Have you ever wanted to strangle a company?

So, we need this release form to take the car out of country. Before this form can be drawn up and mailed to us, we have to register for automatic debit. To do this, we fill out a form and fax that and a voided check to the company. Easy enough. Did it on the 20th of February.

Oh, but of course it's not that easy. I e-mailed March 2nd to see how the process was moving along and received an e-mail back saying they couldn't do anything until the automatic debit was processed.

Hmm. OK, we sent that in 10 days ago from the message. I e-mailed back on the 3rd noting the previous e-mails with her saying she'd received our fax and was waiting for the debit form to be processed. Didn't get answer.

So today, the 4th, I called and explained the problem to customer service. I was sent to her voicemail. Ok, left a message. Called back and explained I wanted to talk to a real person, in particular the person my initial contact told me about. Apparently my main contact didn't know when she'd be off for maternity leave. OK, ask for person #2 and am told that she's not at her desk but I can leave her voicemail, get sent to #1s voicemail again. Leave an abrupt message saying I'll call back.

Half hour later, call back and finally get to talk to an actual person who might be able to help me. I explain the situation about sending this fax but finally learned that nothing is being processed yet. I'm told that once the fax is received it takes 24-48 hours to be processed before this division can do the paperwork. This is when I learn that the automatic debit form was faxed to a "secure" area of the building. A secure enough area apparently run by small molelike creatures because they aren't allowed to talk to the outside world. I cannot call them to get confirmation that they have received it and are working on it. I cannot e-mail them as they apparently don't have an address, and even if they did, they wouldn't reply. Ian re-faxed the form this morning. Did it get received? We'll never know.

So I asked her what else could be done and she said someone could walk it over. I asked if SHE could walk it over and I guess I stepped on toes there. I was clarifying what we needed to do and she rushed into the fax number. I asked if I could put her name on it and she said she supposed I could. I e-mailed Ian to have him re-fax it yet again directly to her.

SO. Here is where we stand. Supposedly she picked it up, walked it over to the "secure" part of the building and it will be processed in 24-48 hours. On Thursday I can call to see what's what. If nothing has happened yet again, I'm going to a supervisor. We leave in 3 weeks and I don't have time for this.