Why Me?!

I know, I said I was going to stop complaining and only post happy
thoughts... but... why do these things always happen to me? Why does
nothing ever just run smoothly?!

The bike, first of all. The guy I'm buying it from was supposed to
bring it round last monday, but he couldn't find the registration
docs. So he ordered a copy from the dvla which was supposed to arrive
last wednesday, but which only arrived yesterday. In the mean time,
he's gone off to Spain to visit his sick mother. So I'm trying to
arrange everything through two of friends of his. In the end, it
looks like I should eventually get the bike tomorrow, but I'll believe
it when I see it.

In the mean time, I've having a problem with the letting agents who I
had to go through to get my flat - Rentals and Sales Wimbledon. It
turns out that the account that they told me to pay my rent into
doesn't belong to my landlord. It doesn't belong to them either. In
fact, they don't know who it belongs to. Nor do they seem to care.

I discovered this when my landlord phoned to remind me that I hadn't
paid my rent yet - which I had, just apparently into someone else's
account.

The letting agents don't seem to care that they made such a monumental
mistake; there's bee n no apology, probably because they don't want to
admit liability. They've just told me to ask my bank for a refund.
But the bank didn't make a mistake, they did. And from what I've
found out, it's very, very difficult to recover money paid into the
wrong account.

So I'll go speak to the bank the money was paid into tomorrow; but in
the meantime I'm out a month's rent, which really sucks. And any
resolution won't be quick.

I'm determined that I will get the money back from the agents, if I
can't get it from the bank. Even if I have to take them to small
claims court. Although I don't want to have to... I have no idea how
much that costs, and it won't be fast. But I won't let them get away
with it.

I guess I'm just lucky that I have money spare - I won't be broke
because I've effectively had to pay double rent this month. I know,
there are people who couldn't do that, and people who don't have
houses, or bikes, and compared to all that I've got nothing to
complain about.

But it sucks, and it's not fair!!!

Wednesday Update, because you just can't make this up: still no bike. The guy who's supposed to be dropping it off phones me, says he's leaving in 5 minutes. Then he phones me back, says he has to go home first and he'll be about half an hour later than he thought. Then a bit later, the other friend phones me to say that the other guy can't make it! And that he'll let me know what day he can make it. So it doesn't look like it'll be soon - I suspect he's delaying until the original guy gets back from Spain. Seriously, if I hadn't paid a deposit I'd just forget about the whole thing. Not that it's dodgy or anything, but it's just so much hassle.

And speaking of hassle... not much luck on the bank story either. Actually, this might be useful for anyone else who's paid money into the wrong account and want to get it back - my bank's website says that you have to speak to the bank whose account the money was transferred into. So I went them during lunchtime, waited for ages, only to be told that I need to speak to my bank. So I stopped at a branch on my way back to work, only to be told that I need to go back to the same branch that the transfer was done at. So, running out of time, I go to that branch, only to be told that I need to phone the "disputed transaction" line, whose number I can get by phoning customer services. Aargg!