This process started at the beginning of this week. Steve finally had his last straw with his bank. It shall remain nameless, but we can nickname it as the Stage Coach People. It's not so much what they did but more what they seem incapable of doing, i.e., providing good account security. For several years now it has become a regular thing for some unknown person/people to gain access to Steve's debit card numbers and put charges on it that have nothing to do with him.
Sure, they always refund the money and issue him a new card. Every. Single. Bloody. Time! And Steve waits two weeks or more for his new(est) card to arrive in the mail. Meanwhile he can't use his ATM for funds, or order something online, or hit a drive thru for a quick meal, or... anything. He's taken to proactively pulling funds out of his accounts so they get no interest, just "in case" the next fraud happens. Because it always does. Steve pays his bills with automatic withdrawals set up on his debit card, and when he has to keep calling those accounts and letting them know it's a new number... again! ... they are less than pleased. Of course he's never skipped a bill but some are a bit late.
Shortly after we moved to Minnesota his laptop case broke, and needed repairs. The process included recovering his hard drive memory, then making a copy with new security software added. Just in case that was the means used. It's already happened twice again since then. So he feels justified in finally taking the step that I and several family members have been suggesting he do, now, for years. He withdrew all his funds from the Stage Coach People and opened a brand new account in my credit union. The same one as his son's credit union. As well as the same credit union as several several other members of both parts of the family.
None of us have that problem. Ever. At all. For one thing they issue a card before we walk out the door, so no waiting two weeks.
Steve has spent much of the rest of this week on hold. There's the usual "Here's my new account/card number", and with many of his bills being with either large or understaffed companies, perhaps both, each call can take a while. But he knocked off three of them in less than two hours. He is so looking to that being his last set of those calls. But that was the easy part.
Like mine, Steve's income comes from Social Security. It's never been involved before this, since Steve's bank itself never changed. Now it's different. And it's a royal seven ton headache.
They advise you to start online. "Many people find that the easy way to...." I have no idea who those many people are. I'm not one. I tried the online approach to getting a duplicate SS card during our mail woes earlier this year, and wound up driving to Minneapolis to do it in person. I never could sign in to their site. I wrote about it because of course. The half day was well worth it... or would have been had that card ever arrived. Still, dinner with my daughter was my reward.
Steve had the same problem. His name is the same, but not his bank and not his address. They kick him out faster than he can try to type in whatever his latest try is to figure out exactly which magic words and numbers will get their attention. So he called them.
Tuesday he opted for the "we'll call you back in _____ minutes" promise. That was early morning. By suppertime his phone still sat, lonely, untouched, bereft of news.
Wednesday for a change of pace he spent hours trying to get his way through the new credit union's method of signing in to get online access to his new credit union account to see what his current balance is. To start off they require you to offer them a way to have them send you a 6 digit code, which you in turn type in their form to prove 1) your phone number is the one you gave them when you joined so they can text you, or 2) that your email etc., etc.,. He was on his phone with their tech staff at the time, so trying that and having him switch over to read the number, having me write it down for him so he had it to type in on the online form, all in time before it timed out. Apparently speed is a factor in proving identity. Meanwhile in switching to his texts he lost the call with the tech person coaching him through the process.
Start over. This time he went for sending him an email with the code in it. Of course he's again online with their tech, and first try takes so long to arrive that he's advised by the tech he's working with to send the request in again. Just after he does that the first number comes back. He types that in but it's timed out. He has to start over, and by the time he does that he's totally kicked out of the system for too many tries or fails or both. Try again later. Hours, maybe. Or tomorrow.
Part of the problem with the last try is he only has one window open on his laptop, and switching to one site cuts off the other. Thus a quick lesson in splitting his screen. Note that he has Microsoft and I have Apple. I could just pull up a new tab and switch back and forth, but I have no idea what to tell him to do with his system. He doesn't understand mine any better. So the split screen thing doesn't happen till that afternoon. Even with that, much the same happens. Try again tomorrow!
Frustration takes its toll. Yesterday morning he's finally relaxed enough to take a couple hints on switching back and forth from me, staying off his phone so he can get the numbers via text, much faster than email in Steve World. My phone is available for him to call in, and his open to texts. Try again.
Today it finally turns out to be simple after all, with the right kind of help, and he now can log in and see how his accounts are doing. Next week we'll try some fancier stuff, but the credit union has a great phone service where you can call, ask for $___ in account A to go into account B or C or wherever. He can move his money around however he wants without hitting a credit union branch or an ATM, except for cash. Later he can do it himself online. I can show him. I'm sure of it. Right? At least there's no switching pages, just navigating on the same page, which looks and works exactly like the page I get from them.
This afternoon he was finally ready to tackle Social Security. The second try. Well, considering the online crap, third try. He called the number, and this time decided to stay on the line. Whatever it took.
What it did take was not answering an incoming call from a good fishing buddy. Switching dropped the call. That's after about 38 minutes on hold.
Start over. This time there was a different fight with the automation that comes on to sort out which department to stick you in the que for. File a disability claim? (That came with a disclaimer about getting no joy from them without all kinds of investigation and months of waiting, if even then.) Ready to retire? His other tries via phone he got the part of the system that understood what he was saying. "Change my direct deposit." This time it started feeding back something else to him, "I see you want _____, is that right?" "NO!" "OK, do you want___?" "Direct deposit, direct deposit, direct deposit!!!!"
Apparently something clicked in the system. I'm going to avoid describing the on-hold music. We both agree it was the ploy of some bureaucrat who gets paid to ferret out the worst possible choices in order to shove everybody off the phone system as quickly as possible, screaming in pain/frustration/nausea/boredom and onto the computer. We'd already proved that was a dead end.
I worked on laundry while Steve waited. I filled up his insulated mug with ice cubes so he could put his drink in it. I advised him not to answer the call from his favorite nephew which came in. I dug out the ice cream carton and sat spooning tiny bits out of what had turned into a green and chocolate rock before putting it back. Steve and I chatted. I started writing this. He played a game online. I read some of my favorite sites while sitting next to him. We discussed pessimistically our plan for when we got hung up on at the end of the day, which included heading down to Minneapolis on Monday to try to accomplish something there face-to-face. We joked about whether DeJoy had stealthily infiltrated the Social Security system like he'd openly done to the USPS to destroy it as much as one person could possible accomplish from a position of ultimate power.
This last final phone try, one hour and thirty-eight minutes on hold later, finally got answered. Ten more and Steve's address was now current, his credit union was on record, and we were advised that the first check would still go to his old bank, the Stage Coach People. They will send it back (she knows they will so it must be so) and when received back it will then be sent to the new credit union. I reassured Steve that his bills which clear on the third of the month will be covered because I'll transfer in funds to cover them, and he can give it back when all unfolds as it ought.
Because it will. Right?
Right?
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