So in my previous post I told you about the whole Citi Mastercard thing. This is the continuation.

So I gave them a few days just so all the transactions get posted in their system. Then I called them up to request for the two reimbursements: one for the Stop Payment fee that my bank charged me, and the overnight postage that I had to pay so that the check gets there the next day. The first customer rep that I spoke to understandably transferred me to somebody else (I think an account manager) who can handle my request. Of course, I had to tell her the whole story again–by this time I had been telling it enough times that I can shorten it a bit by just narrating the highlights.

She was actually very helpful. She said that the postage, because I had used my Citi credit card to pay for it, she can reimburse right away, and as for the stop payment fee, I just needed to fax her a statement from my bank with the charge, as supporting documentation.

So that’s what I did, I printed an online statement from DCU’s website, circled the charge and faxed it to her. Within a few days, I checked my credit card account online and I saw that the two refunds were there now.

So today was supposed to be productive for me. Coming off a long Labor Day weekend, I had taken another day off to tend to house stuff and do some chores. One of those chores was to finally take care of a car registration that I had been postponing for the longest time. A friend of ours had left their car with us for safekeeping (I call it carsitting ) and up until recently we really didn’t have a reason to use it, so the registration had expired. Well, now we do need it so I’m trying to renew the registration.

One of the requirements for the registration was auto insurance. Since we already have our other policies with State Farm, I figured we could just add them there. So I dropped by in the morning and told them about the situation–that our friend still owns the car but we’re registering it under my name so that I can use it, and that I wanted to add the car to our existing insurance policies. Well, turns out that State Farm’s policy is that the name on the car’s title has to match the name on the insurance policy. So if I wanted to add the insurance under my name, my friend would have to transfer ownership to me. Safe to say that was out of the question, if I wanted to finish this within the day. The other option was that if I could have my friend call them, they could do everything over the phone and everything will be done in 45 minutes, after which they will send me the documents.

I thought that was reasonable, so I said I’ll have my friend call them. Thing is, my friend is in the Philippines, and with the 12-hour difference, it was going to be tricky getting in touch with him, since it was bedtime there already. As it turned out, I tried for a few hours, but still I wasn’t able to reach him. So I began to think of other options. I looked up GEICO on the web, and gave them a call. I explained to a guy named Frank the situation, and he said that wasn’t a problem. He asked me some questions, looked up our records, and in under 15 minutes he had signed me up for a policy that will cost me only $112 every six months and had emailed me the insurance documents. And he was very courteous, friendly and very helpful throughout our conversation. I thought that was great customer service!

Since I already had everything I needed, off I went to the DMV to do the registration–only to find out that I also needed the title, which was with another person Well, I guess semi-productive is still better than not productive Hunting down the title will be an adventure for another day