And now a financial three...

[susandennis]

Three months ago I signed up with Audible.com in hopes of finding more books on mp3. What I found instead was a very limited selection of the books I wanted. I have more than 150 books on my list of books I want to read and Audible.Com had 3 of them. A lot of their books are abridged versions which does not cut it for me. Plus while you pay for the books (not rent) they use a proprietary format which means you have to use their software which annoys me. And... it's EXPENSIVE. They have a first-three-months special for one book a month which I signed up for and I got to the end of that deal today. I downloaded my 3rd book and put it on my Zen and then went to cancel my account.

You have to call first and then they set it up so you have to go on line to cancel. You can't cancel without calling. So I called. I got a guy who's words were fine but who's voice said 'I swear if you were anywhere near my physical space, I'd take out a knife and cut you from throat to crotch.' I wish I had recorded the call so I could save his tone. I might want to emulate it one day.

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A while back I ordered a new toaster oven from an outfit that I actually thought at the time was iffy. They were. I canceled the order. They charged my card. So I disputed the charge.

I love my Discover card. One of the reasons I love my Discover card is their customer service. If/when ever you have a problem or a question, you call one number and with no waiting, you get a person who is always always helpful and cheerful. I've had more card for more than 20 years (IBM was part of a pilot project when Discover was new.), and I've never not been delighted with their service.

Except, there are still a few places that don't take Discover. The iffy place was one of them. So I used my Citibank Master Card.

The customer service folks at Citibank Master Card are like a master class for Discover Card folks. 'See how many ways you can find that they went wrong and explain how to do it correctly. Note, there are more than 10.'

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I did not call Corporate One to stop payment on the check, I used their secure email service to do it so that I would have appropriate tracking.

Then, in a stroke of good fortune, my financial adviser's assistant (who's really more of a vice-financial advisor herself), got with the program and set up her side of secure communications with me on the Ameriprise site. (My actual adviser would never in a million years do the website thing. He does not even use an ATM. But, he's grooming her to take over when he retires and so she's as vested in me as he is. I have the best of both worlds with the two of them.)

The money trip is not non-stop. I have to move the funds from Corporate One to my credit union which I started this morning. They will be there by Monday. Then it will be a quick, traceable, maneuver to get them from there to the appropriate Ameriprise account.

This is what I should have done to start with. Lessons learned.