Pauls Rants and Revelations

Ive banked at Washington Mutual for a while now. Ive even worked on some of their internal systems while employeed in San Francisco. I really thought that they were a solid bank.

Boy oh boy was I just proved wrong.

After about 7 years they have screwed me over for the last time. For those of you who bank at WaMu, whenever you go inside the bank to do a transaction you have to swipe you debit card and enter your PIN to verify you are who you say you are. All of you information is instantly on their screens as soon as you hit the green button.

Last month (January 31), after I got paid, I went into the branch to get some money out. I would have used the ATM but I wanted hundreds. Anyways, I swipe my card, enter my pin, hand over my withdrawl slip and get my money. I didnt keep the reciept as no one ever does.

The next day I check my account online and notice nothing out of the ordinary; the $6 at Carls Jr., $5 at Starbucks, and my withdrawl from the branch transaction. My balances work out OK in their sheet and within my MS Money software.

Skip ahead to last Monday. I check my account and notice that I am in the red by several large digits. The amount is exactly the same as the oen I did a month ago and is listed as a Withdrawl Correction. I search my history and find… not what Im looking for. Carls Jr, Starbucks, but the original withdrawl was not there anymore. The transaction that was there is gone now. OK, panic mode on. As I have several credit card transactions about to go through I go to the bank in an instant (they are just at the end of the block from where I live). I ask them the standard WTF questions and they said that they made a mistake. Youre dam right you did. They said that they accidently put in the wrong account number and took the money out of someone elses account by mistake. That person came in yesterday and asked about it. Then they corrected it.

OK. Fine, they made a mistake. Then why has the transaction that was there disappeared? They said that they have no record of that ever being on my register. I give them a print out from my Money software which has the transation in question on it. They said that they cant do anything as it is not their software.

Fine. I open up my laptop right on the teller counter and pull up my account online (god bless WiFi). I show them the spot is should be. They said that there is nothing there. Then I point out that the Running Balance does not even out from the transaction. The next transaction after the Starbucks was for Borders for $15. The running balance said that it was $300. The woman didnt know what to say. The manager did though. The manager said that they will look into it and get it corrected.

Yesterday I check my account and find that it was corrected. The $15 book I bought said that $15 was taken out. Great. When she said that it would be corrected I should have guessed that it wasnt going to be in my favor.

In the end, the figures balanced out correctly as all of the transaction were reset and the $300 was officially (according to WaMu) not taken until Monday. They covered their tracks well. However, the 2 transactions that went through cause NSF fees ($27 a piece) and these were adjusted as well. Not removed as I officially had money for them, but adjusted and marked as a debit on the account. This I just found out after checking my account, hence why Im writing this article now. Tomorrow Ill go down and bitch at them for it and hopefully get my rightful $54 back.

In the meantime, Im moving my checking account to another bank I use. If anyone in the Portland Metro or Seattle Metro area is aware of First Tech Credit Union, try to get an account with them. Find a friend, marry a member, do whatever, but these guys are way better than WaMu.

And, to the person whos account the $300 was mistakenly taken out of, I ask this: If you have enough money to not notice $300 being taken out of your account, why couldnt you have just wrote if off as a bank error? The least you could have done is waited a few days until I got paid again.

-Cheers

Im always searching for ways to make work more efficient and hassle free. Sometimes (most times really) it is not possible to do both. One of the things that I am always on the lookout for are ways to decrease the overhead of my business. I use Paypal for my business simply because it is easy to use and bill through but I longed for a way to take credit cards in a more professional manner. I think I have found them now.

I came across Advantage Processors quite by accident. I wasnt meaning to find them so Im chalking it up to the fates working for me. Advantage offers credit card processing and merchant account services for businesses large and small. They also cater to online businesses (such as myself) and provide tools and services to help you become a more “professional” business entity. The rates they charge are also among the lowest around; some services charge $0.50 - 5% per transaction so Im really interested in their flat fee.

I already submitted my merchant account application and hope to get approved for it. Ive had my business a long while now (going on 5 years) but I still get shaky whenever I apply for something. Their signup was super-quick and easy and the documentation and tutorials they provided was a very welcomed and comforting thing. I really think I can get to like  Advantage Processors and use them for my merchant services.

Now the only thingI have to worry about is how to tell Paypal that I found something better. I should feel sad about leaving such a long relationship, but the fact that I can save a ton of money on transactions kind of makes it all OK.

You can check out Advantage here to see if they can work their magic for you.

- Cheers Mates

I think that 1 more sleepless night is what it will take to get me caught up with everything. Projects are coming due and with an increase in mundane stuff (updates and general client maintainence) my time seems to have slipped away again.

Maybe after I clear off whats on my plate now I can ask for some time off. A few days of unplugging would do me good.

OK. Back to the grind stone.

-Cheers

In an effort to combat comment span, I have set the number of allowed links in comments to 1. So if you provide more than one link in a comment, it will be flagged for moderation.

This is in response to link farmers trying to get their links to sites. When a post (and its comments) are indexed, the link to the spammers site is indexed as well providing them with a higher page rank.

So, if you are going to comment and have to provide a link, try to use only one. More than one if fine you just have to wait a few hours before I will approve it.

-Cheers

So we filed our taxes early this year. We used the H&R Block tax pro online (for the 4th year in a row) and I must say Im digging it. It took us about 30 minutes to fill out all the forms and check for errors and file. It would have taken longer but since we used the software last year it automaticaly imported our return from last year. There was one error that I corrected in about 2 minutes and refiled. All in all it was well worth the $40 that we are charged for it. There are some versions (for those in states like Washington) that only offer the federal return which is only $20, but since we live in Oregon we needed the state return as well (and since we live in Oregon, we once again owed on the state return).

Its actually funny about Oregon taxes. This year I opted to have an extra $50 taken out of my checks to go to Oregon. After having an extra $600 taken out this year, we still owed $500 to the state. I guess our governor forgot about all those tax breaks he was gonna give out this year. I can’t say as I blame him as I voted for the other guy.

Anyways, if you are going to do your taxes online and want an easy (and cheap) way to go, use H&R Blocks online tax prep software. You will be thanking me after you do.

One word of caution though; dont go with the Rapid Refund or refund expectance check. Its costs $80 and besides, you should be more than able to be patient for the 8-15 day waiting period before your return comes. If you file today you’ll have your refund months before the April 15th tax deadline.

-Cheers

My company was nominated for a marketing award for a website we did for a client. It was a really nifty site that had a virtual training section, a reseller incentive mall where resellers could enter sales and recieve points for free swag, and some nifty video podcasts. The site itself, at least from my perspective, wasnt exactly groundbreaking programming or design work, but it was kinda nifty and it gave me an excuse to look into how loading podcasts for iTunes worked and about producing podcasts in general.

We ended up not getting the award. Whether this was because we were simply beaten by a better company (doubtful) or because we werent a member of the AMA (likely) we will never be sure of. At least the beer was free.

I do know this though; when you walk around a room with a name tag that says “Finalist”, people tent to notice you a bit more. I had a couple of poeple come up and introduce themselves. I was flabergasted. Whats intersting to note though is that I didnt originally have the Finalist ribbon on my nametag. I picked it up off of the reception table (the sale guy for the project is the one who had the ribbon) and stuck it on and all of the sudden I was popular. It was kind of like high school in that way.

Anyways, it was kind of fun. But truth be told I would have rather gone down to the Kit Kat Klub and thrown dollar bills at some morally lax female college students. With them you always feel like a winner.
Oh well. Maybe next time.

Well, it seems that Associated Content really likes my stuff. This is the third article I’ve written that has been published. You can check it out here:

AC - Archery For Beginners

Its a beginners guide to archery (which Im a huge fan and practicer of) and is good for anyone looking to start into archery. Hopefully my archer friends wont spot any errors in it as I cant change it once its published. Anyways, check it out if you feel like it.

-Cheers

I have been messing with the FedEx API for a client for the better part of 2 months. After many irritated phone calls (and more than a few insults to their IVR system) they finally told me that what we wanted to do would not be possible. Ever.

I primarily develop on a Windows 2003 server. Their ATOM software (that controls the API dll) will not work on a 2003 box. This they told me after 2 months of hassle with it. Needless to say I was a little miffed.

But where one door is shut voilently in your face (doorknob hitting you in the ass and all), another door opens. This door, a small, rathole sized door, came in the form of an XML request.

It turns out that if you cannot use their API, they offer the option of calling their servers directly using an XML request. They dont normally tell people this and the documentation for it is laughable at best, but it turns out that it works. And whats more, it works better than their API option. And whats more than that, Their request comes back as an XML string so we can parse it to our desires (sweet).

So after about 5 minutes on google, a site what yeilded that explained, in detail, exactly how to do what we want using an XML request.

http://www.tek-tips.com/faqs.cfm?fid=6397

I copied the exact code he had, added in the clients specific info, and you know what; it WORKED. We got a positive response. Another hour and we were getting back exactly what we wanted; the Net Charge of the shipping (we only needed this one stinking number).

There is still work to do to integrate it into the clients site, but this is a major step forward. The rest (making a function, integrating into the cart, etc) is small beans compared to this victory.

So, for all those who are messing with the FedEx API, trying to get information from it, give up now and cut your losses. Go with the Direct XML request. It works beautifully on any system (windows, unix or other as long as you can parse XML) and you dont have to install anything.

The only other option I would suggest is to try UPS.

Cheers

Update: After two hours of tinkering, I finally have a nice selection box that displays all of the shipping estimates for the various services based on where they are going. Im almost amazed since I have gotten further in 2 hours than I have in 2 months. OK. Back to the grindstone. - Cheers

I have been using Netbank since 2002. For the most part it has been quite good. Recently they added some new security measure “to keep your information safe”, as they say on their site.

Now, I have trouble remembering what my mothers maiden name was, let alone what exactly my favorite musical instrument was in high school, my third pets name, or my first family vacation destination. But these are some of the questions that one is now required to answer in order to access ones account.

There are literally dozens of possible questions that you can choose. And you are required to choose 5 security questions. I though I would just use the same answer for all the questions but the programmers at Netbank are a tad smarter than that. I ended up using a set of variations and it was accepted so at least I will get it on the 2nd or 3rd try.

What I find really annoying though is that no one actually asked for these “security enhancements”. I have talked to several other Netbank customers and they are as frustrated and confused as I am. Some of them have moved to other banks simply because they had too hard a time trying to do simple things like check their account balance. I myself am seriously considering closing my account with them due to their complete lack of customer cares.

Does anyone else use Netbank? Are you having the same troubles? Have you moved your accounts elsewhere because of their changes?

-Cheers

This is a test of the light box functions. Here are the image thumbnails:

When you click on the images, the full size loads into a div over the entire site. This is both easy to implment and works on every browser. Go get lightbox right now from here

Cheers