Leah’s Cafe

There are a few people I would like to ask this question last week, but I didn’t ! Incidentally, they all work for the bank! Which make me wonder what kind people they hired to work in the bank nowadays?

The first incident, I walked into the bank, requested a “reduce of mortgage interest rate”, two customer officers told me there is no such thing. When I insisted there is, they asked me to write a letter.(And you thought that’s a special talent of government bureaucrats to stop people from bothering them!) I live 45 minutes away from the bank, I was not going to drive home, type out a letter and drive back there, so I requested a piece of paper and drafted a letter on the spot and asked them to fax the request to the HQ. I got a call from the HQ the next day, offered me a 2% reduction in interest rate!!

The second incident is an old issue that had not been solved for four years. I have a margin trading account with this bank and have an online account for stocks trading. Four years ago, I forgot the username and password, my account was suspended after three unsuccessful attempts. I was told to go to the branch to restore the account and the fellow at the branch asked me to call the customer careline. The customer careline people asked me to see the fellow at the branch to get the access code, after being kicked around like a ball for a few times, I just gave up. Recently, as I am trying to take care of the banking and financial matters before leaving for IL, and I wanted to sell the remaining stocks, I went back to the branch to enquire about how to restore the password (Amazingly, the same guy I talked to four years ago still works there and deals with this kind of problem) But, looks like he has not been equipped with the right product knowledge in this four years! Guy A at the branch asked me to call the customer careline, guy B at the customer caerline asked me to see A, so I told A and B, why don’t you figure out what to do and call me! That was a week ago, I am still waiting for their calls!

The third incident happened at the same bank of the first incident, I handed in a few security documents for verification and certification to a woman officer, was told it would take 2 weeks to get back to me. As I didn’t want to go down again to pick up the documents, I requested for the documents to courier to me. After two weeks, no news, but I was too busy accompanying my mom on a hospital tour and didn’t drop or call to check on the status of the documents. Four weeks later, I called the branch and enquired about the status of the documents, the woman who picked up the phone told me she couldn’t tell me anything wouldn’t check anything for me on the phone, I have to go to the branch personally. I got really annoyed with her, I asked for her name but she refused to give me. I then called the customer careline, made a complaint about it and asked to trace the whereabouts of the documents. The man on the customer careline was helpful, he was surprised that I was even told it would take two weeks to verify the documents, he said the branch could usually do the verification on the spot! Anyway, he verified with his superior, called the branch and managed to get them to trace the documents. He then called me back a few hours later, told me I could go to the branch to pick up the documents the next day, they would be verified. I was not free the next day, so I went in the following business day. Guess what ? I drove 45 minutes down there, was told they need to send the documents to HQ for verification and the woman who was in charged of this matter was on leave and I have to come back the next day. My face must have changed color, I tell you. I sat there, insisted that I would not leave without the documents. The woman who served me didn’t know what to do, she went inside and came back with another woman who looked like she is the supervisor or manager. (What’s wrong with this people who never identify themselves? Isn’t that a common courtesy to let your customers know who they are dealing with? ) She apologized for the “miscommunication” and offered to courier the documents to me the next day, so I don’t have to drive one and half hours to and fro just to pick up the documents.

The ridiculous thing is: after all the hassles and five weeks of waiting for the documents, was told they are no longer needed by another institution who required it, just because they never update their website!!!

Malaysia boleh!

Our National Carrier has been advertising about their discounted fares heavily on all kind of media. Today I checked the website for their KL-LA routes to see any chance of picking up a bargain. No luck.

One thing I really don’t understand. The airfare for flights originate from KL  are much more expensive than the ones originate from LA for the same route !

For example, to fly from KL to LA and return costs RM5566 (6 months ticket). At the prevailing exchange rate, it’s about USD1700+.

 Whereas to fly from LA to KL and return cost USD1186.20 or at RM3855.

The difference is about USD514 or RM1700!!

Why is our National carrier charging us more to fly out of KL ?

When you are serious about playing a game competitively, it’s very likely that you are also obsessed with getting the latest gears so that you can improve the score and become better in the game. Our friends who are into golf for instance have so many sets of golf clubs, but he is constantly buying new clubs which he believes can keep improving his handicaps.

I bet for people who are into paintball game, their closet will be full of paintball equipment and protective gears. When they go to shopping mall, they will be lingering around the counter that sells all the tippmann gears, like a seven years old at the candy counter? Oh, am I not grateful that the big boy’s hobby is collecting toys that cost a few dollars, not a few hundred dollars. :-)

With the oil prices record new high every other day, air tickets are expecting to continue to increase. It will not be surprising that the surcharge may even exceed the airfare when summer comes around.

The tentative plan was to fly in the end of May before the summer peak season kicks in. But the procrastinator won’t move things along until the last minute and I refused to throw myself into a stressful situation where nothing is ready. So let him pays through his nose for expensive air tickets during peak season!

Did you get fool today?

Google’s home page provided a link to “Virgle”, an April Fool’s faux collaboration on an Mars expedition between Google and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

“It’s time humanity got started on a Plan B,” the site claimed. “So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of pioneers onto one of the greatest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.”

The homepage of the “Project Virgle” has button for application to be “pioneers” and a video starring Page and Brin, they looked like they were up to something and having trouble keeping their faces straight, not very convincing on an April fool’s day.. :-)

Most people see their big day as once a lifetime event that worthy of careful planning and splurging their savings on. Do you realize that businesses that provide wedding related services continue to prosper despite of fierce competitions?

Many of the photo studios also team up with makeup artists, wedding planners and event organizers. Do you realize that many weddings this days are very professionally organized? The bride and groom are getting creative in coming out with unique wedding favor ideas with the help of this professionals, Of course, to stay ahead of their competitors, many places that provide wedding services have their selling points and killer strategic that get people come in their doors through word of mouth.

We have a civil wedding and never have a traditional wedding reception, so no experience in Wedding Planning for me. We got away with that because both our parents are liberals and don’t care much for the formalities.

Everyone especially woman has the so called dream wedding. In my humble opinion, it is really not wise to spend so much time and money in wedding planning unless you are born with the silver spoons and money is not a problem. Wedding is just the beginning of a marriage, which needs more planning ahead.  Furthermore, I have seen perfectionist friends who spent a year preparing for the big day, but I have also seen friends who got ready in less than a month! So, I guess how much do you want to stress over your wedding preparation is up to you! :-)

I told a friend in our Church (a retired teacher) who has been trying to get some side income about making money online. He asked me about how to start a blog and how to go about doing it. Then, he just went off to learn everything on his own. Yes, everything, though being told he can ask me anytime he gets stuck,  he figured out things on his own and didn’t  have to contact me at all!

On the other hand, you get people who expect you to serve them free lunch everyday. They don’t want to read the information you forward them and want you to spoon feed them or do things for them. Frankly, I don’t have much time left to dispose stuffs and start packing, who has the time to hold their hands solving every problem for them? Didn’t most of us learn from scratch relying on the indisposable Google god for guidance and inspiration? :-)