Had a Livey Kind of Week

One reason Livey http://northwoodswoman.blogspot.com/ cracks me up is, when she has a bad day where everything goes wrong, she REALLY does it up.

So when Walter went to the INS last Thursday, they wanted $70 for his so-called biometrics. Cash. He went to the ATM, came back to INS and paid.

Somewhere in between, a thief got his ATM card. And promptly cleaned out the account - stole around $400.00.

I really hate crime.

This was after the buzzard busted the windshield, but before the tire blew up in the driveway. So Walter carefully drove to the Hollywood police station to report the theft. The GOOD bank, in Utah, will replace all the money, yay! BUT! First they must have a Police Report.

Sounds reasonable.

Not to the notorious Hollywood Police Department. An outrageous request! They CERTAINLY don't run around issuing reports left and right for any old schmuck who gets ripped off. They won't even give him a CASE # until they do some *preliminary investigation.*

What?! What kind of idiot outfit does even a preliminary investigation without giving it a case # to track it? Walter gave THEM a printout showing the EXACT LOCATION of the ATM the thief used, and the EXACT TIMES of the transactions. He did half the work for them. Don't they want to put a case number on it for their little file? What the hell kind of office procedure is this?

With a stunningly opposite attitude, the Utah bank canceled the card right away and asked if there was anything else they could do to help. Problem is, we'd already canceled the card for our other Utah account, AND the one from the Florida bank, because of AOL using them for their unauthorized charges. We cut the cards up and tossed 'em, too.

Since my PayPal account and my Social Security bank account are both bone dry, that means we're

***gasp***

cardless.

And Walter needed to start off for Atlanta tonight.

Without a tire and windshield, and no $400 to fix them and buy fuel, he was staring down the barrel of a Greyhound bus.

I never did blog the whole story of his last Greyhound trip. And we never did recover the thousands of dollars in checked baggage and goods they *lost.* Oh, it was awful.

If Walter set sail around 1am tonight, he might get to Atlanta by dinnertime tomorrow. He doesn't have baggage to check so they couldn't lose any more of our stuff, but my God, the horror of it all!

No.

No.

No.

Think, k! THINK!

All right. I found a place here that both cashes TCH checks, and has blank ones, too. That's one of those odd and useful trucker financial instruments, a cheap way to get cash on the road, and the Utah bank is linked. And it's only a mild pain in the ass. A miracle that we could find one close by; there are only 2 locations in Broward County.

Good to know in a pinch. Better yet...

You don't need the actual debit or credit card to buy a plane ticket over the internet. Right? And the fact that we still haven't received our replacement debit card from the Utah bank had me wondering. Did they slip up and not cancel it? Or, could I maybe get the number of the new card? The number's all I need.

I called them up. They DID slip up! Well, they thought I wasn't allowed to cancel the card because the Dispute Department forgot to tell the ATM Department about my POA. Excusable.

Which meant I could use the only account that has any money in it, as long as I didn't do it in person. I know the card number. Sure.

Cool.

Ha! Stupid Greyhound wanted $99.50 plus taxes and fees - either in cash, or an in-person card. The airline would take the card number over the net for a total ticket price of $149.30, non-stop to Atlanta. Take around 2 hours instead of 17. This costs less than $50 more than the bus ticket.

He'll arrive in Atlanta at about the same time, but will be able to stay here tonight and do a couple things we need doing tomorrow. Ya know. Fix a flat tire and all.

And with no luggage to check, we can print out his boarding pass and he skips all the lead-up hoopla and goes straight to the security check-in...Boarding pass printed. Done.

aaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

One more thing.

We did just get the new card from the stupid Florida bank. Since I have bank-to-bank transfer authority set up between them and Utah, and Walter's not leaving until tomorrow, I can clean out the Utah money and put it in the FL bank. No messing around with TCH checks. It takes overnight, so the bank-to-bank wouldn't have worked if he left tonight on stupid Greyhound. And this way, we'll have a card again.

Done.

Yes. Yes yes yes. Tomorrow, we'll have a little money to fix that tire. And to do something with the windshield. So we can drive to the airport, and send Walter on his way.

And me, off to sleep for a week.