Leaving my apartment always leads to frustration
As I mentioned in my first post, I had to make several errands today, unfortunately it wasn’t that simple.
Surprisingly, the easiest and quickest part of my day was going to the DMV. I’ve had a couple good trips to the Champaign DMV, they’re usually nice, quick, and straight to the point. The people there know how to do their job and they’re efficient. I can’t ask for much more; the only problem with going to the DMV is that it just takes a lot of time to get called on. While sitting in the chairs, I thought about how the DMV was a lot like a bank. Several lines and everyone is specialized (just rambling).
I was in the DMV for about 30 minutes to get my new license, and it cost me all of $5 so I’m not unhappy with that. I went straight from the DMV to the CVS Pharmacy, not one block down the street from where I live. They are a representative for MoneyGram, which I got the email today that my money was ready.
Even though I was told my money was ready, I still had to jump through a lot of hoops to receive it, especially at CVS. At the end of the counter there is a special phone that automatically dials to MoneyGram customer service. You actually have to look for it, as if you didn’t know what you were looking for you would never find it. Fortunately, the first time I called (yes, i had to call more than once), I spoke to a real representative fairly quickly. She made my money available and I had a thought that might be a lot less painful that I originally thought.
I thought wrong. I give my information to CVS and there is a recurring theme throughout my visits. 1) No one actually uses MoneyGram (at least in Champaign) to receive funds, they all send funds. Someone has to be receiving this money–it is a zero-sum game!! This is important because since no one receives funds, none of the employees know what they are doing in dealing with this paperwork. 2) The employees think $2000 is a lot of money. I’ve gotten this before; they see that I’m receiving a transfer for (presumably) most of these employee’s monthly salary and hence, its a lot of money to them. I love being a poker player, as I am just completely insensitive to large amounts of money especially if its not in ‘real’ form (cash, mainly).
Five minutes goes by, and I’m dealing with the 3rd CVS person behind the counter (they were all nice, which was cool) and again, none of them know anything about receiving MoneyGram payments. Conversations go back and forth until one of the employees mention that they are only allowed to do $1000 per person per day per reference number (company policy). Since we were all unsure of this they suggested I call MoneyGram back to find out.
This time, I wasn’t so lucky in my conversation with MoneyGram. I didn’t get a real person this time; I had to speak to a computer that would recognize voice commands (or at least attempt to). The problem was: the damn voice computer doesn’t understand a word I’m saying unless I shout out the information, and this information isn’t of the most public sort you’d want to be shouting out. If I were at home I’d just start pushing buttons until I get a customer service representative, which is what happened anyway after I spent 10 minutes spelling out all of my information to the computer two or three times. In summary: there was nothing MoneyGram could do, I would have to go to another location that accepts larger amounts of money.
I already knew the next location I wanted to go to, it was a competing bank right across the street from my bank, Busey Bank. I would have to go to Busey Bank anyway after I get my money from the new bank, National City, for the wire transfer to my other account. Good thing I have tons of free time because if I were actually in a hurry this would completely suck.
Now, I’m thinking that since this place is a bank, they are going to have an idea on how to actually accept MoneyGram transactions. Another plus in going to a bank is that they are at least used to larger sums of money. However, I wasn’t there longer than 60 seconds when I heard both tellers say “you’re the first one.” Well, this is going to be fun.
Luckily for me, again, both the tellers were very nice and understanding, even though it was like pulling teeth going through the entire process. All I knew I had to do, was fill out the green form and hand it to the cashier. However, how am I supposed to know what the cashier is supposed to do?
I was probably at National City with the teller for a good 20 minutes; I didn’t have to do anything, but I just had to wait for the teller to find out how she has to do her job. Eventually, I received my cashier check and made my way over to Busey Bank. At this time I was planning on wiring the money from the cashier check to my other checking account in my home town. However, I had to wait 30 minutes or more just to speak to an “account executive” because, out of all the employees at the bank, only 2 of them were qualified to help me (they were extremely busy).
Needless to say, I only talked to the account executive for 2 minutes, because he said he couldn’t wire the money from the cashier check directly in that he would need the cash. I had to go BACK to National City to cash the check then come back with the funds. . . I wasn’t in the mood for that one bit! I told him to work on the paperwork, and probably for his own selfish and lazy reasons questioned why didn’t I just mail the cashier’s check to my bank?
The light bulb went off in my head too, if only I had thought about that however long ago that would have been perfect. It would have saved me 30+ minutes waiting around doing nothing listening in to other people’s conversations.
Am I frustrated? Yes. But at least I have access to my funds from Poker Stars in only 2 days, that is quicker than either epassporte or neteller was.
