I’m getting better. It’s only been one month (April 22nd) since my last post (previously, it had been three). But I have an incentive for airing my thoughts at the moment. Here’s the situation:
We have a home insurance policy with Foremost Insurance. As I was paying bills the other day I saw that our Foremost payment was due the next day. Not wanting to risk having the good Foremost folks slap a late fee on us because the post office didn’t get our check to them in time I decided to take them up on their online payment service. That would have put my money in their pocket on the actual due date.
So I opened up their online site only to discover that you have to have an online account with them (no surprise, really). Since I didn’t have said account, I clicked the “Create an Account” link to set one up. It asked for my policy number (OK, entered that). I then found myself reading a message that said they had located my policy, but they couldn’t proceed with the account setup because they did not have a phone number or email address associated with my policy. There was also no way to provide that info for them, either. In order to continue with the setup process, I had to call and talk with someone.
I called and got the usual pre-recorded voice offering me options (which had recently changed – imagine that!), none of which was “speak to a representative.” Since it was voice-activated and not a numerical punch-in, I kept saying “representative.” Each time the robotic voice would say that it was an invalid response. I figured that if I kept saying it long enough, I would eventually be sent to a flesh-and-blood staff member, which is exactly what happened.
A nice lady with a pleasant voice told me her name was “Mmllbbbnnny” (why do people never pronounce their names clearly when they answer the phone?) and asked me a couple of questions in order to find my account. Once she was satisfied that she had enough information she told me that it would take a day or two to receive instructions on completing my online account setup.
“But my payment is due today,” I reminded her, working hard on my panic control. “That’s why I wanted to pay online – so it wouldn’t be late!” She assured me that Foremost has a “grace period” practice, and there should be no problem if I send it a little late.
My question is, Why do businesses make it so darned difficult to pay our bills? I’m ready, willing, and able to fork over the amount on the paper, but they put up all kinds of hurdles that make things even harder. Pardon my naïve, simplistic thinking here, but if I wanted somebody to pay me what they owe me, I would make it as easy as possible for them to do so, not create stumbling blocks to make it more difficult.
As of this writing we’re only in the beginning stages of setting up my account. I have yet to find out if it even works. I just wanted to vent and get that out of my system.
Stupid computer society.