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Thursday, October 06, 2005

The problem with automatic bill pay is...

operator error!

I am a smart person, but I may be too confident in my own abilities. I decided that I was tired of writing the same checks over and over each month. Cell phone: $43, Cable bill $70, home phone, $45. Because the automatic payment for my car and mortgage has worked out so well, I decided to set up all my revolving bills on the bill pay service offered by my credit union. Once they were set up, I sat back and relaxed.

FAST FORWARD: three months

I am living in bliss. The bills roll in, I don't even bother to open the envelopes as I KNOW they are being paid while I spend my time living my life.

RING RING (the phone in my house jingles one evening)
tp_gal: hello?
evil qwest collection agent: pay your phone bill you dead beat!
tp_gal: huh? I paid my phone bill -- see it's right here on my checking statement
evil qwest collection agent: you're a terrible person, and you're not worthy of our superior service and excellent customer relations
tp_gal: oh golly, something must be wrong... I'll call you back tomorrow once I call my bank (that is now closed.)
evil qwest collection agent: you'ld better call back girlie... or I'll get you and your little dog (sized cat) too!

The next day while online at work which I NEVER do (ouch my nose) I noticed something odd about the Qwest bill profile on my online bill pay account...the area code was wrong. Oh Shit! Not only were the bills going to the wrong account -- it was MY FAULT!

I called the EQCA and explained the situation and they promised (F*cking liars) that they would research it and contact me with the results. In the meantime, I corrected the bill and paid the current months charges.

FAST FORWARD: One month

RING RING (the phone in my house jingles once again)
tp_gal: hello?
evil qwest collection agent: pay your phone bill you dead beat!
tp_gal: huh? I called and explained the mistake -- doesn't it show on my account what happened?
evil qwest collection agent: no you lazy, no good, phone service stealing ho!
tp_gal: hey...I'm not lazy!
evil qwest collection agent: if you claim that you've paid you're going to have prove it(liar)... Fax over a copy of your birth certificate, your citizenship grade from the Fourth Grade, proof of your virginity and a copy of the payment stubs to our office in New Orleans and we'll get to it as soon as we find the fax machine.
tp_gal: ok, will do!
evil qwest collection agent: And, in order to keep your phone service on.. you'll have to call us every day until we pull our heads out of our asses to remind us that we forgot to deal with your mistake.
tp_gal: no can do, heading to Spain for two weeks starting tomorrow.
evil qwest collection agent: Bwahahahahaha no phone service for you!

The moral of the story is: don't trust your own typing skills, and when you set up bill pay you still have to review the bills every month.

1 comment:

syp said...

Qwest bites. I had to go to auto bill pay because they kept sending the bill to the wrong address. One month they would get it right, the next month it would be wrong...