Still playing Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag: Resynced.  Still very good!  But, that’s not the topic of today’s post.  Today, we explore a useful superpower.

Some background: Several years ago, in the throes of a midlife crisis, I bought a Kymco Like 150i scooter – probably the best thing I’ve bought this century.  I’m not a big fan of driving as I’ve always been a little hesitant and uncertain about where the corners of the car are, but on a motorcycle you really don’t have that problem.  It turned “running to the store for milk” from an unpleasant task to a rather pleasant little jaunt.

It didn’t do well with speeds above about 50 miles per hour, and it tended to get blown about a bit if there was a crosswind, so eventually I upgraded to a Suzuki Burgman 400.  This was a much more beefy lad and also introduced me to the strange world of Suzuki owners.  Seriously.  Riding that bike resulted in SO MANY random conversations with other people who owned Suzukis or who had previously owned Suzukis.  I’m pretty sure it’s not really a cult, but gosh.

That bike got stolen.  I did not take this well.  It took me a long time before I could look at scooters again, and when I finally did I found that there were very slim pickings in town as the shop I’d always gone to previously had closed down.

There was a random power sports dealer who had a Yamaha Xmax 300 on their web site, though, and despite my misgivings I steeled myself and drove over to ask about buying it.

This didn’t go particularly well.  The salesman I spoke to first denied having the bike, then when presented with the listing from their website made a show of calling their inventory department to confirm they didn’t have it, then was rather shocked to learn that they DID have it.  It was just in their storage area, and we walked over to look at it.

Once we found it – it was in the very back of the warehouse, tucked behind some crates, we discovered that it hadn’t been moved to the floor because they hadn’t quite finished building it.  Apparently motorcycles and scooters are shipped to the dealer in a not-quite-assembled state for …reasons?

Anyway.  I looked at it, it looked like the same bike I’d already done research on, I told them to finish building it and I’d come back and buy it.

The salesman then tried to get me to sign a sales contract there and then, with a sales pitch that included “these are really popular bikes and a lot of people ask about them, I can’t guarantee we won’t sell it before you come back.”

Yes.  The bike he had denied the very existence of was suddenly very popular and in demand.

I declined.  I went home.  I got a call the next day saying that they’d started the process of building it and I could come by in the afternoon.

So I loaded up a duffle bag with a helmet and riding jacket and called a Lyft and was on the way over when my phone rang.

It turned out the bike wasn’t quite ready, and the salesperson seemed very vague about the reasons why.

I got to the dealership and got to met a sales manager who was practically apoplectic.  It turned out that, while they had the bike… they couldn’t find all the parts.  Specifically the side mirrors, but more importantly the KEYS.

These aren’t just any keys.  The Xmax 300 is a keyless start bike, so it comes with fobs rather than physical keys.  They’re paired to the computer in the bike.  Getting new keys and reprogramming them is apparently something Yamaha charges in excess of a thousand dollars to do, and the mirrors aren’t particularly cheap either.

Basically the dealership’s entire profit margin on this bike was kaput.

Suddenly, it made sense why it was buried in the warehouse.  According to the sales manager, he’d already fired the guy responsible.

Not sure I buy that, but hey.  Cool story.

Anyway, I confirmed with them that I still wasn’t going to buy it until it was a working bike and asked them to call me when it was ready.

We’re not to the superpower bit yet.  Sorry, this is dragging on.

Skipping over a bunch of stuff, they eventually found the bits and finished building the bike and were a little vexed because I put it on a credit card instead of accepting their financing and suddenly I owned a scooter again.

Oh, and it’s a joy to ride.  10/10 would recommend.  300cc is a  smaller engine than the Burgman offered, but she go zoom when needed.

A month or so later, I got plates in the mail, and a note from the state saying “these aren’t valid until you get your registration, DO NOT put them on your bike”.

I didn’t get my registration.  I did get a letter from Yamaha welcoming me to the family and inviting me to take a survey on my purchase.

A month or so after that, I got a letter from the state telling me there’d been a problem with the registration and that there were missing documents.

I called the dealership.

Guy I spoke to – let’s call him J – told me that they’d seen the same letter from the state and they’d already resubmitted everything but that the state only processed documents once a month (huh). so it might take a few weeks. He also mentioned that their title clerk had been fired and that he’d been stuck with doing all the title paperwork.

I expressed sympathy and told him I hoped he didn’t get stuck with the job permanently, and he assured me that, no, he was only doing it temporarily.

3 weeks later, I called back.  Spoke to someone who was not J but was promised a call back.

He didn’t call back, and if I called and asked for “J” I just kept getting promised return calls that didn’t come.

Finally, I called and said “Hi, I’m returning a call from J, he said it was important” and got immediately transferred to J.

This isn’t a superpower, but it is a cheat code.  Use it yourself.

This time, he blamed both the state and the 3rd party title processor the dealership uses.  He offhandedly mentioned the name of the title company.  It sounded like “B2”.  He promised he’d look into it and call me back tomorrow.

By this point it had been 2 days shy of 3 months and my bike was about to become illegal to ride as it had only come with a 90 day trip permit.

I didn’t get a call back.  I looked at the letter from the state.  It had a phone number for “dealer services” which didn’t sound like something I should be calling.

I called it anyway, and spoke to a very friendly woman who understood my plight, confirmed they had received the initial set of documents without everything needed, had not received any documents since, and sent me a new trip permit and a link to an Enforcement and Investigation department should I want to file a complaint with the state about the dealership.   Especially, as it turns out, because they don’t send a letter to the vehicle owner until they have already sent a letter to the dealer and waited for a reply.

I put that, along with the survey from Yamaha, into a mental bucket labeled “things to do when I decide to get angry”.

I called J back.  Eventually – six days later – I got back through to him.  The “I’m returning a call from J” loophole had been discovered and people warned about it, because it didn’t work again.

He AGAIN blamed “B2” and swore that all the documentation had been submitted.

I waited about two weeks, fuming a bit, mentally toying with the things in the bucket.

Eventually I decided to look up who or what B2 was.  Turns out it’s “Vitu” who is a very large title processing company.  Surely they only talk to dealers and have no interest in talking to consumers, right?

I started looking up phone numbers and calling them and being extremely polite and just a little lost at people who answered the phone and eventually I got transferred to another very friendly woman who I will call M.

This is the superpower, by the way. If you are personable and clueless, it turns out that there are a lot of people who can’t help but want to help you.

M was amazing and rather invested in getting the processing of my paperwork complete as it had been sitting on HER desk for over three months at this point and she needed one simple document from the power sports place and they were not sending it.  She told me what document they needed.

I called J.

I was promised a call back.

I rode over to the power sports place.  J was in a meeting.  I elected to wait.  I struck up a conversation with the salesman who had originally sold me the bike.  He reiterated how popular they were and how they couldn’t keep them in stock and how I’d been lucky to get one.

I remembered him talking about his son, and it was summer vacation by this time, so I asked if he was being driven crazy by having the kid home all day and then we became the best of friends and wound up talking about all the anime he was watching with said kid.

To be honest, the guy had very – pardon the phrase – “basic bitch” taste.  Nothing but battle shonen stuff.  We found common ground in Demon Slayer, however, and both of us believe very firmly that Nezuko does not get let out of her box to kick arse often enough.

Eventually J emerged from his office, acknowledged that I was there, and ushered me back into his little cave where I name-dropped everyone I had spoken to at the state and at Vitu and gosh it was just such a mix-up all around but they need this One Specific Document and can we get that taken care of.  Right now.  While I’m in your office.

I was all smiles!  What a pleasant guy to have in your office!  So understanding!

OK, maybe some of the smiles showed more teeth than strictly necessary.

He again blamed the fired title clerk.  I sympathized, and just to twist the knife a bit I asked if the company had hired a new one or if he’d simply been stuck with adding it to his duties.  All smiles.

Anyway.  He printed a form.  We both signed it.  He swore that it would be mailed off to Vitu in the morning.  I shook his hand.  All smiles.  I left.

I waited about two weeks and called Vitu again.

“Hi, I’m returning a call from M, she said it was important?”

“Oh, M isn’t in today but I can help you.  What did you need?”

I detailed my predicament.  She looked up my bike by VIN.  She said “of course it’s (dealership)” and sighed.

They had, in fact, gotten the form from the dealership.  It hadn’t been mailed the next day but it had eventually been mailed and had already been turned around and sent to the state.

12 days later,  four and a half months after riding the bike off the lot.  I finally got the title and registration.

I have no idea how long this would have taken if I hadn’t picked up the phone and started calling phone numbers that didn’t seem designed for me to call them.  I suspect Vitu would still be waiting for that form and the state would still be waiting on Vitu and J would still be complaining that the dealership still hadn’t hired a title clerk to replace the last one.

I guess I can put the plates on now.