Sunday

Lazy Sunday on the couch.  Spin this AM was not near as exciting as last week when we had guest instructor Melissa.

To be perfectly clear, I will not be watching the Oscars tonight, nor highlights later.

Wells Fargo managed to screw the pooch (sorry, Winnie) in the Bill Pay function of my checking account last week.  I had a scheduled payment to my Chase credit card rejected and returned to my account.  In following up with Wells, they said that there had been a problem and that I needed to resubmit the payment.  Which I did.  The problem, of course, was that the payment process is a two day affair and I was down to one day.  I could see a $39 late charge in my immediate future.

So I called Chase, finally getting a human being after a several minute circle jerk on their automated system.  After some quick research, the rep said that Wells had mistakenly sent payments for three straight days to the wrong "box", whatever that means.  I lamented about my time constraints, and her first response was, "Well, it's not Chase's fault".  Then as my discontent heated up, she came up with, "You could always go in and direct Chase to pull the minimum payment out of your checking account."  Right.  And incur finance charges on the balance for most of two months?  How idiotic.  And this is who they have advising customers?  I hung up and tried to analyze my predicament.

After I had cooled down to room temperature, I looked at my options and elected to direct Chase to pull out the full statement balance to assure timely payment and avoid all of the various penalty charges.  I had already incurred enough purchases in the current billing period to consume most of the double payment.  And with little interest being earned in the checking account, the only downside was that I was giving Chase early use of my money.

I found it interesting that an electronic payment "pushed" by me through the electronic system was a two-day process, while a similar payment "pulled" by Chase was a same-day event.  Yet another way that the banks all work "the float" to their own advantage.  A few cents here, and a few cents there, and after a while, you're talking about some real money. (See also, "A billion here and a billion there, and you're talking about real money", as attributed to Senator Everett Dirkson.)

For those of you nodding off, the story is not over.

I checked my account on-line the next morning and saw the double payments (one pulled, one pushed) subtracted from my account.  I thought that the episode was over.  Wrongo, Bucko.

The next afternoon, I got a call on my cell phone from an "unidentified" number, with some gal asking for "Paul".  When anyone asks for Paul, 1) they obviously don't know me, 2) are usually trying to sell something, or 3) they have a problem with an air ticket, rental car or hotel from my past or future.  When I was a bit cool to the caller, she gave up that she was from Wells Fargo and wanted to talk about my recent problems with Bill Pay.  Before I let her say much, I told her that I had handled the problem, and that while I wasn't happy making the double payment to Chase, I had moved on to other stuff.

That was when she said, "Actually, I'm calling about the resubmitted payment, and not the one initially rejected by Chase."  That got my attention.  Turns out that when I resubmitted the payment to Chase, Wells sent it to The Gap!!  I was a bit incredulous.  I asked if I had some how messed-up on the payment process, knowing that on my Bill Pay screens, I do have The Gap listed as a payee. No, LtPC had done what was required.  Wells had in fact made a second error on the same payment.  Wow.  Makes you confident in your vendor.

As of today, The Gap payment has not been returned as promised.  Wells did make a $50 Customer Service deposit into my account on Friday.  Suffice it to say, I will be watching my Wells Fargo account a bit closer in the future.

BTW, I haven't balanced my checking account in several decades.  If you've been stealing from me, it works.

Uncle Phil reports that he is turning 2 and Carrie loose on t-shirts for the clan reunion at Tahoe.  I'm wondering if 2 can get some practice on FFF DM 2010 March Madness?

Sorry that the checking account story got long, but it was an interesting experience for me.

Hope everyone has a good week.

BCOT