We Interrupt Bank Misery to Bring You Gas Company Misery Part 3

Yesterday Tomer, the PazGaz technician, not the same one who came last time, arrived, a little late, but he did call first. He examined my detached pipe, determined that it was too high for his ladder. I protested. He explained: according to the law as of January 2009, gas company workers are not allowed to climb ladders higher than four meters, something the first technician neglected to mention. Apparently, most serious work accidents were attributed to falling from great heights. Tomer observed that the problematic pipe could be reached from a neighbor's balcony, and accompanied me to the neighbor's apartment. Great so far. But. Said neighbor's apartment can only be reached by a different building entrance, I have no idea who the tenant is, and there was no answer when we buzzed the neighbor. Tomer advised me to try later in the evening and he would come back even on Friday, when he normally doesn't work. Sweet.

Except, he forgot to tell me that he had shut off my gas.

Since I took a break last night from my gas company and bank jobs and went to the opera (La Boheme...wonderful, Zeffirelli production), I was unable to contact the mysterious neighbor. This morning, after hiding from the problem through breakfast, I pondered my options. 1) Buy an electric cooktop. 2) Hire someone else to climb a tall ladder and clip my pipe to the building. 3) Try to contact my neighbor. 4) Plead with PazGaz.

I decided to try 4) first, called PazGaz again, and found Judy, a most sympathetic clerk who, after using her limited English to supplement my limited Hebrew, called Tomer while I waited. She then reported that yes, he had indeed shut off my gas because it was required until I got my pipe fixed, but the gas company couldn't fix it by ladder, but Tomer promised to come back, fix it from my neighbor's balcony, and turn on my gas even on a Friday, if I could manage to get access to my neighbor's apartment.

At this point I went into analyst mode: why had my gas pipe become detached from the wall, after living happily there for dozens of years? Aha! Because a few years ago my building had some serious exterior repairs done, required by the city of Tel Aviv, under the auspicies of the management company that represents the co-owners. Said management company has proved surprisingly competent (except for locking me out when installing an intercom door recently), and I figured perhaps I could test whether their professionalism would take them far enough to accept responsibility for this problem. I called the management company chief honcho, who is on vacation, but I reached his secretary Gili. As well as I could, I explained to Gili my dilemma (did I just use Hebrew word order?), including a plea for speed so that I could cook for my upcoming Seder next week. She was most sympathetic and PROMISED to have the problem taken care of by tomorrow. We'll see. Good thing the chicken soup is already in the freezer!

Meanwhile, I'll try to find out who my neighbor is. And Judy will surely know.

This is way more drama than I like, although compared to La Boheme, it's a comedy.

Bank Misery, Part VI

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

On Tuesday last week I took along a Hebrew-reading friend to explore a Bank Mizrahi information machine's menu tree. (This machine is different from an ATM: no cash comes out, just printouts of various reports on your account, unless the machine has run out of paper.) We searched all the menus for "Print Out Standing Orders," to no avail. I was perversely cheered that my Hebrew illiteracy had not made the least difference in the outcome.

By Thursday afternoon I had recovered sufficient energy to call the bank's recently-installed Call Center to request a list of my Standing Orders ("we provide service even when your branch is closed"), pushed "1" for Rapid Service (the only option!) (all while thinking of what other options they are preparing to offer, like "Press 2 for Slow Service," "Press 3 for No Service at all," etc. etc.). The well-trained call center person replied to my request, "I'm sorry, we can only do that when your branch is open." Hah! I might as well have pressed 3.

Friday morning I called the Call Center again and another well-trained person replied, "Do you want it sent by mail or fax?" Bingo! I gave them Sharon's fax number and asked them to address it to her attention.

What with one thing and another, I neglected to stop by the bank yesterday to check whether Sharon got the fax (my dog has now become accustomed to the inclusion of these bank stop in her morning rounds, and pauses expectantly in front of the Shekel Branch, so she was a bit disappointed). Imagine my delight when Yelena (remember her?) called this afternoon about moving my Standing Orders. It seems someone from VIP processing (!) at the Central Office in Petach Tikva wants to make an appointment with me, at my Shekel Branch, to effect the transfers. We agreed on this coming Thursday. Can't wait to meet Hagai from VIP Services!

We Interrupt Bank Misery to Bring You Gas Company Misery, Part 2

Having failed to find anyone walking around Sheinkin Street with a seven-meter ladder looking for something to do, I pondered my options when the phone rang. It was the dry cleaner, wanting to know whether he could deliver and hang my newly-cleaned curtains. Right now! I said, looking forward to completing at least one item on my to-do list. About five minutes later, Oleg arrived with my curtains and began to hang them, very competently. Aha, I thought, here is a guy who probably knows how to climb a ladder. I explained to him my situation with Pazgaz and he laughed, and said, Only in Israel! The gas company is supposed to do this, no? I decided to see whether he would help me negotiate over the phone with Pazgaz for them to provide the service. He did it, and the gas guy is coming, hopefully with a tall-enough ladder, next Monday between 1-4PM. That makes the third time I get to stay home for an afternoon in honor of Pazgaz. Homemaker is indeed a job.

Here comes the best part: Oleg noticed my laptop next to the landline phone he was using on my behalf, and asked if he could look at the Internet. I thought he wanted to check his email, but no, he wanted to check his investments on the stock exchange! And he didn't bother to log out when he left, so I could do a few transactions for him if I were so inclined.

Now do you understand why I love this crazy place?

We Interrupt Bank Misery to Bring You Gas Company Misery

Just as an oyster needs a grain of sand to irritate it into producing a pearl, so my life presents me, The Big Oyster, with so many, many grains of sand that I could set up my own Add-A-Pearl business (anyone remember those?) Perhaps living near the beach has its disadvantages.

To distract me from my Bank Miseries, sort of on the back burner, as it were, I have been suffering from low-level Gas Company misery as well - just another grain of sand. Since I moved into my apartment almost 20 years ago, I have been happily cookin' with gas. And also with electricity. The oven/stove I bought from the previous inhabitant has an electric-powered oven and a gas-powered stovetop. To me this is ideal: I never got the hang of cooking with electricity where you turned the knob up or down and the response was delayed too long for my short-term memory to remember, resulting in not-such-good cooking. With gas, I can turn the knob and see the little blue flame get smaller and smaller until it sputters out completely.

However, Israel is not a country with a gas pipeline, so each gas user has to use tanks, delivered by one or another gas company. Let's say one of these companies is named PazGaz. You sign up with PazGaz and get two tanks of gas hooked up to your stove. The tanks sit outside your building and when one of them runs out, you also run out and switch it off and switch the spare tank on. Then you call PazGaz and order another tank. Unless someone has stolen your tanks, this systems provides uninterrupted cooking.

When I called PazGaz to order a replacement tank several weeks ago, they told me that five years had elapsed since my last inspection. They would not deliver the tank until I had a new inspection. OK, I said. Send me an inspector. Oh, you have to make an appointment. OK, I did. And then the inspector came. And he found some exterior pipes had come loose from the wall and required tightening. Tighten away, I said. Oh, no, he said. I only inspect. The pipe-tightening is a separate specialty. You have to call and make an appointment. Aha, I said. And duly went to the phone to make the appointment for today.

The pipe-tightener came today, and guess what? His ladder is not long enough to reach my pipe! He recommended I hire someone on my own to do it. I was astounded! The gas company does not supply its repairmen with 8-meter ladders, only 4-meter ladders? After the sympathetic repairman called his office to check, apparently not. Together he and I trudged over to the construction site across from my building to see if they were able to supply an 8-meter ladder (for money, of course, mine, of course). No.

So now I have one week to find someone who has exterior gas pipe clips and an 8-meter ladder to install them before PazGaz turns off my gas altogether! Any volunteers out there? Where did I go wrong?

Something tells me we're going to eat pearls for Pesach this year.

Bank Misery, Part V

Just got a call from Sharon. The bank statement I provided to her is not adequate to move my standing orders. I have to supply her with an official list, obtainable only from Bank Mizrahi. Sharon claims that I can get one from any of the several Mizrahi automatic information machines sprinkled around town, but I just know the first one I pick will be out of service. I think I'll have to schedule an expedition to Ramat Aviv one morning. Ugh.

Bank Misery, Part IV

Encouraged and emboldened by Yelena's phone call yesterday, I strode over to the Shekel Branch this morning to see what progress, if any, had been made. There was a different security guard on duty, and he was not as kind, so I had to tie my dog up to wait outside. This was a bad omen.

I went in and asked for Yelena, to the blank stares of the four clerks on duty. I explained to one of them who I thought Yelena was, and she immediately went over to Sharon to confer with her, interrupting the work Sharon was doing for another customer (now, sadly, I've learned how to be the interruptee, instead of the interrupted.) Sharon assured me that she would take care of everything with Yelena and that she herself had given Yelena my phone number.

As I was about to leave, I noticed that bank manager Avi was alone in his office, so I went in to beg for his help in transferring the Isracard to his bank, as it had been him who assured me it could be done. I presented him with my most recent Isracard bill (I never leave home without my little bank file these days), and he actually went ahead and dialed the phone number on the bill. We then proceeded to pace through a phone tree of at least five branches before reaching a human voice. Avi explained what we wanted (now I was a "we"!), and started writing down another phone number before we were put on hold. Another human finally answered and a long conversation ensued, during which Avi started writing notes, number 1, 2, and 3. He then said goodbye, hung up, and explained to me that I should go over to Sylvie and wait for a fax to come out of the machine next to her desk, and she would help me fill it out. That was step 1.

And lo! a fax appeared in her machine and Sylvie and I filled it out together. She had to make only one phone call to Avi for further instructions, I signed it, and she faxed it back to the Isracard people. That was step 2.

Now I have to wait to receive my card in the mail, and return to the bank to send another fax authorizing the transfer of standing order payments. That will be step 3.

The bad news is: I'll have to learn a new PIN number :-(

End of visit #6. I think I'm halfway done now.

Bank Misery, Part III *UPDATED*

Armed with a check for umpteen dollars, on fine day I trudged over to the part of my new branch that handles foreign currency. Because this branch has two storefronts, on opposite sides of Sheinkin Street: one for shekels, and one for foreign currency. With two different security guards, of course. This one was nice in a different way: he wouldn't let me bring my dog inside, but he offered to hold and play with her, and he claimed to be a great dog lover. The dog approved. Inside, I had a long conversation with Eliezer, who chastised me for not doing a wire transfer because he had to charge me a certain percentage of the check amount, but otherwise was delighted to accept the money, telling me, and his neighboring clerk, what a nice woman the recommending neighbor was. He then informed me that the money would be ready for conversion into shekels in ten days, and advised me to come back when I wanted to do the conversion, thus confirming my suspicion that these clerks are paid by the visit: they always want you to come back for some reason to complete the transaction you thought would take only one stop.

Ten days later, armed with a list of standing orders from my about-to-be-former bank, I stopped in to see Sharon, only to learn that she was away for a week, on her honeymoon. Very nice. Crossing the street to Foreign Currency, it seems their morning had just ended. Had to return the next day earlier to accomplish that transaction. If you're counting, we're up to visit #4, and things are moving along at a deliberate pace.

A week later, visit #5, I took the list to the newlywed Sharon and as of now, I'm still waiting to hear what's happened with moving the standing orders *[See Update below]. Oh, and I still don't have a cash card, because moving that one requires dealing with Isracard, and their phone number had me on hold beyond my tolerable waiting time. I'm wondering whether it would be faster to walk over to Isracard building, which I can see from my window? The reason I want to move that one, rather than get a new card, is to keep the same PIN number and the standing orders that are billed automatically to that card.

Is this as tiresome as it seems?

*UPDATE
Just had a call from Yelena. Someone new is on my case!
Yelena: Do you want to transfer any standing orders to your new account?
Me: Yes.
Y: Which ones?
Me: All of them.
Y: Bring me a list.
Me: I already gave a list to Sharon.
Yelena: Oh, then I'll ask Sharon for it. Bye Bye.
Me: Bye.

This is not an impressive display of institutional efficiency, but at least now I know that they have my correct phone number. I probably should have just gone in with a duplicate list for Yelena. Will try that next.

Bank Misery, Part II

Having made this decision, I took myself over to the bank one morning. Banks are usually open in the mornings, although the morning may end at different times at different branches, sometimes as late as 2:30PM, unless there is a strike or a holiday. There I asked, as my neighbor recommended, for Sharon, a lovely woman young enough to be my granddaughter if I had started reproducing at 20. She was cheerfully ready to open my account, without any money. Surprise! when I suggested that the reason I wanted the account was to take money out, but I had a feeling they would want me to put some in first, she sympathetically steered me over to the manager, a sweet man young enough to be my younger son, that is, younger than my only son. Let's call him Avi. Avi discussed my situation very pleasantly and I whipped out my American bank checkbook to demonstrate how I wanted to put money into my new account. He recoiled. No, no, he said. We have to charge a percentage of the amount you deposit by check; a wire transfer is much cheaper. Now that you have an account, you have all the numbers you need to give your American bank the instructions. Go and do that, and in the meantime we'll get your new checkbook printed up. Come by to pick it up in a few days. If you don't want to leave yet, and you can go to Hila now to get your Internet and phone banking set up. So I did.

Although disappointed that all I had was a few papers with numbers, I had at least set the wheels in motion, and the security guard in front had very kindly allowed my dog inside, so it seemed like a successful first visit.

The plot began to thicken when I called by American bank, prepared to give them the numbers for the wire transfer. No, no, they said, you can't initiate a wire transfer by phone. Only in person. Not by fax either. Certainly not by email. Only in person. You have to appear in person to set up future wire transfers by fax. And we charge $50 per transfer.

Oh well, it's a good thing I have no deadline for this project.

Bank Misery, Part I

After 20 years' of unsatisfactory service from Bank Mizrahi, I decided to move my bank account to another bank. Those of you who live outside of Israel might wonder why I waited so long? Those of you who live in Israel might wonder why I bother?

You see, it's a well-known fact among us Western world immigrants that Israeli banks are not customer-service-oriented. That is, they don't do ordinary, consumer-banking service. The banks here probably enjoy working with business customers who maintain large (six- or seven-figure) balances and have lots of daily activity, but for an individual who makes (in good times) a few deposits a month and writes a few checks, forget it. Just go to the cash machine and leave us alone is the general attitude. And, as one extremely up-front and honest bank manager told me back in 1988, when I first considered changing banks, "You won't like any Israeli bank. We don't like customers." Things haven't changed much, so why move now?

Well, as you will soon see, changing bank accounts is a time- and energy-consuming project. If you're lucky, it doesn't cost any money, but if things go awry you could end up with late fees for the "standing order" payments or bounced checks from one or another of the accounts. And if your phone or electricity bills aren't paid on time, the not kindly customer-service-oriented phone or electric company just turn off service without warning, charging, of course, a reconnection fee as soon as the bill has been paid.

One other weird thing about the bank is that you spend more time there than you would expect. For example, they won't mail you your checkbooks or your renewed credit card...you have to pick them up in person. And you can't cash a check in just any old branch: if you should want to do such an antiquated transaction, you have to go to your own branch. And wait in a very slow-moving line while the teller takes phone calls before serving live customers!

Which brings me to the reasons I'm ready to do the change now: my original account is in the branch closest to where I was living when I arrived in Israel: Ramat Aviv. 1) Now that I've sold my car, I have to take a bus or taxi there, although I live within walking distance of many other (equally unhelpful) banks. 2) And now I'm retired, so I have time to indulge in bureaucratic follies as a form of entertainment. (Sad, I know.) 3) And finally, I recently became acquainted with an English-speaking neighbor who lives abroad part-time and manages her local finances through one of the nearby banks, and said neighbor was willing to share the names of her favorite clerk, teller, foreign exchange specialist. Because like everything else here, banking is 90% about relationships, and incidentally about the specific product, in this case money.

Note: when occasionally an American immigrant returns to the USA, and offers as his reason, "the banks," those of us who choose to remain usually nod sympathetically.