Never before have I seen a past due reminder with a Bank of America eBill, for a payment that was already made on time. If I ever did, in fact, miss a payment and needed a reminder, it was so long ago I don’t remember.
Eversource, my electric company, has confirmed that payment was processed on August 1. That was the extent of what they could tell me. So, I know my credit report won’t be dinged. The question is, why did BoA consider the bill as being unpaid? I have a suspect in mind.
My town has entered into an opt-out business arrangement with some other energy outfit. The idea seems to be that more of my electricity will come from solar power, and for a reduced rate that will be fixed for two years.
When I was notified of this program, I doubted the assurances that I could continue paying my Eversource bill as usual, and it would be completely transparent. My doubt seemed to be confirmed with the above notice.
When I called the new energy company, they reminded me that the program won’t take effect until September, to which I said yeah, but obviously the computer systems need to be talking and tested beforehand. The energy outfit suggested I speak with the bank, which I did.
Through several painfully long waits, I spoke with several different agents. Excuse me, they’re called representatives. Oops, my mistake. They’re associates. The second is supposedly a billing specialist, and the third an e-bill expert. The exchanges with all three associates can be summarized this way:
Me: “Why did I receive notice of an overdue payment that was not overdue? It has never happened before.”
BoA: “When that message appears, you have to clear it manually.”
Me: “Yes, and I have done that. So why did I receive the message? I’ve never seen it before.”
BoA: “Whenever you schedule a payment manually in e-billing you have to mark it as paid.”
Me: “Sorry, but I must disagree. I have never had a completed payment fail to be registered. It didn’t happen with my last American Express payment. So, again, my question is, how does Bank of America know that a payment has been accepted by a payee?”
BoA: “You must mark the bill as paid.”
Me: “Yes, as I said, I’ve done that, but either something went wrong or something changed.”
The thing that changed was, of course, the insertion of the energy company between myself and the actual utility that delivers the power and collects payment. I explained that to the bank, but they were hung up on trying to convince me of the way the system works, which doesn’t agree with my many years of experience using it.
Bank of America bought Fleet, after Fleet bought BankBoston, after the Bank of Boston merged with Baybank (with Massachusetts being the Bay State). Way back when I was a Baybank customer, I accepted an invitation to participate in an online banking pilot program.
I received a floppy disk in the mail. (Perhaps there were multiple disks, but I only recall there being one.) Compatibility was with Windows 3.1/3.11. It was that long ago. The program was nothing more than a graphical representation of a Baybank ATM screen and keyboard.
I dialed into the bank’s system with my 14.4 kbps modem* and entered my checking and savings account information. Seeing the account balances and transferring money between them was the limit of what the program could do, but it worked, and I really appreciated being able to check balances against Quicken for DOS.
So, when a customer associate tries to tell me their system doesn’t work the way my experience tells me it does, I’m not inclined to be very receptive. Something has changed, or there was a problem at BoA that was too coincidental for me to ignore.
My utility payment for this month has already been scheduled. If once again it is flagged as overdue, I’ll give up what had been the convenience of paying through Bank of America, and go directly to the utility. Or, perhaps, opt-out of the town’s new energy program.
It’s all so flickin’ annoying. But I’m retired and have plenty of time to be an aggravating customer, and aggravate myself in the process.
* Speaking of modems: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aol-dial-up-service-ending-youve-got-mail-september-30/