Désabonner

v. – un-subscribe

It’s been three months now since we moved back to New York from Paris and while I have had no trouble letting go of living in France, it seems France has had trouble letting go of me.

Despite the fact that I asked the bank manager to close my account before I even left, it remained open until only recently. My fault, I suppose for moving in July because just the anticipation of vacation and then the sacrosanct August vacation itself completely distracted him from doing his duty. This was a bad thing because despite the fact that I let the cell phone company know I was leaving the country, they continued to debit my account.

I think I’ve already explained the system of “debit immédiate” vs. “debit diferée,” but to clarify, the French don’t really allow credit like we do. If you use your ATM card to pay for something, the money comes out almost immediately, like in the States, but if you have a credit card you can only defer payment until the end of the month, not decide how much you want to pay.

Most services like cell phone bills and utilities use the same system linking directly to your bank account. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that since I like to pay my bills in full and on time, but only while I’m using those services. The two payments taken out from the cell phone company after we moved put me in the red from a contract I had cancelled and in an account I didn’t want to keep.

While I was finally able to get that all sorted, I still receive a French newsletter by email even though I continue to un-subscribe to it. This is much less bothersome obviously, but no less amusing to me that it won’t let me go. It’s not to say that I don’t have similar issues here. I’d forgotten how annoying telemarketers are and in the first month of setting up our landline (yes we still have one of those), I would get numerous calls daily including calls from the provider of the phone service itself. When I asked how I could remedy this, I was told I could put all the offending numbers on a blocked list so that they would no longer be able to get through, including the number of the phone service provider. Sounded like a great idea so I asked them to sign me up, which the customer service representative did right away. She then asked if I got a call from a telephone survey, could I give her a good review. But didn’t I just say I wanted to be blocked from these calls?!

Times are tough everywhere and everyone who has your business wants to keep it – I get it. But France doesn’t have to worry about losing me forever – there were many happy memories we made during our time there and many wonderful friends. So we’ll be back – sooner than later. In the meantime, I will continue to find more material in Manhattan.

À bientôt!