Well I’ve given them the necessary time to process the fax and such, so this morning at 8 am I called Citibank to begin trying to push them to return my money. However this morning quickly devolved into moronic corporate buffoonery.

I think this is the core of my issues with banks. They charge so many fees to cover their expansive staffing, yet every employee seems like a retard. This very morning while trying to get an answer I spoke with a girl who identified herself as Maria in her Hindi accent. We spoke for twenty minutes and at the end of it she still didn’t understand what was going on, how do I know? After I explained my issues were with the IRS she transfers me to the IRA department. I even hear her say IRA and I clarify “No, not the IRA, my issues are with the IRS.” She assures me this is the proper number, lo and behold - I’m talking with Dennis about my retirement options.

At this point I just about throw my phone out the window and had K not been sleeping I would have let out a cry of anguish and frustration sure to shake the neighbors.

I call Citibank back at their number and blessedly I get a guy with his shit together, I explain my frustrations and he immediately moves to escalate my issue, unfortunately it’s ten more minutes before he is able to connect me with a manager.

I now explain the story for the fifteenth time to Ricardo, explaining how the IRS did what it did and why, he understands and confirms that my fax did indeed go to the right number but it wasn’t in the system so something happened somewhere. Unfortunately, he can’t talk to the department because… they’re not open. He has to wait until 10am EST before he can speak to them. He takes my number and will call me after speaking with them.

Before we hung up I explained my utter frustration. The issue is that banks (and other very large organizations) deal with so much information and it’s so sharded between offices and call centers and their system for handling it is so piss poor that I had one of their people direct me to the IRA department for my IRS issues. My problem isn’t with it being outsourced, I’m all for outsourcing to raise the economic levels elsewhere - but this woman worked for a banking group and yet she didn’t know the difference between an IRA and the IRS?! That’s retarded, stupid and simply inexcusable.

He agreed and apologized profusely but I will withhold and kind returns until this issue is resolved and my bank account has money again.