Polite inquiries may result in refund of fee(s)

This is the season of "things not happening when they're supposed to." (Wish I had a catchier way to say that.) It's like the world is standing still here, in the middle of 2009, in the middle of summer, in the middle of July. Summertime, and the weather is great, and the living is easy - if you don't count all the tragedies - in the news and here in the local news - that have been taking place. Disturbing in a way that interrupts sleep and leaves a person with the vague sense of having had forgotten nightmares when waking up to the incongruously sunny, cheerful morning.

OK, but back to finances: One MORE set of direct deposits not coming through as expected - I don't know how much of this I can take! And my "special purpose" venture that I got myself all worked up, courage-wise, to set out on - has exactly NOTHING happening that I can work with right now!

Also, I woke up to see $40 less in my brokerage account than was there the night before. Two lots of stock that I ironically bought the day before and sold the day of an announced (right after I bought it) split caused two fees of $20 each to be charged to me.

I told E*Trade truthfully that I had never heard of an administrative fee being charged to a client because of something like a stock split. As always, I asked the representative to point me to the exact location of this rule in their fees and disclosures and he did. *not the exact representative; he sounded male.

Because I politely complained (expressed surprise that I was charged the fee and repeated several times that I have never experienced this with another brokerage) he offered to refund one of the fees, saying the he was "unable" to refund the other.

I wasn't actually expecting either of them to be refunded, but I guess the possibility is always in the back of my mind, which probably fuels my tendency to call and make sure I get all details straight and politely register my displeasure when I am "whacked" with an unexpected fee. Really, I'm not one of those people who whines and curses out the customer service representatives. I'm more likely to just accept that the fee was charged fairly to me and it's my fault for not reading the fine print thoroughly (because I really believe that) but simply inquiring and going over it in detail oftentimes prompts a refund by a bank/brokerage that really values good customer sentiment.

-$40.00
score $20.00 refund
net $20.00 loss for me today (could have been 40, though, that's the way I look at it.)