Too Good to Be True

So when we moved to D.C., I received a promotional offer from [a certain bank] of $ 100 just to open a checking account with them. Now, I needed a new checking account, sort of, so I thought that this sounded like free money. (Free money is my favorite kind of money.) I opened the account at the end of July, but I still have not seen a dime of that $ 100.

About two weeks ago, I called customer service, and they told me I had to contact the "incentive redemption hotline." But first, they had to mail me something--not email, not give me a number over the phone, but snail-mail me something. (I guess this is an anti-fraud device.) Then I waited, and finally received, not a check, but a letter telling me to call the incentive redemption hotline. So I did that. You know it's trouble when the woman on the incentive redemption hotline mocks the ineffectiveness of the customer service people. ("Oh, I bet you called customer service," she laughed. I can do without your inter-departmental rivalries, thank you.) Then the incentive-redemption woman gave me a code, which had to be called in--get this (!), in the age of the Internet and ATM's everywhere--by someone from the branch at which I opened the account (!!). So I trudged over there, on my lunch break today, and waited in line for customer service. The people there were sure I was working some kind of scam. ("A hundred dollars? Just to open an account?") But I had the documentation, so they . . . finally . . .  called the incentive redemption hotline and discovered that it was legit. So they eventually provided the incentive redemption people with the needed information. Or at least I guess they did. I was sitting right there, and there was little information tranferred at this time . . . .  They said I should receive the check in "about two weeks."

There's that old saying--if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Still waiting for my money.