Piper chats with the Nice Phone Lady

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I suddenly noticed that my automatic bank transfers to The Phone Company weren’t going through, and hadn’t for a few months. Worried that I might get my phone service cut off for non-payment, I try to log onto my account on my laptop. Piffle. It’s been so long with the auto-payments going through that I can’t remember my login number, or my password.

After locking myself out of my account, I call The Phone Company and begin talking to the Nice Phone Lady.

Me: “Hi, I’ve locked myself out of my account and I’m worried that I may not be current on my payments. Can you help me log back onto my account, please, so I can check my bill?”

Nice Phone Lady: “Sure, I can help. What’s your user-name?”

Me: “I’ve forgotten, that why I’m calling.”

Nice Phone Lady: “No problem. For security reasons, I’ll need some information. When was the date of the last payment?”

Me: [deep breath ] “I don’t know. That’s why I’m trying to access my account, to check my payment status, but I’m locked out.”

Nice Phone Lady: “Oh, right. Well then, can you tell me the amount of the last payment?”

Me: [using all my meditation tricks to keep calm] “I don’t know. That’s why I want to access my account online, to find out my payment status.”

Nice Phone Lady: “Oh, right. Well then, can I have the last three digits of your driver licence to confirm your identity?”

Me: [excited at the break-through in communications] “Sure!” [digs licence out of wallet and gives the last three digits].

Nice Phone Lady: [tapping on computer] “There we go! I’ve got your account open. Yes, you do have a balance owing. Do you want to pay it in full or in part?”

Me: “I want to be able to log onto my account to see for myself the amount I owe”. [Nails starting to bite into my palm as I clench my fist in frustration]

Nice Phone Lady: “Oh, right, can you enter your password now to check?”

Me: “I don’t remember my user name or password, that’s why I’m calling you!” [on customer support, no-one can hear you scream!]

Nice Phone Lady: “Oh, of course. Your user account is [e-mail address]. I’ll send you a temporary password right away. Then you can re-set it. I’ll wait until you do that to make sure the problem is solved.”

Me: “Great, thanks! Oh, now I remember, i used the e-mail address on my iPhone. But where’s my iPhone? I had it here just a minute ago.”

[Piper begins hunting around in the kitchen, muttering “it was here a minute ago.”]

Nice Phone Lady: “Um, could it be …”

Me: [Moment of self-realisation] “That I’m holding it in my hand, talking to you?”

Nice Phone Lady: [laughing] “You and I are both having the same kind of day!”

Me: [chuckling] “Seems to be. Thanks for your help; the new password has arrived on my phone.”

2

That sort of thing is why I don’t like auto pay. Because I need to login to my account monthly, I need to remember the username and password.

3

Some companies have gotten really good at walking you through missing vast areas of information to get into an account. Some are ridiculously behind the ball. (I’m talking to you Electric Co-op)

You lucked out.

4

Did you have to run around the house looking for your glasses to read the message and then realize the glasses were on top of your head?

I’ve done that.

5

Yeah, me too. Well, they turned out to be in the last place I looked for them: on the top of my head.

Piper, at least you got a Nice Phone Lady. I’ve had a few reps on the other end of the phone where I could hear their eyes rolling.

6

Couldn’t you have logged on to your bank to see thelast payment date and amount?

But since I’m coming off the same kind of day, I’m certainly not criticizing.

7

I also wanted to see if there were any warnings on my telco account in flaming red letters about imminent cut-off of all telecommunications with the world.

8

Well, that sounds like a genuinely nice Nice Phone Lady! They’re not always like that.

The only entity that is allowed to make automatic withdrawals from my account is my home and auto insurance company, which insures both. I’m notorious for forgetting to pay bills, and if my house burned down with everything in it and my insurance had lapsed, I figure this would be a Very Bad Thing!

Also, years ago – I don’t know if this is still true – when my auto insurance lapsed due to my forgetting to pay them, and I went to reinstate the policy, the insurance company developed sudden amnesia about my good-driver discount. “Do I know you?” was basically the attitude.

9

Something I learned years ago, and thankfully, I learned it before moving from one province to another: get a driver’s abstract from the DMV or whatever name it goes by in your jurisdiction. With that document to show my Alberta insurer, my good-driver discount carried from Ontario to Alberta, no problem. I’ve heard horror stories from others who have suffered “You mean I have to start all over again? I’ve driven for thirty years!” shock after moving provinces.

You’re not moving provinces, but I think the same principle would apply inside the province. You could meet, “Do I know you?” with “Yeah, you do. Take a look at this.”

10

I usually use a Bluetooth headset with my phone. Besides freeing up both hands, that means I can see the phone to enter the sekrit don’t-tell-anyone code they often send, etc.

IMO it is sort of funny that our (or at least my) “mobile devices” fit into a mental slot of “phone + do-everything-else machine”. Such that they’re almost two separate machines: one for doing [whatever] with and one for talking on. Which means the thing that you’re holding to your ear just now doesn’t register as your sekrit code receiving, email receiving, website checking, etc. machine. At least not until it beeps. :man_facepalming:

Buy yeah, I have chased around the house looking for the phone in my hand or the glasses on my head.


You do you, but anyone in this day and age who isn’t using a password manager to track all your passwords securely and portably is really making it hard on themselves and asking for problems.

My vault has about 250 passwords, 20 payment cards, and 20 other notes about things like bank account numbers, insurance numbers, passports, drivers license, etc. Expecting a mere human to remember almost 300 distinct sets of 1 to 5 facts each is nutty.

I also have about 600 active contacts and 1500 inactive ones. I don’t try to remember all those phone numbers. Do you?

IMO username + passwords are the modern equivalent of phone numbers back in the e.g. 1980s. We might be able to remember a couple we use often, but for all the rest we each kept a little notebook we wrote them down in. (Recordplate FTW!!).

Same now with PWs. The only difference is the smart way to keep a book of PWs is to use an encrypted PW vault.

11

I once panicked about where my car keys were. I was driving.

12

Yeah, I had one of those a while back. We dropped the land line without giving a thought to that being our internet connection. But, the internet service continued and we didn’t get a bill. I liked the deal but was concerned that the service could suddenly stop, so I called:

Me: I am receiving internet service and not being billed.

Nice lady: I see, what is the number.

Me: 575-xxx but it has been disconnected.

Nice lady: Oh, I see let me check it.

Nice lady: Sir, that number has been disconnected.

Me: That is what I am calling about. I receive internet service but I’m not being billed. Can you check that connection?

Nice lady: No sir, we don’t service disconnected lines.

Some months later a drunk driver took out the telephone pole and wiped out service to the block. I figured my problem would be resolved during the repair. But, no service continued as usual.

I sold the house and forgot to mention it to the new owner.

13

Yes, I use a password manager.

14

My mother didn’t run around the house looking for her glasses. She just asked me to help her find them.

I had a good friend whilst in high school. Last saw him in '84; last dialed his phone number arounf '76 or '77. Don’t remember the area code because I never used it, but I do still remember the other seven digits.

15

How come no one ever finds stuff in the next to last place they look for it??? :upside_down_face:

You only needed to remember two answers. Back in the day when we still called customer service & spoke to a rep all of the super sekrit answers to all of your security questions were either “I can’t tell you that” or “F*ck you” for a bit of Who’s on First hilarity.

I only know her phone # because of an older, & shitty* BT interface in a vehicle that would only display phone # of incoming calls, not name associated in (it’s own) contact list. If I didn’t have it flashed in front of me so many times over the years I probably wouldn’t know it by heart today.

* that car didn’t pair with your phone’s contact list. If you wanted to make a call by pressing the BT button on the wheel & say, “Call so-&-so” you had to enter their name & phone # into the car’s contact list. This had to be done verbally, after going into the contacts menu when the car was on & parked. You were giving this info to a hard-of-hearing foreigner who’s native language was not English. It could take five or six tries & five minutes to enter John Doe - 555-1212; even slowly over-enunciating numbers it frequently got them wrong on readback. Soooo frustrating!

16

I do that at least once a month. It’s even worse now that I have pushbutton start, so I don’t have the keys in my line of sight.

17

Frustrating, indeed, but it was entertaining to read. I’m glad it all worked out for you!

18

Actually it’s gotten worse since then. By an amazing coincidence just today I proved that.

I left my apartment, took the elevator down to the garage, and walked over to my car. Which did not auto-unlock as expected. Patting my pockets, my wallet w driver’s licence and credit cards and also my car keys were upstairs. Oops. The only thing I’d put into my pockets was my phone.

Conveniently, the phone can unlock and start the car. As I sit here at a breakfast joint I have clothes and a phone. Period. I hope all the errands I intend to do today take pay-by-phone. And good thing I didn’t need any of the keys on that ring for any of these errands. :zany_face:

19

Is your apartment wide open, or do you lock/unlock with your phone too? My apartment just installed all new locks that can only be opened with the app or a 7 digit code. It’s so inconvenient compared to key. Especially since beforehand it was impossible to accidently lock yourself out - you needed the key to lock the door. Now the door locks behind you, so if you forget your phone & didn’t memorize the 7 digit code (which you can’t set BTW), you’re screwed.

20

My apartment has an electronic lock activated by an RFID fob. I (illicitly but easily) cloned the fob onto a RFID ring that lives on one of my fingers 24/7.

At least we can’t lock ourselves out of our apartments. The knob never locks and the electronic fob thingy only controls the deadbolt. You step out with no fob, e.g. to take the trash to the chute down the hall, you can’t lock your door behind you. But …

What you can screw up is to summon the elevator then push the button to take it down to one of the public access floors. Works great. But from there you’re not getting back upstairs without another resident or the front desk staff to trigger the elevator to take you to your floor. Oops. Good thing we’ve got a 24/7 staffed front desk.