Ugh

It seems that trouble just won't stay away. It's been about a month since the last bit of crap, so I suppose it's about time for more.

Let's back up a bit. A week or so ago, while checking my bank account online, I noticed a strange pending charge. $1 for APL*ITUNES, which, I assumed, was for Apple iTunes (bit of a stretch, I know). Now, since I do not have an iTunes account, and don't really much care for Apple anyway, I decided to call PNC about it. I was told that nothing could be done until the transaction posted, which should be the next day, fair enough. Next morning, check my account, nothing in pending or in posted. Weird. Still not feeling great about this (due to the fact that "Like most merchants, iTunes places a $1 authorization hold to verify that your credit card is active when you update your billing information. This is not an actual charge and the bank will remove the hold.") I called PNC and asked about it. The person I got didn't see anything in the account for iTunes, and told me to not worry about it, that they probably typed the number in wrong and that when they realized the mistake, they withdrew it. I didn't really buy it, but I figured I would let it go and just check my account every day.

That brings us to yesterday. While driving back to Philly, I was thinking that I hadn't checked my account in a day or two, and I should do that when I got back. About halfway to Philly, I received a call from PNC. Apparently there was a $103 charge to APL*ITUNES in my pending transactions. Joy. The guy cancelled my card, and when I got back to my apartment, I checked my account and there it was. Called PNC again, and made sure the card was cancelled (not taking any chances now) and a new one was on the way. All that was left was to get my bloody money back. Since the charge was still pending, however, gotta wait another day. Also, since I was not aware that when my card was cancelled, my phone banking was cancelled, I accidently suspended my phone/internet banking privileges by trying unsuccessfully to login 3 times. So, I try to login to the web banking this morning, and fail. Luckily I have a decent memory and was able to remember my latest deposit and check withdrawal amounts in order to get my privileges back. So, when I call PNC I'm told that I should call iTunes to get my money back (and the person provided me a number to call). Awesome, I won't have to go through crap with the bank to get it back.
Unfortunately, the number is simply a recording, with no apparent way to get a real person. Call PNC back (this is when I find out about the phone banking being suspended when my card is cancelled) and file a dispute of charges for 3 out of the 4 $100 charges from APL*ITUNES. That's right, 4 of them. There was also a credit to my account for $100, which is why the dispute could be for only 3 of them. This is also when I discover that I have to pay $7.50 for a new credit card, but I'm too tired of all this crap to argue, so whatever.

That's about all there is with the credit card for now, however, that's not all the trouble. This morning maintenance came to spray some sort of foul smelling liquid onto the air conditioning coils. Since it was extremely unpleasant and filling my roomate's room, we decided to turn off the air and open his window so he could actually breathe. Fair enough. Once his room was aired out, he closed his window and turned the air back on. Well, at least he would have turned the air back on had the thermostat been working. So now we're sitting in July, in Philly, with no air conditioning but our windows, which just don't cut it when it's 80 out. Around 1PM I filed a maintenance request about the thermostat, but as of 4PM nobody has come. Eventually I decided that it would be better to open the door to the hall, since the hall is air conditioned. So that's where I am now, sitting in my apartment with the door open so I can get some decent air in here, though it's still quite warm.

And to top it all off, with all this crap I can't really concentrate on what I need to be doing, i.e. studying for quals. Luckily I got 2 problems done this morning, but I doubt I'll get another 3 or 4 done today. Hopefully I'll be able to make decent progress in the next few weeks, because I really need to. I'm sure I'll be posting something about the quals in the next few days (or weeks) since I can't seem to stop bitching about them.