Sears Repair Puerto Rico is Lame

The appliances we purchased for upstairs were the Kenmore Elite and for the laundry room, the Kenmore H2 series. We have had the sears repair guy out for our oven upstairs and after charging us $125 for showing up didn’t even go into the house, he just said that an F-11 error meant we needed a new computer motherboard for around $900. Did we want to order it. I sent him home and unplugged the oven for a few hours. It has worked perfectly ever since.

The second experience we had with the sears repair guy in Puerto Rico was when they showed up to work on our Kenmore washer. He took the back off, found a dead mouse in the body and said sears policy is that he can’t work on the washer. I cleaned out the dead mouse, bleached and he still wouldn’t work on the washer. He just left. After waiting another week for the next repair guy to show up, the sears repair center apologized for the previous repair guys attitude and told me it wasn’t policy. So, as I suspected, he was just lazy and didn’t feel like working on our washer at the end of his day.

Now, a few months later, our dryer stopped getting hot. The first step was to check that we had propane and when that was confirmed we had to call for a repair appointment. I was on the fence on whether I should call sears repair or a local guy, but I went with sears because I don’t know anyone local and since we have friends staying at the house, I didn’t want to make them do the extra work. Well, sears repair in Puerto Rico has once again proved that they are so lame.

They were supposed to show up for an appointment 2 weeks ago but pulled a no call no show on us. Now, in order to get that appointment in the first place, we had to wait 2 full weeks! After waiting two weeks, and them not showing up, I called sears repair back and they told us that no one was there and we would have to reschedule. Do you want to guess when the next appointment was? Two weeks. Uuuuuhhhhhhhg. Ok, I’ll play along and book another appointment for two weeks out, but in the meantime, I got the number of a local appliance repair guy. Unfortunately, he was dealing with a family emergency so he couldn’t help us out and I still didn’t want to put our friends through the process of qualifying a local appliance repair guy in Rincon so we stuck with our sears repair appointment.

Here we are, almost a month after my first phone call to sears repair and they still haven’t shown up to the house to fix out dryer. I called to check up on the appointment and they told me the repair guy should be at the house between 12:45 and 1:45. Yesterday the told me between 8:00am and 5:00pm…so basically they want me (or Tony and Meghan) to take the full day off from work for a repair and just keep our fingers crossed that they are actually going to show up.

Man, sorry for the rant, but I’m super annoyed with Sears Repair in Puerto Rico. This is just ridiculous and my opinion of them is around an 8 out of 100. Lame.

Collecteria: The collecteria is a government office that collects money from businesses and individuals. An example of an individuals’ payment is state income ta, property tax or to cash in lottery tickets. An example of a payment a business would have to make is the 7% sales tax or the tax withheld from employee payroll.

Departmento de Hacienda

Just a little more set up before I rant.
At one time, there was a collecteria located in downtown Rincon. As a Rincon based business, I was required to collecteria and make payments every month. There was always a long line, but it was right around the corner from our house so no big deal.

begin rant
They closed down the collecteria in Rincon about 6 months ago. I’m not sure why, since there was always a line there, but they shut the doors and the landord of the building put a sign indicating it was for rent. Se Aquilla (sp?). The sign on the glass read that it was closed and the next closest location was in Aguada.

I was bummed, because Aguada is 10 minutes away with no traffic and 45 minutes with traffic. Beat. Well, I was over it and started to enjoy going to Aguada once a month and used it as an excuse to stop at a Deli we discovered that actually sells lunch meats by the pound! Not that I like driving, but it was nice to get out of Rincon regularly.

Today I went to the collecteria in Aguada and they changed their hours of operation. They used to take my money from 9:00am to 3:00pm, but today they had a hand made sign written in highlighter that stated their new hours. They are now open from 9:00am to 12:00pm and then again from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.

Well, this new schedule isn’t that bad as long as you plan for it. Today, Sydney and I showed up at the collecteria at 11:45 and the guard came over and told me they were closed until 1:00pm. I asked the guard what time it was and he told me it was 11:45 and gave me a look like, I know we are closing 15 minutes early, but I’m not in charge, they are. He then pointed to the side walk and said;

Please wait here until 1:00pm.

I explained to him that it wasn’t 12:00pm yet and that I had all my paperwork/checks in order and that I would only take 2 minutes. He looked in to the counter where they were helping the last person in there and told me no.

Sydney the Superstar

Maybe it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I thought it was ridiculous. Close early? I understand cutting down on hours to save money but this was just ridiculous. They weren’t closing down because of government cuts (closed office and 9-3 office hours), they were closing early because they were hungry and/or lazy.

The round trip with Sydney took us about an hour and twenty minutes. Do they think I can just leave the office for 3 or 4 hours to make a lousy payment every month!? When I was walking away the manager was giving me stink eye and I had no recourse. He’s the boss, gotta come back when he says so. If I were from Jersey, I would have flipped him off.

At first I was livid, but then Sydney and I went into a locally owned store down the street hand-in-hand to get a bottle of water. The store was small, only had beer, rum, smokes and bottled water. The owner was talkative, nice and was sweet on our little superstar girl. I let Sydney drink out of a big girl water bottle, she pointed out the balloons at the bridal store, claimed the motorcycle when it roared by and pointed out animal shapes in the clouds as we walked back to the truck. I was back in a great mood (thanks Syd).

However, just because I was in an instant good mood, it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to have a little rant on the blog. Man I was pissed. Have you had any good/bad experiences with Departmento de Hacienda Collecteria? Do share!

We have been cooking a lot at home; Indian food (plain yogurt marinade for the chicken), Mexican Baja style fish tacos, pasta, lasagna, grilled chicken, spicy stir fries. We have been having a lot of fun, eating great food, spending time together cooking and saving a lot of money because every $15 meal we cook lasts two days. Going out all the time was getting expensive in our little tourist town and we were getting tired of the same old-same old. Unlike Ocean City where I grew up, there is no back door with different pricing for the locals versus the tourist on a travel budget. We all pay the same prices.

One of our regular spots over the past year or two has been the sushi served over at The Pool Bar in Barrio Puntas (that’s the neighborhood on the windward side of Rincon). They have a great fresh salad (served with shrimp or ahi), delicious and creative sushi (coconut wasabi drizzled over the tuna roll) and an awesome seared tuna with beurre blanc sauce. Dennis and Carol, the owners, have been in Rincon for thirty plus years, raised their own family here and now have their adult daughter working the bar and their grandson keeping them in board games, skateboards and days at the beach. If it’s a hot night, go for a swim in the pool while waiting for your sushi or to wash off the strong buzz you tacked on with the Saki bombs you were doing. For Summer and I, soon enough it will probably be a combination of the above along with our daughter begging us to go for another swim.

Thursday Nights in Rincon

Jazz Night and Sushi at Pool Bar

I went over to get take out sushi for Summer and I last night. I didn’t call my order in ahead of time because I wanted to have a cold Presidente or two and listen to some live jazz while waiting. There was a good crowd with all the tables taken at 7:30 and a few people waiting at the bar to be seated. They started a new hibachi menu, but I didn’t go for any of those items, we stuck with sushi and salad (our usual). The Jazz was a refreshing change to the reggaeton, house music and nursery rhymes I am subjected to on the daily. I really like the live jazz, the band is a colorful bunch of guys and girls…and they make me tap my foot. I recorded some of a song so you could have a listen before you head over next Thursday for your sushi jazz experience.

Two things that piss me off about Banco Popular:

1. One of the line items on the paperwork is Discount. This is where they added the $15,000 to my loan at closing. I asked what that discount was all about and that should be a minus sign if they are going to use the word discount, but they corrected me in a very patronizing manor. They told me that: “Discount is the name of the fee and that I am wrong.”
Oh, the name of the fee is disount. Nice move, I wish I thought of that when I was a full time sales guy, I probably could have screwed over a few more people and made a couple extra quick bucks.

2. Banco Popular does not have access to any of Popular Mortgage paperwork, because they say they are separate companies. They told me I would have to drive to San Juan to get my Puerto Rico mortgage paperwork. Here is the thing that annoys me about and should send up a red flag for anyone planning on doing business with them. The Popular Mortgage website is a part of Banco Populars’ website. It is http://bancopopular/mortgage or something (that I won’t link to). I found them at number 1 spot on Google after I searched for the term “Popular Mortgage”. Right below them is Ca2Pr.

If you want everyone to know about how poor the Banco Popular business model is and deter people from opening new accounts there AND stop them from getting screwed by their mortgage division, link to our Banco Popular Sucks page so everyone researching a new bank in Puerto Rico knows what they are getting into if they sign on the dotted line with Banco Popular.

Here, I’ll make it easy for you, simply copy this code and paste it into any html page you have.
<a href="http://ca2pr.com/2008/04/16/popular-mortgage-puerto-rico/">Banco Popular – Puerto Rico</a>
If you did it right, your link will look like this: Banco Popular – Puerto Rico

Popular Mortgage | Banco Popular Mortgage Division

As everyone knows that pays attention to the sensationalism passed off as news on the television everyday, the world is in a financial crisis. The sky is falling and chicken little (strong rooster in PR) is running around confused causing hysteria. Well, such is capitalism, and those of us who did not live over extended on our credit and ‘perceived’ value of our homes for the past ten years can now reap the benefits of being financially responsible consumers. Right? I don’t think so.

I filled out the paperwork and payed Banco Popular over $700 to survery, appraise and do all the paperwork associated with refinancing our Rincon home (primary resident) and just last week (after multiple phone calls and visits) they told me the offer has changed, I need a second appraisal (another $150) and they raised my required hazard insurance (equivalent to home owners insurance) from $65 a month to $281.53 a month! They also added a $2,000 fee that they labeled as a mortgage loan discount (FYI Banco Popular: if it’s a discount, you subtract money, not add it, it’s the little button on your calculator that looks like a plus sign, without the vertical line) and they added a $2,600 cancellation fee for canceling my old loan to refinance with the new one. All this has been making me furious. I am dealing with mortgage brokers who answer yes/no questions with a 10 minute explanation that always ends up with some sort of sales person style tie down and a question back to me along the lines of: “are you ready to move forward. sign the paperwork today!”

You have got to be fricking kidding me. Four months and counting on a refinance with Banco Popular? Aside from all the new fee’s they added, they are trying to ignore them and just get me to close the deal. Here is what I have for your deal Banco Popular. I curse you to eat Noni for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the rest of your life. When you get sick, I hope some comes out your nose and it burns and you smell that noni puke for days and days.

Banco Popular | Investments and CD Accounts

When we bought our house, we agreed to place 20% of the value of our home in a 2 year CD Account with Banco Popular as collatoral that we were not going to default on a home that was not finished construction. Heck, all our property and the unfinished home wasn’t enough, which I was cool with. I make interest off the money for two years, Banco Popular doesn’t have to worry about selling the frame of a house and we’re all good. Well, now it’s two years later and they won’t let me cash in my CD Account with them. They tell me that they need some collateral for the mortgage. Hmmm, Isn’t my 5 bedroom, 3 bath house (marble, granite, mahogany) the type of collateral most banks have on mortgages? More over, I received a letter two weeks ago saying that I had a 5 days grace period to pick up the check (cashed in CD Account) or it would be automatically re-instated for two years. But now, I go in and ask for my money and they say there is a hold on it from the office in San Juan. I have been in the Rincon office of Banco Popular 3 times this week and everytime they say they are working on it.

Today, I contacted a Puerto Rico real estate lawyer and then went into the bank. I told them I was not going to leave until the ‘mix up’ was resolved. The Rincon branch manager did not know what was going on and passed the task on to someone else earlier in the week. Today, I walked right into his office, sat down at his desk and told him that if they couldn’t provide a reason (contract with my signature on it) to continue holding my money without me making interest on it, I was not going to leave his office. I told him I would ruin his day if he didn’t pick up the phone and start making phone calls.

Ultimately, the reason for all this is because they can not find my original Popular Mortgage paperwork. I told them that I have a copy and I’ll bring it in so they can give me my money. They said that the paperwork had to be internal Banco Popular paperwork. Ok, so let me get this straight here; Banco Popular is disorganized. Banco Popular lost my mortgage paperwork. Banco Popular is unsure what is going on, so instead of giving me my money that I signed into a two year account (they have copies of the two year CD paperwork), they are going to hold on to it until they can get their business more organized.

I thought putting all that in writing would make me feel better. The only time my blood pressure even dropped a little bit was at the mention of our daughter. And now it’s back up again. Here is how I classify all this, and this is the end of my rant. I need to get back to work:
Puerto Rico Bank Banco Popular is Stealing From Us

Regarding the quarterly payment reports usually they mean the following quarterly payroll taxes:

· Social Security and Medicare, Employers Quarterly Federal Tax Return (941PR Form) – For more in formation, you can access www.irs.gov
· Quarterly Report for State Unemployment and Disability Insurance – You can access www.dtrh.gobierno.pr
· Employers Quarterly Return of Income Tax Withheld (499R-1B Form) You can access www.hacienda.gobierno.pr

I worked on ‘work stuff’ all day Saturday to take today (Monday) off and go golfing. The only thing stopping me from going to Aguadilla to the golf course was going to be the possibility of waves. Last night, at last light, the surf was starting to show up about knee high and I called my golf buddy with an audible: “let’s bring our surfboards to the golf course, if the surf is good, we’ll surf, then golf.”

Mother nature had a different plan for us today. I woke up, and it has been raining all night and is still raining this morning. Golf is out. I am heading out the door to surf, knowing that if there is no surf, I can keep myself busy on the computer working for the next 24 hours straight (maybe just 8 or 9 hours), but alas, the power just went out. I am typing this on battery back-up. Pray for Surf.

Here is what is making me go crazy. Wait, before I say that, I have one more thing to say. I really really want to insert the F-Word in here multiple times. The only reason I am not going to is because it doesn’t solve anything and in writing, it doesn’t really make me feel any better. If you have gone through any of the red tape Governmental dog poop I am dealing with setting up my corporation in Puerto Rico (your red tape could be in any country state, it’s not just here) and are reading this post out loud to someone, please fell free to insert the expletive anywhere you please…I probably intended to have it there.

I have set up a Corporation and filed all my Corporate paperwork. I have been assigned an employment identification number. I have contracts with descriptions of services signed and ready to go, but I can’t do anything because none of the banks will accept my money. Is it dirty money you ask? I mean, why wouldn’t they accept my money? Well, opening up a business account in Puerto Rico now requires what is called an IVU Certificate from the government. No big deal, it is really easy to get one of those. You just sign up online, an instant confirmation number is given to you and you’re ready to go, right? Wrong. Everything is right except the ‘ready to go’ part. This official document takes 8-10 weeks for delivery. The paperwork says you can get a copy over the phone within three days, but that is not working because none of the 7 phone numbers the website provides has anyone answering the phones.

There is so much more to this story, but I need to stop writing now or I may have an embolism. When I get everything done for the business, I will create a page dedicated exclusively to the steps needed to file a corporation in Puerto Rico, open up a bank account for said corporation and apply/receive a merchant account so you can run your clients credit cards and put them into your Puerto Rican Bank Account.

It is my understanding, that because I am in the service industry (Marketing) and that 90% of my clients are not in Puerto Rico, if I employee 5 residents of Puerto Rico (can be gringo or Puerto Rican as long as they live here) I can qualify for a Tax Exemption. This tax exemption will completely relieve me from having to pay Federal Taxes and will reduce my state taxes to 7% after all of my deductions. I also we will not be double taxed. I only pay taxes on my business once, then all the profits are mine at the end of the year. If I pay myself a salary, I will have to pay taxes on that (but I can write that off as a PO) Now, 5 employees is about all I would like to have (I used to have almost 40), but it would be worth bringing them on just for the tax break!

The problem with having employees is that you have to work harder. You need to have a plan for them everyday and most of all, you need to make sure they don’t all asleep on your desk. Cheech’s first and last day on the job:

Cheech, you’re fired!

We really were just so spoiled in California. We had so many options. Here, if you want to make a salad, you can! You just won’t have the same options from the local grocer. For example…you can always get iceberg lettuce and the carrots are always ripe. However, you may not be able to get spinach or spring mix and the tomatoes may all be green.

Here are a couple of pictures for you (by request):

Puerto Rican Grocer – Da’ Fruit!

Caribbean Deep Water Fish? Not so much.