Going Green is for the Birds

Three, count 'em, three bills went green on me when I wasn't looking. I'm sure that on two of them I "agreed" to it in the four hundred pages of small print terms when I paid a bill online. At least I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. One set me up for online billing, through Hubs, when Charming was going through his brain thing and I was busy running to doctors and the first day of school.

You know how I know they went green? The delinquency notices.

Excuse me? I pay my bills. What do you mean it went unpaid for three months?

OK, seriously. I get so many bills in this house it is easy to miss one NOT showing up. And then one day my brain thinks, "Hey, it seems like it's been a long time since I got a bill from X." I call in to check and they treat me like I should belong in jail.

The electric company used to always forget to send me a bill in June. It happened so many years in a row (with accompanying late payment charge) that I actually started catching it.

Dress Barn and Kohl's, however. Sigh.

When you have a card ONLY because they send you really great coupons if you use your card and you only use your card when you have a coupon and your bills don't come regularly and your life is in an uproar and you don't notice that you didn't get a bill and one day you get a notice of change in terms and it is oh, a 50% APR or something and you wonder what is up, check your balance and realize you are three months behind?

FRUSTRATING.

You might even go online, immediately pay the stupid bill and think you're in the clear.

NOT SO.

And two days later you get a call from said credit group.

Let's say you immediately call them back. They want your last four digits of your social. For some reason they can't access your account. They want your account number. But you haven't received a paper bill so where is that account number? Mist. That's where it is. So you go online to get the number which they don't actually show (except for the last four digits of that). While there, though, you realize that the bill you know you paid on Sunday hasn't posted as paid yet. You pay it AGAIN, check to see if it is showing paid, it isn't, and realize you probably need to talk to customer service. You dive into the bowels of your files to find the account number (because you don't even have a card with a number on it). You call them again. Get an agent. Explain the problem. Ask what is going on with the online payment. Ask if they are having trouble with your bank. Ask if you are getting online billing (since they send you 14 emails a day that immediately are dumped in the recycle bin because who has time to read all those ads in the morning). They ask for your account number (didn't you just type that in and press pound?).

"Why is your account delinquent?"

DID I NOT JUST EXPLAIN THAT IN VIVID DETAIL???

Yes, I called you to clear something up. Please, treat me like a criminal.

I know, I know. I shouldn't have the card in the first place. But the coupons are really great and I don't use the card if I don't have the money. Yes, I know I should immediately go back to customer service and write them a check right after I pay with the phantom card. I do know this so I don't want the lectures. I'm hacked off because she kept asking me when I was going to pay and why didn't I pay and I told her seventy four times that I tried to pay and DANG IT would she please check if I was getting bills online and could she PLEASE switch me to paper and she reads me my email address as if that helps. I KNOW! MAKE IT STOP.

And yes, while I was on with her I should have canceled the card, but I like the dang coupons.

But grrrr.

I suppose I should cancel. After three months of late payments, I'm sure the stupid coupons were more than canceled out. But it isn't like I have done this AT ALL in ten years.

It seems as if that ought to count for something.

Don't you think?