War is heck

War is Hell! The constant battles, the dreams lost, the heartache, the lousy toilets. It’s all so terrible. Also, there’s just no end to it. The conflict seems to rage forever. Even if you’re victorious, the scars will be with you for a lifetime. At times, you lose focus, and no longer know whose right or wrong, but the fight goes on. It might be better if we were actually fighting people, but no!

Ohh wait! Did you think I was talking about the various battlegrounds around the world? I’m sorry. I was referring to the never-ending struggle I have with electronics. We’re supposed to embrace technology. Sadly, the only thing I’m embracing is the baseball-bat I’m going to use when I beat the schnarts out of some computer. Take this recent debacle for instance.

Computers are worse

My son has a student loan, that’s not due until he graduates. The Cardinal Commerce Fiduciary Savings and Toilet Paper Bank of America LLC. told us we could save three percentage points of interest if we paid twenty-five bucks a month until the loan comes due. Great idea, right? Nope! You see, they changed the payment address last month, but their computer neglected to tell me until after we sent in our payment.

How could this be? Computers don’t make mistakes? Well, this one did. It informed us on the fifteenth. We paid on the thirteenth. This shouldn’t have been a problem. It’s the same company. Right? Nope. They changed their address, and the computer refused to accept payment. Consequently, it called and informed me my payment was late. I pressed the button to speak to someone. After verifying my identity three times I managed to speak to someone.

Why do they do that? They called me, on the number they had, and I knew my account number. Sadly, they refused to believe I was Mr. Ohh!. I should have passed the call to my dog. Maybe they’d let him vouch for me. Either way, the computer system was finally satisfied when I gave them my blood type, mother’s maiden name, dating history, and a brief synopsis of the last seven Bugs Bunny cartoons I watched. I then spoke to a customer service rep, who had to verify my identity.

Can we fix it?

After a few minutes, the lady explained to me what happened, and it was easy to fix. She told me there was a form she needed to fill out to get the money put in the right place. I made sure everything was taken care of, and hung up. End of story. Well Maybe not.

The next day I got another call from their computer, which I ignored because things were taken care of. I got one the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that. I thought maybe I made a mistake. It would be my first one, but all things are possible. I called their customer service number, and after pressing several buttons, verifying my identity several times, listening to fifteen minutes of hold-music, and a brief stint with contemplating homicide, I actually got a person. It was the wrong person, but a person non-the-less. She cheerfully informed me that I’d have to call back. Yes, homicide may be the answer.

No we can’t

I did not call back. I waited until the next day when they invariably called me. After going through it all again, I’ll spare you the details, I spoke to a nice young man. In short order he told me I had no reason to speak to him. The form was filled out and all the details were correct. I stupidly asked; If this is so, why is your computer calling me every day? He said, my account was still overdue. It would remain so, until their old address transferred the cash over to the new address. What??

First of all, we’re talking about twenty-five bucks, not the national debt. Secondly, it’s all internal. What do they have to do? Walk it across the hall? That must be one heck of a hall if it took four days so far to get it there. Third, I can’t be the only one this happened to. They created a form to take care of it. Follow your own rules folks!

The worst part of this is while I was waiting, I was on my phone Googling ways to get away with murder. When the guy came on, I was so surprised, I dropped my phone into a bowl of soup, which overturned an sent all of it crashing to the floor. Now, that twenty-five-dollar call was going to cost a couple of hundred bucks to buy a new phone.

A phoney purchase

Since my old phone was truly a piece of crap, I grumbled and went to get a new one. When I got home, I tried to log into my various apps. It wouldn’t let me. Google and other services informed me that this wasn’t my phone. If I wanted to continue to use this device, they would have to send a security code to my old device, confirming it was me. Knowing my password and phone number weren’t good enough.

This was Google folks, not my bank with all my financial data. My bank was fine confirming me. But the great and powerful Google wouldn’t let me see email, or search recipes without seventeen levels of security. Perhaps I’ve been red-flagged because of all my searches on how to destroy electronic systems. Who knows?

The problem was, my old phone was broken. I couldn’t get any information from it. That’s why I bought the new phone. DUH!! I went to the place I purchased it to ask them how to proceed. I would’ve called but I just didn’t have that kind of time. They were able to hook my phone up to a computer and retrieve the required data. Yea! Or not!

Getting connected is not better

Google is connected to my WordPress account. As my last four-hundred posts linked to my new phone, those two giants decided that I was plagiarizing my old account by enabling the account on an unknown device. They slapped me down harder than the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.

Now I’m familiar with a lot of things, and there are some things I’m not completely sure about. But, I’m absolutely positive that no one can plagiarize themselves. Even when that someone is as brilliant and quotable as Mr. Ohh!. Also, in this day and age when you can legally buy a complete school paper off the internet, why is it so hard to log into my own accounts? I just don’t get it.

Another side effect to all this is that my Google account is shared by my laptop and my wife’s computer. The day after all these problems, I found that I was shut out of my other devices. They all had to verify my identity all over again. They wanted to ask me an assortment of security questions. I set this system up years ago. I don’t remember the answers to all those questions from so long ago.

I’m going back to paper and pencil. Unlike computers, they make my life easier.

Anyone Agree??