Back in 1985, a call
came in from a friend, Amy Augustus. “Come on over, Shirley,”
she said, “and watch me pay my bills.” “You’ve got
to be nuts, Amy, “ I replied. “ I know how to pay bills and I
hate doing it.”
“Come over, anyhow,” she replied. Amy was someone you paid attention
to. So…
When I got there, I fell in immediate love with her method of paying bills. She was online with Citybank’s Direct Access, the first of the online bill paying services that are everywhere today.
I had to discard my old Kaypro computer which I’d had since 1983, and immediately went out and bought a new computer that allowed me to connect with Direct Access. Thereafter, I was supremely happy with bill paying most of the time. It was so quick, so easy.
I wrote a most complimentary article about Direct Access. I've only had one problem in ten years. That problem, it’s true, was a whopper.
On the Friday of a holiday weekend in 1986, I checked my balance on line and printed it out. Since I was not going out of town, I just happened to go online again on Saturday or Sunday. Ten thousand dollars was missing. An immediate call to the Direct Access people produced the money pretty quickly.
Then in 1996, I left Citibank after a large dispute about a large sum of money. I don’t attribute this to Direct Access, but either to their accounting or mine. But they didn’t treat me very well, and I decided that life was too short to put up with rudeness.
I transferred over to Chase which had a branch near me. And I began to use their online program to pay my bills. This took some time, since entering the payees involved addresses and phone numbers, etc. Also the Chase program took more time to get into and was more complicated than Direct Access. But the people in the Chase branch were very nice, and the online staff was invariably decent and helpful. In fact, one of their executives called me in advance to let me know that the system was moving onto the Internet – a move I didn’t like, but seemed to be the trend in online banking. They also moved their online staff down to Texas – also a move I didn’t like. But …..
Still everything was reasonably tolerable until one Sunday night in 1999. I made the mistake of calling to find out how to do something. The best technical people generally don’t work on Sunday night. I got a techie named Said, who promptly and completely brought disaster to me. One of the great things about online banking is that you immediately have a record of past payments, a history. Said wiped out the history of all my payees. This would not have been so bad, but there were two payees whose past history I desperately needed. They were the company I had been paying my maintenance to without realizing that they had left the business many months before and the other company that had taken over.
Some of the ensuing problem was my own responsibility. I had been sending checks to the first company, not noticing that the checks had been returned to the bank. (Chase Online should have a bright flashing light when money is returned to the bank..) When I finally discovered this, eight months had passed, and I was left without any record! Chase had a paper record, which a supervisor gave to Said to get together. Disaster again. It was very mixed up and furthermore, I needed a disk that my computer tech, Ed Greene, could work with to enter into my computer. This took a couple more trials, and a disk that contained everything since the year ONE came in which took a lot of time for Ed to abstract the records of the two payees.
Finally, I caught up, but this whole episode left a huge late fee charge, which, so far, has not been excused. The bill I sent Chase for the time of my computer tech fellow, and my own time, went unpaid.
Despite this disaster, and a few other minor glitches, and the fact that no one is paying for my time and trouble, I remained and still remain a devotee of online banking. The people at Chase, even in the various 8 or 10 branches I have been in are unfailingly nice and helpful. And that goes a long, long way. Even now, when Chase and I do not agree on my balance, since they have a confusing method of crediting deposits, I think I’ll stay with their online banking. A few days ago, I thought of returning to the old method of paying bills with paper checks. Then I shuddered. The very thought of this method is anathema to me.
So I realized that I will continue to fight the battles of what I consider mixups caused by Chase Online, and take some responsibility for not justifying my balances on my paper statements. And hopefully, do this every month from now on. And, also hopefully, Chase Online will improve their system to take care of my complaints. I’m sure others have similar complaints. In fact, my new motto is “If it’s happening to me, it’s happening to you … or you… or you.”