(no subject)

[stonebender]

Yesterday I got a call from my phone company. I had a bill for $17 and something that I still owed. Now, I knew about this bill and was a bit confused about what it was for exactly. I neglected to investigate this yet, but I was going to. Anyway, the woman who called mentioned collection agencies and I really didn't want to get involved in that, so I called my phone company after talking with loracs to double-check with her on what she knew about the bill. I didn't think it would be any problem to just pay it. I had my debit card ready and it was only $17. The woman answering the phone wanted a three digit number off my bill. Now I didn't have my bill and I couldn't exactly go looking for it. I told her my situation and asked her if there was anything else I could do. She asked me if I knew the amount of my last bill. Now I don't know about you, but I don't run around with the amount of bills in my head. Since I didn't have the bill in front of me, we were left with the same problem. So I said to her, I just want to pay my bill. She said she couldn't process my payment without either the three digit number or the amount or my last bill. I said well can you find my bill its for the phone number I was caling on. Just apply my payment to my account. According to her she couldn't do anything without the three digit number. I'm boggled. What exactly do they think I could do that would damage anything? I'm not taking any money out of the account. I'm putting money in, for crying out loud. Do you know that I couldn't pay my bill over the phone? They are perfectly happy to threaten me with collection agencies, but won't take my money when I'm freely offering it. Ridiculous!

Comments

[fightingtiger.livejournal.com]

I had that kinda shit happen once. I had to mail the check in a certified letter (I rounded up, cause I couldn't remember the amount) to their corporate office with a note. "I've been trying to pay y'all, but no one will take my money. Sorry it was late. Keep the change." Crazy, but it worked!

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I feel like I shouldn't have to work so hard to give them my money. Ya know?

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well, part of the problem is that they're privy to a lot of information about you, and they're supposed to protect your privacy by not giving the government illegal access to your phone calls not accessing that information without having some form of identification/assurance that you are who you say you are.

e.g., if you call to request they add something to your phone service, they can't even access your customer record without your permission.

So, part of what you ran into was rank incompetence. But part of it was based upon regulations governing how and when they can go digging for a random person's billing information.

[ailbhe]

That's mad. They phoned you. You wanted to pay a bill. It shouldn't matter a damn to them WHO wants to pay the bill; as long as you could provide the security information for the PAYMENT (ie your card number, the security code off the back of it, the correct billing address, etc) they should take the money. Sheesh.

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

Exactly, my point!

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is that I don't find this the least bit surprising. I feel like I deal with things like it ten times a week (not to undermine your frustration).

*sigh*

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

For instance, the State Board of Equalization just spent an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to track down Laurie and me (or more accurately the press that we own) down to make sure we received a five-year-old bill from U.S. Customs, which went to the address of our storage site. They sent mail. When the storage company couldn't forward it, they called me, even though the name the company is registered under with them is different from the one on the invoice. I returned my call. They called me back and spent 15 minutes figuring out that we were in fact the same company.

Then they faxed me the seven-page bill. I admit I was worried about how big a bite we would have. Want to guess the amount?

The grand total: $0.00.

[stonebender.livejournal.com]

You have to laugh at shit like that. It reminds me of an old text adventure game written by Douglas Adams which was called obviously enough, Bureaucracy.