A bit of a space station, but it’s going to be awesome when it’s done…
Archives for March 2008
Ready for a long weekend
I feel like a bit of a curmudgeon today: rain has been falling and the blog posts have been grumbly. The worst of it seems to have hit today: as the view out my window suggests, the rivers are rising as the skies are lowering. What it doesn’t show is the cold and snow showers that blew through in bands all day.
Someone said that it was the coldest Easter in the Netherlands in 40 years: maybe the North Atlantic Conveyor was making its predicted flip? More likely that this is just the earliest Easter in many years. In any case, it was a good excuse to put the weather radar onto my page.
And, in fact, the tulips are up in the roadway medians, the buds on the trees are plump, so spring can’t be too far away. I’ve got all the planning done for my daughter’s visit, hotels and planes booked, reservations at Jamie Oliver’s “Fifteen“, and sent her instructions for navigating through Schiphol (my Dutch friends think I crossed a line at that).
A little sunshine by the first week in April would complete the picture.
Its been an uncertain week at work: HQ has suffered a tough year and the trickle-down onto our budget process turned into a cascade. Scenario-planning under those circumstances isn’t much fun. My project is making great progress in the meantime: enthusiasm is high and results are good. It’s a daily schism, alternating dark discussions with bright promise.
My Dutch friends tell me that Easter Monday is the day that Netherlanders traditionally shop for furniture. No sales, no particular reason: it’s just the day that people go buy a couch. I think that it’s more of a gardening season than a decorating one, but I’ll go with the flow and pick up a bedframe if tradition demands. I’m also ready to invest in a bike, and suggestions are rolling in from cycling colleagues (in other words, all of my colleagues).
So, it should be a good weekend to catch up on sleep, emails, shopping, sanity. Put the week behind and spring ahead.
At least, once it stops snowing.
Soured on Citi
A couple of days ago, I wrote glowing praise of Citibank’s Access Account, which seemed to provide a simple means to do direct deposit and wire transfers without need for visiting the bank to open the account or to give transfer instructions.
I take it all back.
I tried a test transfer, moving $100 from my Washington Mutual account to the new Citi account. Since the hour was late, I accidentally typed in the account number of a closed savings account rather than my active checking account at WaMu, a simple clerical error. As expected, within a day, Citi notified me that they could not execute the transfer.
Unexpectedly, they placed a lock on my Citi account, preventing further wire transfers of any sort. When I called to follow-up, explaining the error, I was told that this required an investigation. Today, I was told that they required (no joke) a letter from Washington Mutual, on letterhead, explaining when the savings account had been established, who owned it, why and when it had been closed, and the account status on the date of the transfer. Citi would then conclude an internal investigation to determine whether to unlock my Citi account for further wire transfers.
In the meantime, I was free to make deposits into the checking account, and could use the online service to view the money in my account. Seriously: only to view it.
I went up two levels of supervisors, explaining that it was my 3-digit clerical mistake, only involving a $100 domestic interbank transfer, and that I would gladly re-enter the order with the correct number. No-go. I finally explained that I had no alternative but to close the account. With Pleasure, they said, glad to be done with it.
Wire transfers can and do fail for all sorts of reasons. It’s no big deal. When a Fortis transfer failed while being sent to the US, they simply backed it out, returned the money to my account (minus 50 euros handling fee), and we tried again. I’m baffled as to why this went so spectacularly wrong.
In any case, it’s a good test: I never would have been able to unwind a failed international transfer.
…and I’m once again searching for a banking home.