I set out to do the simple task of certifying my taxpayer identification number at the request of Mellon Investments, and ended up spending nearly an hour over three days and it’s still not done. You can see the earlier posts here and here.
Today I tried again to log into my account. Couldn’t, but noticed they have live chat, so I joined the conversation. A gentleman named Ed came on to help. He was very good at chat, clear and to the point. He was able to take me through a process whereby I could log in. Why I suddenly couldn’t is a mystery.
I’m in and so tried one more time to certify my TIN online as instructed in the mailer. Once again I was locked out, although I used the same credentials submitted at log in. I got this message.
I navigated to the forms section and downloaded the appropriate PDF, which is what the phone agent told me to do the day before. They had two nice controls at the top of the form. One that highlights the fields you need to complete; pretty nice. The other allows you to fill in the form online and print it prefilled, which means you only have to sign and mail. I selected this choice, keyed in the information and hit print. The form came out of my printer completely unreadable. The SSN was filled in, but it wasn’t mine. Who’s was it? Where did mine go?
I reloaded the PDF, printed a blank form, filled it out with an ink pen, addressed an envelope (I’m guessing on where it should be sent), and stamped it to be mailed. Hopefully they will receive and process it. Please let this be over.