Damn you, credit card company! Damn you and your broken website!

The BBQ Pit
1

Goddamn credit card company keeps “updating” and “improving” its website. Every time they “improve” it with new whiz-bang useless features they fuck up the payment system. I was making online payments through the site every month for well over two years, then in January they “improved” the payment portion, un-registered everyone who’d previously registered for online payments (a stupid thing to do in and of itself) and made it impossible for me to re-register from my Mac at home (no support for Safari, no support for older IE and damn if I’m gonna muck around with yet another browser at this point). So as much as I hated the idea of doing it, I re-registered through my computer at work and was then able to make a payment from home again.

Now they’ve revamped and “improved” the entire website and suddenly I can’t make online payments again. I’m still registered, I can get to the screen I need and everything, but I click on the button to make the payment and it just…sits…there…like I didn’t do anything. Infuriating. I’m not currently working so even if I wanted to make a payment from a work machine I can’t. Been like this for the last week. I’ve tried every day, sent problem reports every day, generally been pissed off and frustrated every day.

So I call the company to make a payment by phone. I’d be happy to take your payment, says the customer service drone, along with the $15 “convenience fee” we charge for any payment made by phone. Fuck, I say to myself, that shit. I explain to the drone that I’ve been making my payments via the website forever and because they messed it up I can’t, and there’s no reason I should bear any additional cost because their web designers can’t be arsed to be sure the site works for everyone. Oh, so sorry, says the drone, my computer charges that fee to your account automatically and there’s no way for me to stop it. I’m tempted to call bullshit on that, but whatever. So do it like this, I suggest, Charge me the $15 for making the payment, then issue me a $15 credit. Oh, says the drone, I’m not authorized to issue credit. Again the temptation to call bullshit rises, but I beat it down and ask for someone who is authorised to issue credit. There’s no one here who can do that, sayeth the drone. A call center that doesn’t have a supervisor on shift? I’ve worked in call centers for close to a decade and never once was there no supervisor in the building. And now I can refrain from calling bullshit no longer.

Bull-fucking-shit that the web designers break the website not once but twice in the space of two months. Bull-motherfucking-shit that it costs anything approaching $15 to process a check-by-phone payment (and I don’t care if that’s what your vendor charges; if that’s true then your fucking vendor is a fucking thief and you’re a bunch of suckers for using it). Bull-unclefucka-shit that you have no power to issue credit for anything and bull-fuck you and your whole family-shit that there’s not a supervisor there.

2

I absolutely guarantee there was a supervisor there. Whether or not they could issue the credit is arguable (call centre rules can be complex and draconian), but there is always a supervisor or at least a senior person keeping an eye on things.

3

Since the drone spoke with an Indian accent, it is I suppose possible that there was no supervisor physically in the building in whatever town it was that the cc company exported the jobs to. When I called back a few minutes ago I got another Indian-accented drone who suddenly could waive half the fee, but no one can waive the entire fee. Except the American-sounding supervisor I was transferred to was able to waive the entire fee. Except she wouldn’t, at least not yet, until I speak with someone in tech support. The supervisor said she sits right next to tech support and the tech support person she put me on hold to speak with assured her that there are workarounds for the Safari browser. But I have to wait until tech support opens (in about a half hour) to find out about them. Why, if tech support is sitting right next to the supervisor and tech support isn’t open and getting calls in its own queue yet, the techie couldn’t speak with me right then on the supervisor’s line was not made clear.

So that was round two. Round three will start in about 28 minutes.

4

cough What time of day did you call?

“Supervisor” doesn’t always mean “someone with more magical fixing powers than the guy you’re talking to on the phone right now.” It sometimes means the person who is in charge of making sure your operator is sitting in their chair taking calls and being reasonably polite for however many hours a day they’re supposed to do it.

I personally have used “My supervisor isn’t available right now” because my sup was on a break, at lunch, gone home sick, or I could see them three rows away with a headset on, taking another call, eyes rolled to heaven and hands out in “Give me strength” mode. If I really felt that it was something a supervisor could fix, that I couldn’t do (and not just someone who wanted to argue with me while changing their story repeatedly) then of course I’d offer to have the supervisor call them back in an hour or the next day, as appropriate.

While I do approve of calling bullshit where needed, I do want to mention that it’s simply not practical for companies to have enough supervisors to have one always available every minute of the day. I’ve worked many shifts where 30-45 minutes of my shift did not have a supervisor available in my department, and one lovely Monday night at 15 minutes til close I had a gentleman (who had a very valid point, might I add, one much like yours in common sense) tell me that it was “ridiculous! You mean to tell me that you’re the most senior person in the entire call center?”

“Why, yes, I do mean that, because it’s true. It’s 1:45AM on a federal holiday, and everyone with any seniority has taken a daytime shift or taken the day off. My supervisor just went home with a family emergency, there are 11 people in the building including me and the security guard who’s going to lock up when we leave, and I’ve worked here for 2 years, which is longer than the other 9. I really wish I could fix this for you right now, but I can’t and there really is no one else here. When would be a good time tomorrow for someone to call you and take care of this issue?”

Call again. Ask for a callback if there’s no supervisor available. Ask for email addresses or fax numbers or whatever else they have to get hold of someone with more magical powers than the person you’re working with.

Only, you know, don’t say “magical powers.” And good luck.

5

You wanna talk about a screwed up website. Time Warner Cable in Milwaukee. A few months ago I got a letter stating that they would be getting moving to a new website. Okay no big deal. You’ll have to compleatly re-register on the new website, again no big deal…The old website will still be up and ‘working’ but payments made to that website will not be applied to your account and if you infact make your payment to that website since it’s not applied to your you’d wind up with a late fee for not making a payment…HUH??? How about pulling the website down and replacing it with a explination and a link to the new website?

6

Round three. Called tech support and surprise, there are no workarounds for Safari. The workarounds are for IE, and only for versions later than what’s available for Macs at all. The website doesn’t support the last available Mac IE version. No idea on how long it will take to fix the problems for Safari. No, even though tech support and customer service are right next to each other, I can’t be transferred to customer service but will instead have to call directly (which means enduring yet another run-through of all the non-skippable account information that leads off every phone call.

Round four (or perhaps three and a half): Called back to customer service and another drone from the sub-continent finally takes the payment and waives the fee per supervisory note, then goes on to advise me on the availability of online payments so as to avoid future check by phone charges. Sheesh.

So a happy ending after far too many annoyances than one should have to deal with.

7

How much trouble would it be to switch banks? Obviously your current bank doesn’t want Mac users for customers.

8

I’m in the process of switching banks for that exact reason, myself.

mischievous

9

Make sure you let 'em know why.

10

Wouldn’t be any trouble at all, if I could convince some poor sap to open me up another line of credit for a balance transfer off that card. I don’t use the card much at this point but have unfortunately run up a significant balance on it. I don’t do any other banking through them. Overall I’ve been satisfied with the card and the company; it’s just this damn website issue happening twice in close to as many months. As long as they continue to waive the fees for phone payments while the website isn’t working I’m really OK with it. 'Twas just the frustration of having to make several phone calls this morning when I should only have had to make one.

11

Thought I’d try be a tree hugger. Went off paper bills and just go to the site each month to see what I owe.

They keep the site broken so I can’t find my bill due.

They want late fees …

Ah, tell me what I owe… ya think?

Phone drones could not acces billing either… Bawahahaaha

12

I am NOT starting an OS war here.

I just want to point out that sometimes Mac users have to concede that though they are superior, Windows users have some advantages.

Serious question. Does the Mac OS keep up with compatability of browsers that MS offers? I kinda thought they were pretty much on par with each other in functionality. I’ve never heard of this being an issue with Mozilla in Linux. But then, I’ve never heard of it until now being an issue with Macs. Maybe I’m in the dark here.

And I know how inconvenient it is, but wouldn’t it be easier and less time consuming to write a check or buy a money order?

13

Safari, like Mozilla, tends to be very good at keeping up with the w3 standards. The problem is two fold. First there are some IE only things like ActiveX. The other is that IE takes a very lax attitude when it comes to running broken code. It will render sites that are coded incorrectly. This leads to people coding with non-standard IE only tech mixed in with broken code and because it works with IE they feel it’s good enough

14

I don’t pay with the individual site. I just find out how much I owe. I pay electronically through my bank. (free e-checking or snail mail if the retailer does not do electronic funds transfer, my bank will send it ( a check) through the postal system free to me. If I have a auto deduct on a CC, then I don’t care if there site is crashed unless I want to see a detailed report.

I will not let anyone have access to my bank account except for direct deposit SS payments and tax refunds.

So I don’t have to write checks or get MO’s but even that is a moot point unless I can find out how much I owe.

So, when even the phone drones can’t tell me what I own them, it makes no difference how I was going to pay.

15

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I don’t pay with the individual site. I just find out how much I owe. I pay electronically through my bank. (free e-checking or snail mail if the retailer does not do electronic funds transfer, my bank will send it ( a check) through the postal system free to me. If I have a auto deduct on a CC, then I don’t care if there site is crashed unless I want to see a detailed report.

I will not let anyone have access to my bank account except for direct deposit SS payments and tax refunds.

So I don’t have to write checks or get MO’s but even that is a moot point unless I can find out how much I owe.

So, when even the phone drones can’t tell me what I own them, it makes no difference how I was going to pay.

I do not think me being right but still spending hours fighting to get bad stuff off my credit history is worth standing on principal when dealing with this new internet stuff.

If it is important and I know I do owe them something, I make a payment anyway with an amount that I think will be near correct.

I spent a lot of years getting to the point that I am not down to the wire each month with what I can pay.

If I owe you, I will pay it even if you are being difficult about it.

It is all about how I sleep, not the retailer or it’s stupid employees.