Thanks for nothing

My brother needed a copy of his birth certificate, and as I have more time on my hands than he does – and because I’m a bit more adept at navigating the Internet than he is – I told him I’d figure out how to get him one and go ahead an take care of it.

The options presented by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on their Registry of Vital Records and Statistics website were schlepping over to Dorchester and getting one in person ($20); mailing a request in ($32); or applying online.

I could swear that the link provided on the Commonwealth’s organization called Vital Records Certificates, where we are told you can:

Avoid waiting in line. Get your Vital Record from the comfort of your home.

Avoid waiting in line? Comfort of my home?

I was so there.

Anyway, somehow I found my way to VitalRecordsCertifcates.com and filled in my application.

Easy peasy. $40. We’re on our way!

Not so easy peasy. Not so fast.

Turns out that all I got for my $40 was a filled in copy of the form – a form which I could have gotten for free from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts – and instructions on where to mail it in with a check for $32. I.e., mail it in to the place in Dorchester in lieu of schlepping over there.

Hmmmmm.

Should have checked the reviews first. This company has scam written all over it. The majority of its reviews gave the company 1 star, a number stating that they’d have given it zero stars if that had been an option.

Lots of complaints about how folks were charged for nothing. Same as me!

Anyway, I wrote them a note asking them to explain what value they were providing (they had no answer) and asking for a refund (which they said they would be processing for me).

In requesting a refund, I did lay it on a bit thick, making it known that I was an elderly widow applying for a birth certificate on behalf of my handicapped brother.

All true! Nearing 70 – very nearing – I definitely qualify as elderly. I thought I’d throw in widow for the sympathy. Sure, I suspect this generally merits a sad little tune played on the world’s smallest violin. But you never know.

As for handicapped brother, it is true that my brother Rick has pretty substantial hearing loss, and has had this since he was a kid. But the real handicap in play is his difficulty navigating anything other than the most rudimentary anything to do with a computer.

My brother is an extremely intelligent man, and has been very successful professionally. Fortunately, in a profession that doesn’t require you to be a computer stud.

My husband was pretty much the same. PhD from Harvard and unable to do much of anything computer-wise other than send an email and search for information. Oh, and use some stat package. (Jim was an economist and as part of his consulting practice, he did forecasting. Thus the stat package.)

Other than that... No matter how many times I explained file folders to him, he was never able to figure out how to save a file to a place where he could get it back again. Sure, he could search for a restaurant where we could have lunch on Tuesday on our six-months-out trip to Paris. But could he find a Word document he’d written a week ago? Nah…

My appeal for a refund worked, even if I did forget to add that I’m on a fixed income, as my sister Trish suggested I should have. Or so they tell me. (The refund, not the fixed income part.) I’ll see when the charge is removed from my credit card.

As I said, I was ultra sure that the link on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts site was to this outfit vitralrecordscertificates.com. And was all prepared to bring my high dudgeon to the case, including writing to our AG, Maura Healey to complain. But the link on the state’s site was to a company called VitalChek.

Somehow, I screwed up.

Maybe I’m just as bad at this computering as my computer-challenged brother and husband. After all, I am just an elderly widow lady…

Just for grins, I checked out how VitalChek stacks up. Turns up they also get really poor reviews, too. On one site, 70% of more than 300 reviews gave them a rating of Bad. Oddly, 23% rated them Excellent.

The ratings on them on the Better Business Bureau site were similarly dismal.

Hmmmm.

I realize that folks with something negative to say are more likely to write a review than someone who’s all happy-dappy, but with both of these services, sounds like a case of ‘when they are good they are very very good, and when they are bad they are horrid.”

Maybe I should drop Maura Healey a line after all.

Meanwhile, my advice to anyone who wants a vital record is to schlep in person or mail it in.

I went the mail it in route. We’ll see if Rick’s birth certificate arrives as promised in a week or so.

Oh me of little faith, I do predict a trip to the Registry of Vital Records in Dorchester in the not so distant future. Good thing that, as an elder, I ride for half-off on the T! Maybe they have a separate waiting line for elderly widows?