I lost the pin code to my phone, which means I haven't been able to use it. In hindsight I should have saved the number on the computer so I wouldn't have to rely on a piece of paper the size of a peanut, but such is life. So we recruited our friend JN and his lovely ability to speak French to go to the store with us to figure out what to do next. They told us we could do it online. Long, long story short we couldn't do it online and spent about 45 minutes trying to do it via the house phone and an automated customer service line.
Having done that, Jeremy asked if JN could show us how to change our password on our banking site so we could raise our credit limit. You see, we had called our bank's customer support line to ask for a credit limit raise because we needed to buy wardrobes (many French apartments don't have closets) and an initial credit limit is €500. They told us to do it online. Have you ever set up an account on a website and they send you an e-mail with a temporary password to use for the first time you access the site? Yeah, our bank did that and sent us the wrong temporary password. So we can't access our online banking information. We told JN this and he said, "Well sure I can help you change your password, but you can't change your credit limit online. That has to be done in person with a bank adviser." Ugh.
So apparently, the only thing French customer support knows how to say is "You can do that online." Whether you can actually indeed do "that" online is apparently not their concern.
A couple side notes: the electrician came today (an hour late) and "temporarily" fixed our problem and he will come back on another day with the proprietor to properly fix it. Whether he actually temporarily fixed the problem and why he needs the proprietor here to properly fix it are unanswered questions. I took it to mean the landlord, but apparently according to google translate propriétaire can mean either landlord or owner in French so maybe he meant the owner of his electrician company. If it's anything like the US a lot of electrician companies will have one licensed electrician, in a small business he is also the owner, and apprentices.
The other side note is I noticed my posts have been void of pictures recently so I took some pictures of my afternoon walk with my dog Kisa. Lately it's been too hot for me to do much outside, but today had a nice strong breeze. It's actually probably been considered nice out to French people, but I've lived a pampered life of air conditioning so I'm sweating through my socks.
Having done that, Jeremy asked if JN could show us how to change our password on our banking site so we could raise our credit limit. You see, we had called our bank's customer support line to ask for a credit limit raise because we needed to buy wardrobes (many French apartments don't have closets) and an initial credit limit is €500. They told us to do it online. Have you ever set up an account on a website and they send you an e-mail with a temporary password to use for the first time you access the site? Yeah, our bank did that and sent us the wrong temporary password. So we can't access our online banking information. We told JN this and he said, "Well sure I can help you change your password, but you can't change your credit limit online. That has to be done in person with a bank adviser." Ugh.
So apparently, the only thing French customer support knows how to say is "You can do that online." Whether you can actually indeed do "that" online is apparently not their concern.
A couple side notes: the electrician came today (an hour late) and "temporarily" fixed our problem and he will come back on another day with the proprietor to properly fix it. Whether he actually temporarily fixed the problem and why he needs the proprietor here to properly fix it are unanswered questions. I took it to mean the landlord, but apparently according to google translate propriétaire can mean either landlord or owner in French so maybe he meant the owner of his electrician company. If it's anything like the US a lot of electrician companies will have one licensed electrician, in a small business he is also the owner, and apprentices.
The other side note is I noticed my posts have been void of pictures recently so I took some pictures of my afternoon walk with my dog Kisa. Lately it's been too hot for me to do much outside, but today had a nice strong breeze. It's actually probably been considered nice out to French people, but I've lived a pampered life of air conditioning so I'm sweating through my socks.