Cable TV, Internet, Phones, and Banks

A broad subject for today. I'll start with the easiest: banking. As you may recall, I've been having some banking issues. I received good news today, but I had to find the news myself instead of the news coming to me.

My bank account was finally set up, but the lady that was setting up my account didn't give me a call to let me know that it had been processed. Unfortunately, I now need to wait five days for the banking information to be mailed out. That's not the mail service being slow, that is the bank being slow. Hopefully, now it's just a matter of time and I can actually start banking in this country.

In the world of cable TV, Internet and phone service . . .

On Monday, I was waiting for the cable company to call me so I could walk the 2 minutes back to my apartment to meet them and let them in. They apparently stopped by at 2:30 pm (within their 4 hour window), but didn't give me a call. When I called them up, they stated that they couldn't call international numbers. I let the Customer Service Rep know that the sales person that I talked to when ordering said that they could. Perhaps I'm not the only one who thinks its odd that a telecommunications company can't call an international number properly.

I asked if they could still send somebody out that night, she said that it wasn't an option. My only option was to reschedule. I let her know that I had other options, like cancelling the order. She asked me if I'd like to do that - I said "Let me think on it." I hung up.

I call back two minutes later and get a decent Customer Service Representative who actually sounded like she gave a damn. That sold me and I rescheduled for Friday. So, if my blogs seem to be at less regular intervals until then it's because I have to sneak them out over my lunch break when at work.

Thus far, I've found that the bank - AIB has piss-poor customer service and that the cable company - NTL has pretty good customer service. Even though they may not be as flexible as I like, two out of the three representatives that I've talked to have been an actual joy to talk to.

Further Adventures of Banking

I got an email back from our HR department detailing the instructions that I needed to go through to set up an account with AIB. I went down to the local branch and was unfortunately treated to the same level of service as my last visit. The same girl helped me. and she didn't really seem like she wanted to. However, halfway through the transaction, another banker took over and she was quite helpful.

I don't have a bank account set up yet, but I was able to apply for one. Since the local branch of AIB doesn't hold the account for my company, they had to take all of my information, photocopy it and send it to the bank at City Centre.

So now I just need for the mail to get to City Centre, the person there to setup my account - providing that I gave them the right information, then wait for them to send me my information via mail. My hopes aren't high that this is going to work out. I may just go downtown and apply at the downtown bank in person.

I have also found that the definition of "banker's hours" was probably created in Ireland - banks are open M-F 10am - 4pm, so I may need to take some more time off work to do this. That's hard to do when we've got a lot of deadlines to hit on our project.

Mo' Bankin' Blues

I took some time out of my day today to walk down to the bank and setup a bank account. After all, I need a bank account to pay my landlord, my utility bills and just about everything else.

To setup what they call a "Current Account" over here, you need only two pieces of identification. First is a photo ID - no problem, passport has that covered. The second thing is a utility bill addressed to you at your new apartment. This seems to pose a bigger problem.

Last week I set up my accounts with the gas company and the electric company. Earlier this week, I got notices in the mail from both of them. The gas company requires that you either A) setup automatic debit payments AND give them a 200 Euro deposit OR B) give them a 400 Euro deposit. Similarly, the electric company requires that you either A) setup automatic debit payments OR B) give them a 300 Euro deposit. So you can see, that setting up automatic debit payments increases my cash flow by 500 Euro (about 700 USD).

Back to the story at hand. I received these "bills" from both the gas company and the electric company. When I present them to the banker, she tells me that she can't accept them as verification of my address.

Me: "Why not?"

Her: "Because it doesn't show that you've actually paid anything."

Me: "Neither does me presenting you with my first bill. It just tells you that I owe them money, same as this letter says."

Her: "I'm sorry, sir, we still can't accept it."

Needless to say, I'm a little frustrated with my banking situation right now. Most importantly, I need a bank account to setup cable television, internet, and telephone. Instead of watching TV now, I'm watching DVD series if I get a hankering for TV. I already watched The Wire - Season 5 and I'm halfway through watching Firefly (this would be my second go-round on the Firefly).

On a plane back home tomorrow!