It seems like a distant memory now. But that one click of the mouse set off a chain reaction that required an enormous time investment to correct. Ah the joys of the modern and convenient electronic age.
It all started when my brother in law Michael moved from one apartment complex to another. As his paperwork goddess it was up to me to switch his auto pay on the Arizona Public Service utility bill to the new account. I love auto pay because it sends me notice of how much his bill is each month and I report that to him for his bank balance tracking purposes and, it gets paid with no further action. Easy and amazingly convenient. Who could ask for more?
Well, try as I have over the years I am no secretary. So it was no surprise to find out that I committed an error. The problem was finding it out--and getting it fixed. It started when we received written notice that the payment had not gone through. I immediately phoned. It seems that August/September is the worst month of the year to try and call to talk to a service rep. Each time I did (and there are many) the hold time was reported to be no less than 30 minutes and most often 1 hour.
Imagine my horror to find that once I did reach a person they would not talk to me because I was not him. Silly us, we had forgotten to file a power of attorney with the power company. Just slipped our minds I guess. (But I could have had a guy call and pretend to be him and they would have been none the wiser as they verify your identity with the last four SSN digits-a number I would presume the ex would certainly have had plenty of access to-no system is fool proof I guess.)They have this strange security concern that involves ex-spouses getting even so we all have to suffer for it. Problem was, at the time Michael was in Michigan and I was in Arizona so it was a bit tough to coordinate the call. Anyway, I assured the rep (who was very kind and as helpful as she could be within the confines of her guidelines) that she would not have to tell me a thing--I would do all the talking. After describing our plight she used some magic hand signals and without telling me exactly I was able to figure out that I had entered the account number incorrectly. Easy to fix. But they were unable to waive the $15 return fee unless they spoke with him personally! It did not seem economically prudent to have him call from Michigan on his cell phone and be placed on hold for up to an hour for a $15 credit. In hindsight this was a fatal judgment.
I breathed a sigh of relief and reinitiated the autopay.
Now Michael has learned that in order to avoid overdraft fees he must check his account balance regularly. He does so nearly daily. That information, coupled with my telling him the amounts of his bills, has worked beautifully for the last year or so. So now, I have told him the amount of his APS bill-$96 and not knowing about the snafu is figuring that money is already out of his account.
Well, as luck would have it-the end of the month was upon us by the time the auto pay searched his bank account for the now $111 it needed to satisfy the debt. What luck-there was only $101 in the account AND THE DAMNED THING GETS RETURNED AGAIN!
Now, however, we are both in Michigan and on the last day an unexpected rain storm caught Mike's cell phone by surprise and sort of knocked it out of commission. When we got back home we find the new notice that the APS bill bounced (and you guessed it-another $15 fee), and two more notices-one demanding a cash payment in full for all current amounts due and for the next 12 months and a turn off notice.
Several times that week I tried calling APS again in hopes of getting the same kind rep on the phone. After being on hold for upwards of 30 or 40 minutes each I had to break off the call because I had something else to do before they answered.
I finally got through (after a 40 minute wait); I told my story to the woman who refused to speak with me because I was not him. She could not understand why he could not just call her from his cellphone at home. (See above).
We had no choice but to pay as time was running out. After a somewhat difficult website search I was able to locate the fact that most Circle K stores have a payment kiosk. So we went to the bank, got the cash and stopped at the first Circle K we saw. It was kiosk-less, of course. We finally found one an paid.
Last night I finally got Michael to call APS (figuring a Monday evening would be the least wait time-wrong) and we talked them into taking us off the cash pay status. After another wait on hold (the rep had to get the OK from the supervisor) we were graciously allowed to return to the auto pay system--but only with the stern caveat that if we screw up again--one more time, in the next 12 months we will be banished to cash kiosk hell with no exceptions.
It is not easy being handicapped. Although Michael still has his driver's license he cannot drive at all. He also got summonsed to jury duty--at the regional court center in Surprise, Arizona which is 21 miles away! Mike is very adept at zipping around the neighborhood on Dial A Ride and has even taken the bus to Scottsdale, but this is foreign territory for him.
As luck would have it the government instituted the Americans with Disabilities Act that apparently resulted in the court giving notice on the summons that if you need an accommodation you simply call this number.
So Doug calls and hears a very lengthy recorded greeting that essentially reports that this person will not call you back if your request does not fit into a specific category of accommodation, specifically for the court facilities it seemed. She was unclear about whether getting there was one of those categories. Doug took the chance and left his message-can he come to Phoenix instead of Surprise? No call back. He then thought maybe she misunderstood and did the whole thing again. No call back.
And they wonder why people don't go to jury duty. Michael certainly won't.
Michael leads the most simple life of anyone I know; due in no small part to his physical and financial condition. It really is not complicated in the least anymore. Yet between Doug and me a serious amount of time is devoted to it. Why is that?
The moral to this story is that every little thing we go to do in this progressive society has an unbelievable administrative burden. The benefits of all this automation are great until they don't work-then you are in the morass that I can only imagine as what hell would be like for an anal person like me. Just retelling the stories to the people involved takes an inordinate amount of time. If you aggregate all of these things together it is no wonder people have no time these days. Every spare moment is being devoted to keeping the machine running. We truly are rats on a treadmill with little time to think and even less time to savor the special moments. Maybe it would not be so bad if the economy slows down-perhaps we can all catch our breath!
Footnote: The court accommodation lady called back! They just have to write a letter. Maybe there is justice after all.
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