It’s December 23rd. I guess you know what that means. It’s Festivus Day. Yes, Festivus – it’s a festival for the rest of us. And right now, I need a festival.
The day started with a short chat with my Skype amigo CyberDave. Then I saw the mailman walk through my yard, so I went out and brought in the mail. The mail was just one item: a medical bill. It said my account was “overdue.” I recognized the bill as one I had already paid. I really hate getting billed when I’ve already paid the bill. So I fired off an email to the billing company, letting them know I had already paid the bill and should have a zero balance. I asked them what they needed in the way of proof. There was no immediate auto-reply, so I didn’t know if they received the email. Time would tell.
It rained all night and into the morning, but now the rain had stopped. There was a prescription waiting for me at the Walmart pharmacy and I was debating whether the rain would hold off long enough to allow me to pick up the prescription without getting soaked. At that point, I received a phone invitation to have lunch in a restaurant an hour away with a group of people I mostly do not know. I haven’t been to that particular restaurant in so long I wasn’t sure I could still find the place. I thanked my caller and said I had some things to do. My caller muttered something about excuses.
I showered, shaved, dressed, and prepared to go to Walmart. The rain was still holding off as I drove to the pharmacy. The traffic was ridiculous, with long lines at every stop light. In other words, it was just what I expected two days before Christmas. Finally I got into the parking lot, where I circled round and round and up and down the lanes looking for a parking spot. I almost gave up and went home before I finally found a place to park. The store was so crowded that, even though I had other things I wanted to buy, I chose to bail. I had to get out of the store, away from the crowd.
I decided to drive to another store – a Martin’s grocery store in a small shopping center. Traffic was backed up in lines a half mile long at traffic lights. Even when the lights were green, I sometimes couldn’t move because the cars across the intersection from me were not moving.
I got to the grocery store, but again there was no place to park. No, I take that back. There was a parking spot, it just happened to be in the next county. Ordinarily, I don’t mind a long walk between car and store, but a mist of rain was in the air, and the clouds were ominously dark. The sky looked like it was ready to let go, so I swung my Jeep back onto the highway and motored on home. I’ll try again – after Christmas.
Back at home, I checked my email. I had a reply to the email I had sent to the billing company. They wanted a copy of the payment check, front and back. It was an e-banking check, and my bank doesn’t make copies of checks available online because sensitive information on the check could be intercepted and misused. I went to the bank’s online support page and had an e-chat with someone called Shari. Shari took a long time to respond to anything I typed, but assured me I should be patient because I was a valued customer. Ultimately, Shari gave me a phone number and said people at the number would help me.
I called the number and a computer voice asked me for my social security number. I punched it into the dial pad and the computer voice said, “That number doesn’t match our records” and asked me to enter the number again. For a second I was at a loss: all it knew about me was the social security number I had just entered, so how could it know the number wasn’t correct? Then I realized it was reading my phone number and comparing it to the number stored in my account, and I was using a different phone from that which the bank had on file. I got past that and into endless menus that never gave me what I wanted: an answer to the question, “How do I get a copy of a check?” In frustration I started tapping the “0” button. Shortly afterward, I made contact with a real human being.
I was interrogated: social security number, driver’s license number, date of birth, address, and so on. Finally the woman I was speaking with agreed that I was the real me, and she asked how she could help me. I told her I needed a copy of an e-banking check. She indicated that was beyond her pay grade, but if I was patient, someone in a another department would help me.
The new person was indeed helpful. He explained that the bank couldn’t email me a copy of the check, but they could fax me a copy. I don’t have a fax machine, so I asked them to mail it. I asked if they could also fax a copy to the company billing me, and they said yes. But first I had to verify with the billing company that their fax was secure. So I wrote down my case number and sent another email to the billing company. After a while I received a reply. My contact there said to send the fax.
I called the bank back. I went through the computer verification (“that number doesn’t match our records”) again, then got into the menus, hit “0” on the dial pad, got a human again, went through the interrogation again, and finally got to the “How can we help?” question. I explained I wanted to fax the check images to the billing company, which once again was beyond the person’s pay grade, so they had to get another department involved, and another person got on the line. I gave him the case number and my request to fax the check to the billing company, and he said he would handle it.
That’s a summary of the process; in real time it took two and a half hours to get the copy of the check sent out. Now I only have to wait and see if I get another “overdue” invoice next month. If I do, maybe I’ll just pay the invoice again.
Happy Festivus, indeed.
(Below) A Festivus pole. It is unadorned and unlit. Why?" you ask. Because, that’s just the way it is. I don’t make the rules.
Copyright: Matthew Keefe,
license: creative commons
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