Zeno's Paradox: Bank and Other Shenanigans

Zeno's Paradox

March 10, 2004 - Bank and Other Shenanigans

I got up this morning, and started my morning routine of firing up Quicken to download my new transactions and to see how my investments did the day prior. After the "Online Center" is complete, I look to notice that the payment schedule that I'd meticulously built for my Bank One account was fubared. Apparently they have changed their online bill pay process overnight. Instead of saying I want to pay $X to Y on date Z, they changed it to extract $X from my account on date Z - Q to pay Y on Z. Since Q is a variable number of days depending upon the payee (and thus is unknown), I no longer have any way to reliably pay all my monthly bills on one day. I suspect that the change to debit the account before the charge actually clears is another way to catch unsuspecting customers in a trap where their balance will go red for a day before the paycheck is deposited and the bank can collect overdraft fees. I don't like it, but unfortunately this behavior does not surprise me anymore.

Earlier this week, I had to call MBNA for posting a charge on my account because I didn't make a payment in February. Except that I did. I posted an online bill payment for the first days of the February billing cycle. MBNA took the payment and credited it to my account the day before the Feb. cycle began. Thus I received a charge for no payment during that period. Pissed, I called the company and demanded that they waive that fee. The poor person on the other end of the phone complied, but will this "non-payment" go down on my credit report? Who the hell knows?

About two weeks ago, I go to Best Buy to upgrade my Quicken and purchase TurboTax. They have some deal where Quicken is $20 off if you purchase TurboTax. Since I was planning on purchasing both anyways, I thought that I'd get the deal. However, the deal is not $20 off the product. Rather, Best Buy gave me a $20 gift certificate for more Best Buy crap. The idea was to bring customers back into the store. So rather than go home and let the certificate sit (and probably expire), I went back in and picked up a few CD's. I did end up spending five more dollars on top of the certificate, but I just wanted the entire incident finished and done with.

Rebates... That's another rant for another day. I think business managers and owners should be shot for the rebate scam. Ditto on cellular phone bills. (I'll probably cancel my cell phone service when my contract expires in May.)

In any case, the stuff described above is just a crass attempt to confuse the consumer and bilk them out additional fees and purchases. These businesses obviously have no respect for the people that support them and this really pisses me off. Given the recent Best Buy experience, I doubt that I'll be shopping there any time soon. As for MBNA, paying off their cards is my top priority at the moment, and I'll be in a position to sever my relationship with them next month. (They'll probably start sending me "preapproved credit card" mailings three times a week like Chase Manhattan.) As for Bank One, I'm starting to think that I may take my banking elsewhere. Life's too short to be dealing with this bullshit.

Posted by br284 at 07:39 AM

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i've never gotten the bank one online crap to work for me. life seems to be much simpler if i pick one day of the month to write actual physical checks to pay my bills :-) and you know my feelings on cell phones!

Posted by lgs on March 12, 2004 03:55 PM