Winter Naif

 I made it a goal to get all of my automatic transactions switched over from the Dairyland Bank to the Gerber Bank.  Those aren't the real names of the banks but if you it call them that to people who live here, they will know which bank you are referring to.  The Dairyland Bank had moved out of town as I told you 'for my convenience'.  I didn't find it at all convenient.  Monday I transferred all but $1000 from that bank to the Gerber bank.   I also signed onto Honeywell to change pension payments from Dairyland to Gerber.  I had to create a new userid/password since I don't think I ever had one.  The on-line system was fine w/ that but wouldn't let me change my bank account numbers since it hadn't "verified who I was."  Didn't know how long that might take so just called Honeywell up.   If I figured it out correctly (they gave it in minutes) my wait time was 39 hours.  They had an option for a call back so took that.  Tuesday Honeywell called me back.   They changed the account for me but said the February payment would still go to the old bank.  Not a problem.  Wednesday I got on-line to change Xcel (power company) EFT to the new bank.  Got into the system but changing banks wasn't something allowed on-line - I would have to call.   The helpdesk person said their system required her to cancel my next payment, remove the old bank routing number, before she could put in the new routing number.  Therefore I would have to call back on Monday to make arrangements for the payment that she had cancelled.   She seemed to know what she was talking about.  Thursday I got online to the Verizon site.  Their system made it easy to switch banks on my own..  I left my medical supplemental and drug insurance until Friday.  They are both w/ the same company but I noticed that the payments were taken out separately and I have two different account numbers.  Decided to not even try to do it on-line.  Called the number supplied on the Drug Insurance first.  Got a person pretty quickly and she switched things over.  "Can I do anything else for you?" She asked.  "I need to do this w/ my supplemental insurance too."  I said.  "Can you do that?"  "I'll switch you over." she replied and I get a message that my wait will be three minutes.  Not so bad.  Jose from the helpdesk answered and changed my bank accounts though he had to switch temporarily to an automated voice for my account info.   All other bills I'm still paying by check.   Interesting that the methods to perform  the same basic task were so varied.  I give kudos to every company's help desk for their excellent personnel.  (Provided everything got changed correctly!)