Tag Archives: banking

business, complaints, first world problems, music, YouTube

We solved one problem; now we have another…

Yesterday was relatively uneventful, compared to Monday, July 10th. Relatively, I say… which means that we did have a couple of issues come up. But, at least I didn’t feel like drinking at 2 PM like I did a week ago.

Bill got home a little bit early last night and finally changed out the battery in my car. So now, if I want to, I can drive it somewhere. But it needs to be serviced, first, as it’s been awhile since it last saw a mechanic. The Mini might also need new tires, because it’s been sitting in a garage for a long time and there might be some dry rot that makes the tires unsafe. The car will now start, though, which is the first step in driving it somewhere. So that’s one problem solved. Now, I’ve got another one that needs to be fixed.

Here’s what happened. It’s an issue that recurs seemingly every quarter or so. On the 15th of every month, my premium savings account at PenFed gets dividends. They offer good rates on that account, so it’s usually kind of exciting to see what the amount of the dividend is. I have deposited a tidy sized nest egg there, and every month, I add more to it.

Well… like most financial institutions these days, PenFed requires everyone to use two factor authentication. I hate it, because it’s inconvenient and annoying, especially since PenFed won’t allow me to get the access codes by email. I have to either get a text message or a voicemail on my phone. This wouldn’t be a problem, except for some reason, PenFed doesn’t seem to want to send texts or do robocalls to international phone numbers.

Yesterday, when I tried to log into my account via the Web site, I couldn’t get the access code. When I went to my account on PenFed, I could see that the country code for my (correct) phone number was set to 01, which is the country code for the United States. I live in Germany, so the code must be set to 49 in order for the call or text to go through. When I tried to update the country code myself, PenFed wouldn’t allow it because, the computer said, it “didn’t match the information in their records”.

This has happened before. I suspect that when PenFed’s computer system does its updates, things like country codes for international phone numbers get caught up in a glitch. I end up having to call them late in the afternoon, when I’d much rather be chilling on my patio drinking beer or eating dinner. Moreover, I have repeatedly had this issue corrected before, yet PenFed’s system still repeatedly claims my country code should be set to the U.S. code of 01, instead of the German code of 49. I’ve been in Germany for nine years so far!

I hate calling them. I also hate calling USAA, which is (sadly) my other bank. Most of my hatred of calling them comes from detesting being kept on hold and listening to their godawful hold music from hell, and dealing with people who are incompetent. I would much rather do this stuff over email or even chat. At least if I’m chatting, I can listen to my own fucking music.

This is about how I feel about calling…

So I sent PenFed an email yesterday. Hours later, I got a response asking me for my phone number. I sent it, and then got another response, probably from another person, that I had to call them to authenticate the number. SIGH…

I called PenFed and after waiting several minutes in the phone queue, got some slow talking guy who, I quickly discovered, wasn’t a very good listener, nor did he have critical thinking skills. I explained to the guy that I needed to “update” my phone number. I suppose that was the wrong word to use. What I meant to say is that they needed to update the country code, which is part of the number that must be included if one is calling from another country.

It soon became clear that the man I was talking to didn’t have much experience calling other countries. He didn’t seem to understand what a country code is. Then he told me that I’d need to send them a copy of a bill to prove that the number I was updating was correct. SIGH…

I said, “No…. you have the right phone number. I just need the country code updated.”

He reiterated that I needed to send them a bill, which I don’t even have, because Bill handles that automatically. So I asked him if there was someone more senior I could speak to. He said they were all busy, but he’d have someone call me back. I laughed at that and said, “But if someone calls me, they will have to have the correct COUNTRY CODE, right?” So I gave him my number– the same one in my records– and reiterated the right country code, which if they would just update it in my account, would negate the need for ANYONE to have to call me to solve this problem!

I waited for over an hour for the phone call, which never came. So I sent another email, explaining again the issue, and asking why I can’t simply get the access codes via email. My husband is also a member of PenFed, and he’s able to get emailed codes instead of texts. Someone named Jessica wrote back and we had an email exchange. She explained that when she called, she got a busy signal. I ended up having to explain to her how to make an international phone call from the USA, not that she ever did call me. She wrote that updated everything in my account… but now, when I try to log in, I get the following message…

I tried to send this screenshot to Jessica, but PenFed’s system blocked it. I was instructed to upload the screenshot from their “secure portal”. But, in order to do that, I have to log in… and well, as you can see, I can’t do that. I CAN, however, get on the site using their app, which doesn’t require two factor authentication for access. Go figure.

After awhile, Jessica quit responding to me, anyway. Just before I went to sleep, I got a message from someone named Alec, who suggested the issue is on my end somehow. I guess I’ll call back this afternoon and try to stay calm, as I convince someone to get someone from the IT department to fix this issue… yet again.

I have ranted before about both PenFed and USAA. The truth is, I’d really like to ditch both banks, even though I’ve been a customer of both for about 30 years or so. I’ve noticed a steep decline in their services over the past few years. But, when you live in Europe on SOFA status, it can be difficult to arrange a European bank without potentially causing problems locally with the government. We aren’t regular residents here, and we don’t want to appear like we’re becoming regular residents, because that can affect our ability to stay here legally, which could affect Bill’s job. Getting a local bank account can arouse suspicions.

Besides, we do plan to go back to the States eventually. Yes, we dream about staying in Europe forever, but I don’t know how feasible that plan is. So, at this point, we do plan to come back someday… and since we plan to come back, it’s good to have an American bank. A lot of them would rather not deal with overseas customers, though. USAA and PenFed are institutions that historically deal with military and government employees. They used to be pretty good with handling the issues that arise from here. That’s not so true anymore.

I sure wish PenFed would, at least, build a better Web site that functions properly. I have been hating on USAA a bit lately, but at least their Web site works properly. And they have a chat function that actually works with live human beings, instead of just an AI system that just sends me to articles that aren’t at all useful to the situations I usually find myself in when I need help. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes USAA’s chat function sucks, too. But I have, on occasion, gotten it to work well enough to solve my issue without having to call them.

Oh well. At least the Mini will start. Maybe it’s time we took a joy ride with the top down… the car’s, not mine. Fortunately, I don’t need to access the money I have sitting in PenFed right now. Thank God for small favors.

One positive thing I did yesterday was record another song. Quite fittingly, it’s a blues number. I learned it in about an hour. I don’t think it’s half bad, even though the camera doesn’t love me. 😉

Now you can see why Bill loves me… 😉 (someone actually said something akin to that to Bill when he heard me sing… lovely, huh?)

Happy update… I called PenFed again just now and got someone much more competent on the line. She got the block off my account and my phone number entered again. AND… she also helped me set up another money market account at a very nice rate. So bravo to the very helpful lady at PenFed this morning! With any luck, I’ll be seeing the new product in my account very soon.

Standard
complaints, money, weather

This heat can go away now! So can scammers!

Yesterday, it got up to about 98 degrees. I spent most of the day in rooms where I have portable air conditioners, which helped a bit. It’s still pretty miserable, though, this time of year in Germany. I was sweating all day, and spent a good portion of the afternoon sleeping and having weird dreams. I even pulled out a cold wrap I bought on a trip to Maine about ten years ago. It can be microwaved or frozen and put over the shoulders. It does help to cool one off, but only for as long as the wrap stays cold… which isn’t that long.

Just before I was about to go to bed, I got an email from USAA. Someone tried to use my credit card to buy $107 worth of chicken wings from Wingstop! I had been watching the card all week, because there was a pending fraudulent charge all week from Stack Magazines. The charge was authorized, but the merchant never took the money. I didn’t call, because in the past, when I’ve called the bank about pending charges, they tell me there’s nothing they can do until it goes through. Obviously, the person who got my credit card number decided to be bold and try to order food. Thankfully, USAA caught it, but now once again, I have to wait for a new card to get to me.

A few months ago, my debit card got scammed, and I had to wait for a new one to get to me. I was pretty angry about it, because they kept denying legit charges, but then when an obviously fraudulent one went through, they approved it. It was obvious, because it was for a food outlet in the USA, and I can’t even access their Web site from my location because it’s geo restricted. They denied charges in Europe, thinking that was “weird”, even though I live in Europe and have for eight years. But then they let some idiot in the USA pay for food and an Uber with my card.

At least this time, they immediately blocked the charge, so good on USAA for that. I see that they’ve also already assigned me a new number, though I still have to wait for the card to get to me. I do think it’s crappy that I’ve had this happen twice now with USAA’s cards, just in 2022 alone. It’s probably not their fault, though. It’s the lowlife scumbags who think they have the right to steal from other people by committing credit card fraud who are at fault. Also, I was happy that the person I spoke to last night was professional and polite. Unfortunately, that’s no longer a given with USAA. They used to have stellar customer service, but things have definitely gone downhill.

I’ve been trying to get rid of USAA’s banking services, but it’s really hard to do that over here. German banks don’t like doing business with Americans, thanks to our tax laws. They are required to report to the US government on any accounts held by US citizens. So, that’s why we use American banks… It’s a pain. Cumbersome banking is a somewhat small price to pay, though, since the lifestyle is good here. Except, of course, when it gets hot, and there’s no air conditioning. Slowly but surely, Europe is starting to embrace the concept of cooling homes… but our house doesn’t have it yet. I bet our landlord will eventually put it in, though. He says he wants to install a heat pump, replacing the oil system we have now.

I’ve been reading more horror stories about the state of the world. I could write about them today, but I think I’d like to take a short break from those headlines and keep things somewhat “light” for my Friday post. Right now, I’m listening to Doris Day and thinking I’d like to try one of her songs. Writing about the usual topics doesn’t exactly contribute to the romantic mood of Doris Day’s songs. So, I think I will close today’s post and do a little music for a change. It’s good for my mood. Better than reading about gun violence, anti-abortion zealots, and child abuse, anyway…

Happy Friday, y’all.

Standard
complaints, humor, rants, social media

Random free floating hostility… so many things that are irritating me today.

This is going to be a really cranky and inappropriate post. If you choose to read it, you may not agree with some of the reasons why I’m cranky. That’s fine, but I don’t really want to hear about it unless you have a funny comment to add, kind support, or commiseration. I have a right to air my grievances on my space, controversial though they may be.

Fair warning. This is my mood today.

Yesterday was an annoying day on several levels. It started off okay enough. I showed off Bill’s Bento Box packing skills to my friends. He cracks me up, because he’s so health conscious and he likes to pack visually appealing, healthy lunches for himself. Meanwhile, I’m planning to eat Cheetos. I ate a strawberry for breakfast, and a seed got caught between my teeth, which was very aggravating. I’m also dealing with Aunt Flow, who made an irritating return after three months. There’s not enough flow to need a lot of protection, but there is enough to make me feel “not so fresh”. Then Bill went off to work, and that’s when things began to get even more annoying.

My husband is such a good egg.

Before the morning was over, I watched a video on the Meet The Wengers channel. I have been following this lady, Katie Wenger, for a few years now. She’s American, and she married a German guy from Stuttgart. They have three kids and live in Berlin now. I watched her latest video, which was followed by one of her old videos, from when her eldest child was still very young and she was pregnant with her second baby. Her son, then a toddler, had a massive tantrum in a department store, and some rude bitch came up to her and said, “You’re going to have another baby and you can’t even handle the one you have now?” Oh my God… what a rude, insensitive, CUNTY comment that is. Poor Katie was crying. I’m sure I would have fired lasers at that woman if she had said something like that to me. What makes people think they have the right to make comments like that to perfect strangers?

I’m sure she was nicer than I would have been in this situation.

After I watched Katie’s video, it was approaching 1:00pm, which is when one of my banks in the USA opens (7:00 am, Eastern time). I needed to call them, which is never something I enjoy doing. I mentioned last month that I’m wanting to change banks where I do checking. For many reasons, I’m trying to fire USAA.

For over a month, I’ve been trying to set up a checking account with a bank I already use. Yesterday, I called them for the third time about this issue. The first two times, I was told that their system was giving them an “error” when they tried to set up a checking account for me. They said IT would look at it and they would get in touch with me. But, of course, they never bothered to contact me. I was about to give up, but on Tuesday night, Bill managed to open a checking account online with no issues whatsoever. So I called the bank and was told that they needed a “physical address”. I gave them my German address, which the system didn’t want to take. But Bill lives in the same place I do… so why was he able to open an account and I’m not?

Adding insult to injury, this bank’s app sucks. It’s no longer recognizing my fingerprint, and it tells me that my email and phone number are not eligible for two party authentication, even though I was using the app successfully a few days ago. If I go to the actual Web site, it lets me log in and sends me texts and emails with no issues, albeit not without lecturing me about my usual browser, which it doesn’t like. So I called the bank and complained about the checking account issue, reminding the person that this was my third call about this. Then I told her that every other time, people have said someone would contact me, and they never do. I sent an email, too, and got terse response from someone who apparently didn’t understand the issue and simply explained how to use the app, as well as admonishing me to give them a couple of days to contact me. But I don’t hold out much hope for that.

After the bank fiasco, I decided to try to read, which led to my getting drowsy and wanting to take a nap. As I was about to drift off, the doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting a package or company, so I was a little irritable. I opened the door, and there was a maskless guy standing away from the porch, speaking rapid fire German to me. I fixed a stare on him and said, “I don’t speak German.” Ordinarily, I might have made an attempt, but I wasn’t prepared for his visit and was, frankly, not in a good mood.

He stopped and showed me his phone, which indicated that he was there to read the meter. I said, “You need a meter reading?”

He started going off about Strom (energy) and I said, “Yes, I understand. Come in.” In Germany, the meters are inside the house, usually in the basement.

As he entered the house, I was almost knocked over by the gallon of cologne he was wearing. He immediately started fretting about Arran, who is a friendly old dog who just wanted to say hello. He said, “Your dog…”, like I needed to control a vicious animal or something. Noyzi didn’t come down at all. I can only imagine what his reaction would have been to him!

I said, “He won’t hurt you.” I shooed Arran outside and the guy hesitantly moved the dog gate to the basement, with an air of how I should be more accommodating. I was thinking to myself, “If you want me to be dressed and accommodating, let me know when you’re coming next time.” The guy got his reading and was on his way… and by that point, I didn’t want to nap anymore.

So then I started reading the news, and there were the reports about how the CDC is making the public transportation keep mask mandates until May 3. As usual, the annoying virtue signalers were out in droves, with many saying that we should all be masked on planes forevermore. It shouldn’t surprise any of my regular readers that I think the mask mandates on planes need to go… and I feel certain that it’s only a matter of time before they’re history. Why? Because the masks aren’t very effective, and their enforced wear causes people to act like maniacs on planes. I’ve mentioned before that here in Germany, we’ve been wearing the supposedly superior “FFP2 masks” (like N95s) for months. COVID is still rampant, probably because the virus can still invade through the eyes. But good luck getting people to wear safety glasses or eye goggles.

Planes are so uncomfortable anyway, with the tight seats and lack of legroom. Now we all have to wear masks, and everybody sits around hostiley watching everyone else, hall monitor like, counting the minutes to see how long they take to eat and drink. It’s ludicrous, and it makes airplane travel unacceptably unpleasant for me. So, I decided to add a comment voting against the mask rules.

Naturally, I got a laughing reaction and some guy apparently decided to “school me”, asshole style. I didn’t bother to read his comment. Instead, I unsubscribed from the thread, because I knew there would be a slew of people trying to argue with me– people who went to the Google School of Public Health and want to share news articles with provocative headlines that supposedly “prove” their points. Most of them haven’t even bothered to read the articles they share to support their lame assertions that this is the way we should all have to live from now on. I really ain’t got the time or patience for it.

Just because I am not in agreement that masks forever are the way to go, that doesn’t mean I don’t comply with rules. I do follow the rules, but I don’t have to like them. I can comment negatively about them if I want, and that doesn’t obligate me to have a conversation with some stranger who is just going to insult and berate me for not being a “humanitarian” and cheerleading for masks. I also know I’m not going to change anyone’s mind, and they aren’t going to change my mind. I just want to have my say, especially since I know a lot of people secretly agree with me, but don’t want to say it out loud, because they don’t want to deal with the mansplainers and virtue signalers, either.

Then Bill came home and we ended up having a rather unpleasant discussion about Ex. He’d like to forget all about her. So would I. But, as we’ve seen from recent events, she still thinks she has a claim on Bill’s family, and she will continue to try to scam his relatives. So someone has to keep an eye on her. Then he told me he thinks I have an attitude of wanting to avenge against her. And, you know what? I do. I am absolutely furious with Ex for everything she’s done over the years, and you bet your ass I want to see her pay for her wrongs. However, she is certainly not worth going to prison over, so I just patiently wait for karma to hit her. Besides, as long as Bill talks to his daughter, he is going to hear about his ex wife. Younger daughter hasn’t recovered from growing up with that narcissistic woman as her mother. So, if he’s going to have a relationship with his daughter, he’s going to be hearing about his ex wife. I told him if he wants me to stop talking to him about her, maybe we should get a divorce. Of course, neither of us wants to get a divorce, but obviously, someone needs to watch Ex so that innocent people can be warned when she decides to engage in fuckery.

I had a nightmare about Ex and former landlady this morning. I dreamt we had to move back to the Stuttgart area and we got a house on post (which don’t really exist, especially for retired people like Bill). It turned out the house was owned by ex landlady. I dreamt that I was preparing to move, and I said to Bill “Well, at least we know what to expect.”

This morning has been marginally better… I read an article on Military Times about how the military lifestyle is preventing some people from starting families. One lady wrote about how she and her husband are dual military and they haven’t reproduced because of the cost of childcare. Some dickhead wrote, “You shouldn’t have children if you can’t afford them.”

That comment pissed me off, because it’s so rude, thoughtless, and dismissive. What if a person could afford a baby when the baby was born, but then couldn’t afford it later, due to a reversal in fortune? So I decided to leave a kind comment for the woman. 20 years ago, when I was in grad school, I worked on a project in South Carolina that addressed how expensive childcare is… and how it’s not always available, like at night, when some people have to work. It sounds like the issue is an even bigger problem now than it was in 2000. Sexist attitudes from numbskulled, perspective challenged military guys who are dismissive and lack empathy, are not helpful. I’ll bet that guy also thinks that women should be forced to birth, but I don’t care enough to look at his profile to find evidence.

And then… the pièce de résistance…. feast your eyes on the status below…

Facepalm…

Folks… if you made it out of high school, you should know full well that female mammals have two openings “down there”. If your dog is “peeing blood”, it has nothing to do with her reproductive system. Mammals don’t give birth from their urethras. Jeez. And humans have periods. Dogs and a lot of other mammals go through “estrus”– they go “into heat”– which is not the same thing as menstruation. I can understand why the guy who posted this felt like he should explain that his dog can’t go into heat. However, I was pretty bowled over that a man who is presumably old enough to work in Germany with the US military doesn’t know that females don’t have periods through their urethras. And dogs don’t have periods at all! I guess I should be glad he’s taking her to a vet. That’s more than I can say for some people. On another note… I’ll bet he needs a flashlight and a compass to “flick the bean”, since he evidently thinks pee and menstrual blood come from the same hole. I mean, I got a D in biology myself, but I know there’s a difference between the urethra and the vagina.

Bill did make me smile before he went to work, though. We were talking about the pretty bits of glass and pottery some clueless lady in Croatia sent Ex. Ex was gushing about it, and calling it “Mermaid Mail”, because she’s obsessed with mermaids. Bill said, “My (older) daughter is going to make something with those pieces and Ex will take credit for it, as usual. But hey– if Ex wants to build a Mermalair (reference to Spongebob Squarepants), who am I to protest? I just wonder if (#3) is Barnacle Boy.”

I had a good laugh at that. Bill can really be hilarious when the mood strikes. He’s helpful, too. In fact, he helpfully took from me the bag of dog shit I had collected from the backyard, and then he went off to work, Bento Box in his (other) hand. He also shared with me this awesome memory from when he defaced a Book of Mormon at a Marriott hotel, years ago.

Bill can be pretty edgy sometimes.

I do know that in spite of everything that irritates me on the daily, I am a blessed woman on many levels. So take that, world. Hopefully, today will be less annoying… but it is Thursday, and that means I have to vacuum (my least favorite chore). So I guess I’ll stop writing and get on with doing that, so I can focus on being less crabby.

Standard
complaints, condescending twatbags

So now I AM really upset with USAA…

Earlier today, I wrote about how I wasn’t that pissed that USAA allowed fraudulent charges to go through on my debit card. Well… scratch that. I am now furious.

Here’s the deal. I had to call them yesterday, because I discovered three fraudulent charges on my card. This was a week after I had to call them to unblock my card, because they were flagging legitimate charges. Then, when I finally do get fraudulent charges on the debit card, they let those go through. Great… so I called them up and they blocked the debit card. I now only have my credit card to use until my new debit card gets to me. Since I don’t know when that will be, I have been updating my payment methods on revolving accounts.

Doing that, of course, resulted in a fraud alert on my credit card, since I don’t use the credit card very often. I got an urgent email to call them, so I tried to call on Skype. But since Skype doesn’t give me a permanent number, I had to call back on my German phone. Verifying my phone number is one of their security measures. And then I have to go through all of the other security rigamarole– telling them my SSN, my PIN, and reciting a security code they send to me.

I finally get this guy on the phone who starts giving me the usual spiel about fraud alerts. I try to tell him that I know all about it, because I’m constantly having to call them about this. He doesn’t listen, and repeatedly tries to talk over me, which only makes me angrier and more frustrated. I don’t usually yell at customer service agents, but it seems like everything I try to do to fix this problem only leads to more problems. And USAA used to be a pretty good place to do business, but it’s just really gone down the shitter.

So now I’m sitting here fuming, wondering how long and how painful it’s going to be to move my business to another bank. And all because some lowlife crook got ahold of my debit card number. I can’t even really complain about this, because everything on their Web site is automated.

I guess it’s a good thing no one depends on me for money.

Standard
complaints, money, rants

Look what I got!

Yesterday was a somewhat exasperating day. As I wrote in yesterday’s post, I had to call USAA because of their heavy handed fraud alert system. I think it was triggered on Sunday night, when I decided to buy some underwear from Amazon. I use Amazon a lot, but because I had been traveling and had set a travel alert, I guess USAA’s bots figured I shouldn’t be ordering underwear. I’m wondering what would have happened if I’d tried to use my debit card in France.

I didn’t realize I had tripped the fraud alert until I went to order some brandy from my favorite Armenian brandy retailer, another vendor I use pretty often. I went to pay for my order, which included a bottle of apricot brandy for a local friend, when I realized the payment didn’t go through. Then I saw an urgent automated email from USAA telling me that they’d “tried to contact me” and I hadn’t answered. I didn’t answer, because I wasn’t wearing my Apple Watch and didn’t have my phone with me. I didn’t realize I’d need those items for buying underwear from a vendor I use all the time.

I got really pissed. Why? Because this happens ALL THE TIME. Several months ago, when I was trying to book hotels for our trip to Croatia, Austria, and Slovenia, I got the same annoying fraud alerts from both USAA and PenFed. And because I live several hours ahead of USAA and PenFed, and it was the weekend, I had to wait hours before I could call them and straighten out the situation. It used to be that USAA would send me an email or text asking me to verify things. And I did notice that they sent texts this time. But again, I didn’t have my phone with me, because it was just underwear.

You can’t send USAA an email, so I complained on their Facebook chat. “Jason” responded with apologies, but I never heard from him again. Thanks for nothing, Jason. I can see that I did the same thing in October, when they blocked my card as I was trying to book lodging. I complained then, too, and even spoke to someone who called me while we were traveling. Fat lot of good that did.

From October…
This turned into my having a long conversation with several customer service people.
From Sunday night.
The fraud alert showed up hours later, at a time during which I could not call for help from a human.

Yesterday morning, as I was composing my blog post, I got an automated call from USAA. I answered it and verified the charges. The automated voice on the other end of the line said that my card was open and I didn’t need to do anything else. Wonderful. So I went back to the Armenian brandy purveyor and successfully completed an order… which tripped the fucking fraud alert system again. But again, I didn’t know I had tripped the fraud system, so I downloaded a couple of albums.

A couple of hours later, I was walking the dogs, and I got another fraud alert on my phone/watch. I tried to answer the watch while juggling my dogs. I had to give up, though, because it was impossible to walk the dogs and answer the phone. I checked my iPad and noticed that Apple had sent me a message that my card was declined. So I called up USAA and spoke to a very pleasant representative. Really, she was very nice… much like the representatives used to be, when USAA was still customer service oriented. I expressed my frustration at having to make international phone calls every time I need to unblock my card(s). I told her that I was strongly considering changing banks because of this issue.

I do have an account with PenFed. I used to have a checking account with them, but closed it because they charged a fee if the minimum balance wasn’t high enough. Last night, I started an application for another checking account with them, just so I have an alternative to USAA. But really, I think it may be time to migrate our business elsewhere. PenFed is also a bit of a pain in the butt about fraud alerts and shutting down access to things. I’ll have to call them later today to verify my identity because of the checking account request I made last night.

USAA really has gone downhill… and not just because of these customer service issues, but also because I suspect it’s a very culty kind of a place. I remember when Bill was looking for a job in 2014. He spoke to people at a USAA job fair and they asked him if he knew anyone who worked at USAA. He said he didn’t, and it became very clear that not knowing someone there was the “kiss of death”. It didn’t matter that he’s a retired veteran with about 30 years of service, or that he’s been a member of USAA since 1984, or that I’ve been a member for 27 years. I remember writing about that incident on my original OH blog, and USAA’s public relations goons stalked that post for months. If it had been up to me alone, I would have ditched them years ago.

Another thing I noticed last night was that, unbeknownst to me, Amazon put my underwear order on my credit card when the debit card was declined. That isn’t a huge deal, since the order was for less than $100, and I have a huge credit line. I’m just very particular about what I charge on my credit cards. I usually only use them for large purchases or travel. I did make a big payment this morning to cover our trip to France, though. I guess I need to remove that card from Amazon so they don’t do that again.

And then, after I straightened out the USAA blocking issue, I got an alert from Corona Warn, which is a German app where one can upload vaccine certificates and monitor the COVID situation in Germany. I also have a German app called CovPass, which is what I used exclusively when we traveled. We had to show our vaccine certifications at our hotel and in restaurants. The Germans and the French have different procedures. In Germany, we had to wear FFP2 masks and show the QR code, as well as our IDs. In France, surgical masks were okay, and after we showed our vaccine certifications, we were allowed to unmask.

So anyway, even though I didn’t use Corona Warn when I showed my vaccine certs, it was monitoring my location. And yesterday afternoon, I got a message from them, letting me know that I was exposed to COVID-19 sometime on March 2, 2022. It was either at a McDonald’s I went to when I needed to pee, or it was at the restaurant in Stuttgart where we had lunch. Either way, the exposure was five days ago, and we have been in France for most of those days.

Now… I don’t have any symptoms of COVID-19 at all, and I pretty much lead an isolated existence as a general rule. I don’t use public transportation, and once we got home from our trip, I have stayed at home, with the exception of a very short walk I took with the dogs yesterday as I was trying to deal with USAA. But when I got the “red tile”, as they call it, I went to the app to find out what I’m supposed to do now. I found information that was posted in December 2021. According to that info, I’m supposed to go home, check for symptoms, call the health department or my “doctor” (which I don’t have), get tested for COVID (supposedly free of charge), and if I have a positive result, isolate and share my test result.

I should mention that Bill doesn’t have Corona Warn on his phone, so he did not get an alert. However, since we were together the whole time, I guess he would get a “red tile”, too, if he had Corona Warn, which was silently monitoring me based on my cell phone’s location and bluetooth technology. While I understand how this works, it’s a little creepy that this app was monitoring me, even though I wasn’t using it when I showed my certifications.

Ugh… I don’t use the diary, so this is really the only entry. And it doesn’t say where the exposure happened.

The instructions on what to do are kind of confusing, depending on a person’s vaccination status. Because I am fully vaccinated, it’s supposedly not compulsory for me to quarantine. But the exposure happened six days ago, anyway. And if I hadn’t had it on my phone, I would never have gotten this alert at all, tardy as it is. I had to make a separate Apple account for the German store to even get these apps, since they weren’t available in the US store last summer, when I downloaded them. That was a bit of a pain, too. I have heard that CovPass, at least, is now in the American Apple store. I’m not sure about Corona Warn.

The tile will turn green again on March 16th. Fortunately, I don’t think we have any big weekend plans… Bill says he’s going to do the taxes. I’ll probably work on my latest jigsaw puzzle… or maybe we’ll clean up the backyard and bring up the furniture for the forthcoming warmer weather. And maybe we’ll enjoy some of the Ukrainian vodka I just ordered. My German friend says she knows a lot of people who get the “red tile” and never get sick with COVID. It’s just a very sensitive app that lights up if you’re even in the vicinity of someone who has tested positive and shared that information with the app. Obviously, not everyone does that, though, so really, I could have been getting red tiles for months.

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