So I wandered into PNC and got a merchant's account, complete with a little credit card reader that was supposed to be sent to me within the week.

I got it. It was the wrong one.


So I called the one guy who called the other guy who called someone else who tried to give me a customer satisfaction survey, only the morons somehow managed to confuse "Call after four" and "Call after three." Screw their survey anyway.

No matter. The right one got here today. It doesn't have the forms for me to send back the wrong machine, and its help line is staffed by the most wildly incompetent girl I've ever had the misfortune of being on the phone with. Five full minutes of silence at a time, interspersed with her trying to tell me I'd plugged the USB port of the card reader into my keyboard.

Apparently I confused her, asking what the hell some of the extra cords I got were for--so she sent me on to a technical support guy. Who couldn't help me, but sent me to the proper training phone center guy . . . who sent me to an online user guide book, after mansplaining at length how some companies charge for this and some charge for that, and some charge for this, and some might do this, and some might do that, but he really didn't know if PNC charges extra for cards processed via knucklebusters.


I just want someone to sit down and answer questions about the dumb thing. Jeesh. Instead, I still don't know what to do with the useless terminal or the printer plate with the wrong business name, and still have no idea what the pink-bagged extra cord (that plugs into nothing) is for--except maybe for a printer I don't have.



At least the virtual terminal site's interface is really user-friendly.




One week to ACen. Starting to be scared. :P