Today I had the pleasure of trying to buy cell phones for the family and the surreal experience of being Johnny Foreigner abroad. Thank goodness for Joseph Heller who's already described the nightmare experience I suffered: Catch-22.
Although it ended up being 2 hours of my life that I'll never get back, it started with me feeling all calm and collected. I even went so far as to let the Verizon salesperson serve a couple of other people first even though I was next in the queue. I did this 'cos I'm English and civilised and my parents brought me up with very good manners. Plus I suspected that my purchase might take a while.
I was well prepared: I knew precisely which Treo model I wanted, I knew which free phones to get for Steph & Joe, and I knew exactly which family tariff I was after. And I was armed with my American Express Gold Card - issued in the US and ready for me to use. Surely no problem. I'd even remembered to bring along my passport as ID and my social security number.
IT WAS A HELLISH EXPERIENCE !!! They wanted to take my money and I wanted to spend my money. Unfortunately their credit department consider me a risk because...wait for it...I have no credit history in the US. Aaaarrgghhh........ You will not be surprised to learn that I was declined for an HSBC credit card because...I have no US credit history. Bear in mind that I bank with First Direct (part of HSBC) in the UK and have done for 15 years or so. This made their second reason for declining me even more infuriating: no established history with HSBC bank! Boo! Hiss! HSBC - you suck.
Amex have seen fit to give me a card based on my 30 years of credit history in the UK. Even the small credit union I'm using for my banking are able and sensible enough to refer to my UK credit history via Experian (a global credit agency, used in the US too, no less) to arrange for loans and a US credit card for me. Kudos and respect go to both organisations, but especially Bethpage Federal Credit Union (take a bow) given their respective size when compared to Amex. Clearly both sensible, flexible and sane organisations.
Was there any budging by Verizon? No, there wasn't. They suck. Not their sales staff who could not have been more apologetic, but certainly the brainless, rulebook following robots in whatever department who aren't prepared to let me have these phones without paying an additional security.
I hear you say, "Security payment? Surely that's OK then?". Well, yes indeed if it had been sensible. Only they wanted me to pay $400 per phone. That's $1200 of my own money, which they would then keep and return to me in a year ?!!? It's OK, they'd give me the interest too. Yeah right, I'll give you $1200 of my money (overlooking the $350 I was paying for the Treo too) so you can sit on it. Like I'm not going to need that some time in the coming months while we try and sort ourselves out in a new country. No matter. Surely they'd compromise and make it, say $200 per phone. I'd pay that if they were willing to meet me half way. No chance.
So, I walked away. The irony was that in the same Circuit City store I then proceeded to lavish thousands of dollars on all the new, replacement electronics we're going to need.
End of rant: and, of course, I'll go back tomorrow, tail between leg, and do exactly what they want 'cos I have no choice :-)
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Ah, yes...well, this sort of thing will be over within six months, I hope.
It's hard to be a Land of Opportunity with such inflexibility and Catch Twenty Two-edness...what would have become of this country, if, a hundred and more years ago, they applied the same logic when you showed up at Ellis Island...?
"Sorry, you're a poor dirt farmer from somewhere foreign; you have no history here. We can't loan you a few bucks to buy the supplies you need to start a farm/ open a Chinese laundry/ go gold mining/ dig an oil well/ build a railroad. ..."
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