It is wonderful to read the welcoming message on your page of the Institute’s website. As you say, “MIT is a community of people eager to solve hard problems in service to the nation and the world.” As both an alumnus and a former teacher at the Institute, where I spent more than ten years of my life, I know that your words are true. I am writing to you in connection with a small problem that I have with your Pensions Department. However, the problem has turned out to be so hard and so protracted that I am eager to share it with you. I sincerely hope that you can help me with it.

My story goes back to 2010. My MIT pension of thirty-eight dollars and twenty-six cents per month used to go to one of my Bank of America accounts ever since June 2003. Over so many years, there were several thousand dollars on the account. To my surprise, the account was suddenly reduced to a few dollars in September 2010. Suspecting fraud, I wrote to the bank, but got no answer to my several letters. I also wrote to the Pension Department at MIT to stop further payments to the account and to help me with the unresponsive bank.

It took a while, but the mystery was finally resolved. My account was actually a joint one with my ex-wife. Her bookkeeper found the money on the account, asked my ex-wife whether it could be withdrawn, and withdrew it after her approval. Not having used this account for more than ten years, my ex-wife made a mistake. Once I realized what had happened, I asked her to return the money, which her bookkeeper promptly did. The bookkeeper also helped me remove my ex-wife from the account. In short, mistakes of this sort cannot happen any more.

This accomplished, I asked the Pensions Department to resume sending monthly payments to the same account, but they would not do it. They needed a routing number for the bank, they explained. I could not find it in any of my statements, though. For some reason, the Pensions Department could not find it, either. Instead, they started sending me checks in April 2011. The last check, for May 2012, has just arrived. I now have fourteen checks in total, eleven of which are already void, for it takes ninety days for the checks to become void. As I have discovered, my bank in Croatia would charge me about twenty dollars to cash each check, which amounts to more than a half of my MIT pension. This is why I have cashed none of the checks I have received so far.

Now, I would appreciate it very much if you would help me with this matter. I am sending all the fourteen checks to you with a plea that the Pensions Office sends the total amount to my old Bank of America account. The requisite routing number must be somewhere in their records, I am quite sure. Moreover, I would appreciate it very much if the future pension payments would also be sent to the same account. I trust that you can help me with this small problem, which has turned out to be rather intractable ever since my ex-wife’s inadvertent mistake in September 2010. After my many pleas with the Pensions Department, it appears that only you can help.

Addendum I (May 17, 2012)

Together with the fourteen checks, I sent my letter by post this morning. It is still in Motovun as I write, and it will take it about a week to reach Cambridge, Massachusetts. But I also sent it yesterday by electronic mail. Lo and behold, this morning I found a reply from one of the senior officers concerned with finance at MIT. The festering problem is about to be resolved. He only needed a few details from me, which I sent to him at once, and the pension payments would be redirected to my old bank account. Presto! Writing to the MIT President was a good idea, after all. As the welcoming message on her page of the Institute website says, she is indeed eager to solve hard problems.

Addendum II (June 26, 2012)

Today I received my monthly statement from Bank of America, which shows that the problem has been solved at last. The Pensions Office at MIT has returned all the payments to the account. All the future payments will go to the same account, as well. Phew! Amazingly, it has taken almost two years for this silly problem to be solved. When I only try to remember all the letters, electronic-mail messages, and phone calls! Worse, when I only try to remember all the time wasted! And it all came from my ex-wife’s inadvertent mistake. Actually, it all came from my wish to help her in 1998 by letting her share my account, as she had none of her own in the States at that time (“Joint Accounts be Damned,” March 3, 2011). Which only reminds me of her maternal grandfather’s favorite saying (“No Good Deed Will Go Unpunished,” September 29, 1989).