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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Victory, Panic, Reprieve

Like Funny About Money, I had a customer service win recently: the email I sent to Asics about Frugal Son's fallen-apart shoes was successful! I sent in the old shoes and they will send a new pair! Savings: about $60.00.

I didn't post about this because of a financial panic, also involving Frugal Son. As you may know, he spent 2009-2010 in Nantes, studying French. Upon return, he had to get credits from the home insitution. Hello, Bureaucracy! Hello, Procrastination! In the meantime, his scholarship was affected by the delay in not getting credits.

"Oh, by the way, I just got a bill for $9200.00, retroactive. I'm sure it will work out."

Yeah, maybe. So Mr. FS and I called various places at the university and the state offices. So far, we have gotten a partial reprieve. As of Friday, the bill is down to $5200.00.

The problem with bureaucracies is that you don't know if you've done something wrong (or not done something) until it's too late. I've heard horror stories about students losing scholarships (in one case of about $16000) because of neglecting to fill out a piece of paper. I almost made a mistake myself.

Now that the total reprieve is in sight, I can be happy about the replacement of the defective shoes.

It seems that the little financial victories are often accompanied by panic-inducing dangers also of the financial sort.

But it's worth taking a chance with Asics I guess. Just be mindful of the scary bureaucracies that hold so much power over us.

Any good customer service lately?

3 comments:

Duchesse said...

Truly scary about FS's university. I had my money on Asics offering you decent service, but just a hunch. $5200 isn't beer money so I'm hoping this resolves, 100% in his favour.

Frugal Scholar said...

@Duchesse--We have been assured that the next payment from the state to the school will occur this coming week.

Shelley said...

So pleased to hear about good service still existing somewhere!