This one is mind boggling. I have to pay my monthly health insurance premiums on the BCBS website and I can only do it during business hours. I’ve never seen this with any other commerce website I’ve used.
When I tried to log in tonight (Sunday night) I’m presented with this:
Sorry, Blue Access for Employers is not available right now…
Blue Access for Employers is not available at this time. Please check our Hours of Availability and return soon.
Hours of Availability
Monday - Friday 6:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. (CT)
Saturday 6.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. (CT)
Sundays & Holidays Closed
Why would this website only be available during business hours for accepting payments? I’m assuming there is some manual, human intervention that must take place for each user’s transaction. If so this is really ridiculous because their website should be able to take payments 24/7 and even on holidays.
In what universe is 6:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. “business hours”? I agree that your better-designed and -hosted websites require less maintenance than this, but they’re only down for 6-1/2 hours a day.
Some web sites owned by Orthodox Jews don’t accept orders during the Sabbath. B&H Photo is the most well known, with no orders processed between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday or during any of the High Holidays.
I suspect the Blue Cross situation is due to insurance regulations.
10 bucks says they have the website payments directly integrated with the mainframe, and the hours that you can’t do it are hours when the mainframe is running overnight batch jobs, or is potentially available for maintenance. Edit to add, which is to say, probably running at least some portion of the payment process via Cobol on IBM big iron.
Bolding mine. Are you accessing the right website? From the message in the OP, it would appear you are trying to log into a website set up for Employers, not individuals.
Why they would have special hours for Employers? I could speculate it is due to regulations, or that transferring a large sum of money electronically would need to be done when there are people there in case there is a glitch (presuming large sums would be paid by employer groups).
Yes I was trying to access the Employers section to pay my group health insurance plan. Kind of pain when trying to access their website at all different hours. I envision a sign taped next to their office exit that says “please remember to turn off the web server on your way out”.
