More administrative stuff

I went into work late this morning, as there were a couple of other things I needed to get done.

My paperwork is on its way with my change of address details for Santander and for HMRC - less than a year after I emigrated, so that's not bad at all. I suspect that I'll shortly be getting a letter from HMRC explaining that I owe them some tax from when I was made redundant from the University, but that's all allowed for.

The second thing I needed to do was to follow up on my taxes; I've had a letter explaining that they couldn't process part of it because they didn't have any information on my world income before I arrived in Canada. It's not that I didn't submit it, but that the department who deal with tax returns hadn't passed the information on. So that went off in a fax.

Well, eventually - I think it took the best part of an hour to get a brief (four line) fax typed up and sent off. The woman in the tax office was very nice, but incredibly ineffective, though at least part of that was due to her being there on her own, and having to answer a ringing phone while trying to deal with me. I also avoided pointing out all the typos in the note she wrote, too - I counted five before I stopped. And she couldn't actually fax it while I was there, as the fax machine at Revenue Canada was full. So I'm assuming it's gone.

For what it's worth, I had to pop in during the day - they're currently open three days a week, none of which are at weekend. I could probably also have phoned them and given them the right information, but I paid for them to prepare my taxes, and I want my money's worth.

Finally, and most impressively, I called Scottish Widows to tell them about my change of address. I was somewhat disturbed to find that they already had it - I assume it's because they're part of the same group as the Halifax, and were passed the information after I updated my credit card details. But it was a little strange for him to already have all my information. And clearly Santander have a few things to learn still.

Next up, I'll be interested to see what happens with my credit card. Since it's now registered in Canada, will I no longer be able to buy kindle books on amazon.co.uk?

Golly

I'd not realised it'd been a month since my last update. I hope you're not all too stressed out from the lack of news.

I've spent the morning on the phone to various UK companies, finally giving them the details of my move. Thanks to a somewhat disorganised approach to my personal finances, there's quite a few companies to inform - for example, I currently have three current accounts with two different banks; I should really have organised myself a little better there, I think.

It was interesting to see the different approaches from the banks. I called my Halifax credit card first (mainly because they were at the top of the pile); and it went through with no problems at all. They even said that they'd send the information on to the bank, so I wouldn't have to call up again and tell them all the details again. That was surprsingly joined up of them.

Santander, on the other hand, couldn't take the details of an international move over the phone (she asked, several times, if I was sure I had the postcode right, and wasn't listening when I told her that it was - their system is designed for UK postcodes, and has a handy address lookup that fails completely when you give it a non-UK postcode.) She suggested I fax them details of my address - seriously, who uses faxes these days? - and in the end, relented and said I could write to them.

I guess there's a reason why Santader always used to come out bottom on customer satisfaction surveys.