Sunday, November 26, 2006

Electronic Banking

I swear the electronic banking world is out to get me today.

I realized that I didn't get an electric bill and I know it is due this week. So I went to check my account online and it won't accept my password. Not only will it not accept the password, but if you click "forget your password?" it does NOTHING. So that's pretty useless.

OK, so I decide I will balance my checkbook. I realize that even though I don't write many checks anymore, I need to order more as I only have about five left. So I go to the credit union's web site, click through to reorder checks . . . that bounces me to some service and I plug in my routing and account numbers. It rejects me over and over again saying the info is wrong . . . or I have never gotten checks there before, which I have. So I call customer service -- which I hate doing, hence doing it all online -- and the woman tells me it is like a new order because I haven't ordered in 2+ years and they need this, that and the other confirmation. OK, I do that. I find out a lousy 150 checks will cost me $21.42 for the most basic of basic checks. Ridiculous. It is definitely cheaper to do electronic payments (and I know I am getting old because the cost of some stuff like this really drives me nuts, I don't ever remember paying over $11).

I then try to add a credit card to automatic ebilling on BillPay, it won't do it. It just acts like it is thinking and runs the same images over and over again.

While there, I discover that I decided to pay the car loan on Nov. 24th and then scheduled another payment for the 29th which is already in progress and can't be cancelled. It's not really a big deal, it just didn't have to be paid twice in one month, LOL.

I go to check credit card statements and one bank has a new security system so I have to navigate through that to see my balance.

Then I decide to check my rewards balance on another account to see if I can cash out for the fun of it. I do the "seamless" log in to the reward site, but it doesn't go immediately. I look up my log in name and password on my desk, but when I try to hit log in to enter the info myself it doesn't work but tells me rather to click continue. When I do, it logs into my account and starts blaring music and playing an ad for the program for which I am obviously already a member.

All of this stuff should have taken less than a half hour and been done, but with all the snafus along the way, it still isn't finished because I don't know how much I need to pay on that electric bill yet.

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