Boom outta bed third morning in a row (7 am Auckland, 2 pm Chi one day behind) to spend three more hours on the wire transfer from Chi to Aucks to pay for the Rover.
Hopped up on strong French-press coffee, every day talking to the smart young banker woman at our neighborhood bank, every day she fighting the man over stupid shit and bringing me current on why this financial institution, which prides itself on being a neighborhood place and has known us in person/by name for 10 years, can’t get a wire transfer done.
Woman and baby in Bank of NZ lobby
The catch back in Chi is that the phone number on Art's wire transfer paperwork is different from the phone number we have now.
(Unless you're a tech head, you can't bring your phone here and just use it without getting charged phenomenal fees from your stateside carrier. You have to jailbreak it or have an unlocked phone to start with and then you get a SIM card and a NEW PHONE NUMBER hello.)
Who's ready for a bloody and some chowder
on the waterfront?
Not that our hard-working personal banker at Byline Bank--formerly North Community--isn't trying. She's been arguing with senior management for three days over paperwork that Art took the time to file before we left to establish a clear way to wire dollars here.
People, we are talking about a wire transfer for an Art special, a 15-year-old Land Rover. We're trying to wire $5000, for pete's sake.
Heaven pretending to be cheese
While all that's simmering in Chi, over the last few days we've been running around getting proof of residence evidence to open a simple account at Bank of NZ and verified how to deposit US dollars into the car seller's account at a different bank.
Bank of NZ: you have our passports and $500 cash.
Why would you possibly need proof of our residence at a hotel we're leaving in a few days?
Regulations, they all say, and shrug. We were helped by the most engaging and capable Boris at BNZ, who had to ask supervisors if the print-out from Barclays Hotel, signed by the front-desk guy, to prove we're staying there constituted actual proof of being here.
It didn't, because it was dated one day earlier (the day BNZ made the appt with Boris for us) and because only my name was on it (because I booked our hotel). So we walked back and got that fixed, thanks to nice people here.
Yesterday we spent a lot of time
in places that look like this, a BNZ new account cubicle
This morning we finally made headway with the Chicago bank. I'm pretty sure our capable contact there on the front lines just went into our file and changed our phone number so Art's wire transfer paperwork would align with it. It's not done yet. When I spoke to one of the hooeys in the wire transfer department, I was asked 101 questions to verify IyamwhoIyam because I'm NotArt (even though joint account).
At the end of all the mandated questions it was once again too late there to wire any money here today.
Tomorrow I'll call and they'll give me all the regulation-required warnings again, including the fact that if I have the recipient's account number off by one digit we could lose the money we're wiring.
Big news on the organic front:
New World Market has some
What?! Three cups of French-press into this fresh nonsense I did momentarily lose it. No, YOU take responsibility for the recipient's account number which I've sent six times, in the form of a pdf of a deposit slip!
I swear to god if the banksters hadn't robbed all the regular people blind these regs wouldn't be in place...for regular people.
Smoked fish
(hokey pokey?)
Grocery stores in other countries
present unfamiliar packaging
We're feeling better already, with organic beef and broccoli and taters last night...
With avocado and tomato
Gotta keep up our strength. Don't give up the fight.
No comments:
Post a Comment