping with this company before. The last time I was buying with my PapPal debit card, and PayPal has an item in their customer service web tools specifically for adding another address. Last time was a piece of cake.

This time I used my Bank of America debit card. Big mistake. There is no ‘Add Shipping Address’ in the BofA customer service screens. There is a Contact Customer Service option. I used it. That’s when the trouble began.

First email to Customer Support described that I wanted to buy a gift for a friend mail-order, and that I needed the friend’s address added to my authorized shipping addresses. I get a reply letting me know that my address has been updated with my friend’s address. Puzzled, I write to confirm that my friend’s address was added, and did not replace my address. The response I get is short and sweet, and did not answer my original question. The response simply confirms that the address on my account is the one I gave for my friend, and to let them know if I need it changed again. It was late, I was tired, and I just decided not to worry about it.

The next day I made my order. I waited until the order had charged. I returned to the BofA customer service website. I replied to the last message, indicating that my order had been placed, and could they please change my shipping address back to my home address.

This is where it gets surreal. A BofA represenative writes me back and informs me that I had already changed my account address in the last 64 days, and that due to banking regulations they can not take another on-line address change request from me. I need to go to a branch to prove who I am before they will returm my account address to where I actually live.

I got ticked. I wrote a long reply. I explained that I had never asked for my account address to be changed. I suggested the person read my first email to customer support, because I clearly explained the purpose and intent of my request. I aksed why the person who first handled the request had simply not told me they could not do what I asked, if that was the case. I explained that PayPal has this feature and asked why my bank does not. I asked if my customer support requests were being handled by a call center in India. I hit submit. The site said my reply was too long, gave me no way to edit it, and completely dropped my text.

I got really ticked, which means I got terse. I tried my best, in four sentences, to let them know that they were incompetent baboons and that I would file a complaint when I drove to the local bank branch to fix their mistake.

Well, they finally fixed it. Still, it seems silly that at this time of year they don’t know how to handle occasions when someone wants to have a gift shipped directly through a retailer that takes credit card security seriously.

I’ve hated BofA since the Leather Jacket Incident, but I’m stuck since Wells Fargo doesn’t exist around here…

-Chris

Eight years ago I took a spring off from Reality. I was living in a school bus, working renaissance faires, and generally having a good time. But, living in a school bus isn’t all it is cracked out to be, and pretty soon I was jonesing for a more complicated life. My friend Robin, who was out in California, asked me if I wanted to help him on a contract gig doing programming for a huge website project. The gig was in a language called perl. Well, I could make in two hours on this project what I would make in an entire weeked working a renaissance faire; so of course I said Sure! I then promptly hit a book store and bought the first O’Reilly book I could find on the subject: Learning Perl by Randall Schwartz. Within hours I was writing perl scripts on a FreeBSD box I had cobbled together from spare parts. By the time I got to Berkeley I was able to carry myself off as if I’d been writing in perl for years. I spent the next few years making a more than decent living largely based upon my perl skills.

Snap to the recent past… Nancy, Mel and I go to DragonCon in Atlanta. Randall Schwartz is part of the (white hat) Hacker panel. I decide to pay a little tribute, and I buy him a bottle of Glenmorangie single malt scotch. I thought it was fitting, since my scotch habit was fed for years by way of my perl habit. I gave it to him at the panel, and he seemed to be pleased.

A couple of days ago I wrote him an email, to see if he enjoyed the scotch. He didn’t. Apparently someone walked off with the bottle.

Who the hell stole my tribute to a perl god?

When people talk about the cost of living, they usually mean housing, food, transportation, utilities. All the mundane things needed to survive in our society. So, for the most part, when people compare living in Tampa to living in San Francisco the criteria they call the cost of living is a bit more expensive in San Francisco. Living is more than just surviving, and I’m getting sick of just surviving.

I recently flew out to San Francisco for a set of job interviews. Literally, the trip was going home for me. I spent the better part of a week visiting friends. The job interview was an experience, which I will probably document elsewhere once it has finished playing out.

As part of my visits to the San Francisco area I had to make two side trips. One to Fry’s, for which I snuck some clandesdine photos in order to torture Doug. (After spending an entire hour at Fry’s I only purchased a bag of RJ45 connectors. I can’t find them in bags of 100 in Tampa, and Home Despot wants for qty 10 half the price I paid for qty 100.) The second trip was to Beverages and More, to buy Nan some Stroh for her rum cakes. It was at Bevrages and More that I learned a lesson regarding the cost of Living.

First, let me step back in time by a month or so. Tampa has its own Science Fiction and Fantasy convention: Necronomicon. This year the guests of honor were Spider & Jeanne Robinson. I rather like Spider Robinson. I’ve read everything that he’s written that is in paperback, and I’ve been anxious enough to buy a few in hardcover. (Now I step back four years…) In a couple of the Callahan books his character Jake praises Bushmill’s single malt aged Irish whisky; not the cheaper blend. At the time I first encountered this praise I was a scotch drinker, but I was open to expanding my horizons. Spider’s character was right, and the 16 year old Bushmill is a delight. I used to by the 16 year old rather frequently while I lived up in the Oakland Hills. (Back to a month or so ago…) So, I decided, silly fanboy as it may be, that I wanted to give Spider Robinson a bottle of 16 year old Bushmill’s at Necronomicon. A week or so before Necro I went to Carrolwood Liquers, a small independant liquer store that has been very good to Haus Boheme. They didn’t have it, but they let me look through their vendor catalog. Their catalogs from their distributors listed the wholesale price for Bushmills 10 year old as $79 and the 16 year old at $139. One part of me was sad that I just couldn’t afford to buy Spider Robinson a proper tribute, another part of me was incredulous because I had bought an unknown quantity of bottles when I lived in Oakand and I had never bothered to look at the price. I wasn’t sure this was the price I had paid, but it fitted my old lifestyle, and I was a little shocked.

Snap to present-ish. I’m in Beverages and More, looking for Stroh. I pass through the Scotch/Irish section. (Section, not just a shelf!) There, right in front of me, is a lesson in the economics of Living, and the difference between Living and surviving. Twelve year old Bushmills for $34.99 and 16 year old for $56.99. The price for the same bottle of whisky was less than half in San Francisco, where the cost of living is more. Had I been in San Francisco I could have easily afforded a proper tribute to an author I respect.

I also realized at that time how tired I am of just Surviving. Tampa is less expensive. Tampa is safe. Tampa is easy. I don’t need safe and easy. I need back in the game, and the game just isn’t played in Tampa.