Our relocation specialist, Fiona has been absolutely amazing. I'd ask her to marry me too if I didn't think it would scare her away! Besides the fact that she's done exactly what we hired her to do--find us a place to live, she has done it with so much compassion and sensitivity as well.
It turns out that her and her family moved to San Francisco for her husband's work, then to Switzerland and back to Melbourne. She said it was so tough; she knew when her youngest of three boys was in school she'd find a job where she could help people relocate. I can't say enough positive things about her, but I'll sum it up with one great example. She took me house hunting on Tuesday; we found a great place. We were one of three applicants again--but while I was viewing the property the property manager came up to me with a big smile on his face and a framed picture in hand. He handed me a photo of a husky as he gleefully said, "The owners have 2 huskies!!!" Fiona had called ahead of time to chat him up to make sure we weren't turned down because of the Merlie-dog.
But, that's not the reason she's great. I just thought that was a funny story. The reason she's great is because we were scheduled to view more homes today which was obviously unnecessary. Rather than cancel our time together she came and got me and the kids and took us for coffee/lunch at a place with a playground. She's just so pleasant to talk with. It's soooo nice...
That had to be said.. now, on to the fallout. So, YAY! We have a place to live but we have to come up with several thousands of dollars to get into the place. We have money in a few different places in the states; this shouldn't be a problem. Well, our primary bank won't let us do a wire transfer unless we are physically there to fill out the form--convenient. The new online bank that we have will--so I transferred the money from Wells Fargo to Ally. Cool. I called to do the wire--not possible, I'm told. They don't have our signature cards on file. For no less than 5 days I carried around the signature cards--ready to mail them as soon as I could remember to do it. When the time came where we had to go to the post office before we left, I couldn't find them. Strike 1.
Our account is relatively new with them so we haven't used it. Our ATM cards haven't been activated and we don't have the PIN numbers. I called to activate the cards--not possible. I must call from the home phone. No worries, I'll change the home phone number in my profile to be my Skype number. That's not allowed because I have the mail being sent to my mom in Virgina and the zip code doesn't match the area code of my Skype number. I got them to manually change it. I called to activate them--not possible. I spoke to another customer service rep who desperately wanted to help, but he regretted to inform me that the original number entered when opening the account is the only number you can ever call from to activate the card. NO WAY! yes way. Strike 2.
But, there is a solution; just go to an ATM and request a balance printout. And you'll recall, we don't have PIN numbers. I called today to make sure the PINs were sent when I asked for them last week and of course, they weren't. So, I requested that they please expedite them. So, the plan would be that once we are able to activate the cards and use the PINs, we'll withdrawal our daily maximum each day until we reach the amount we need. Only, I'm not sure how long we can put off the property manager.
In the end, all I can say is--thank goodness for parents-in-law!!!!
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