I’ve been reading about USPS and always felt it was a little unfair. But when it comes home, like lately, I find myself feeling jaundiced about agency.
Apparently, someone had the opportunity to steal it on the way to the post office, tamper with it, and turn it into cash. Thankfully, our bank was very responsive and refunded us the money. The bank insisted we get a new checking account. That’s where the fun begins.
There are 11 separate debits or deposits made through your checking account at different times of the month. Since we are retired, we put our Social Security and retirement savings there. Medicare will cover your premiums and you may receive other insurance deductions.
Let’s face it, checking accounts are very important to our lives. So how difficult is it to call these huge organizations and ask them to change important bank accounts? A lot. First, you have to put up with all the voice menus and secondary voice menus that try to tell people using voice menus that they can fix their problem faster by going to a website and requesting service. You may be asked for identification via a voice menu, so you will need to enter your name, address, date of birth, last four letters of your SSN, contract number, and policy number. These can usually be entered, but then your cell phone receives a spam call that completely interrupts your data entry and drops the call.
Where are our grandchildren when we need them? But we try hard to be close to people. Then, “Estimated wait time is 19 minutes.” We will arrange for a customer service representative. Some people are very smart and have dealt with disgruntled baby boomers with these kinds of issues. But when new employees or people in training arrive, you may wonder who is helping whom.
Invariably, they say they’re happy to help you with your website because they can’t help you over the phone. I thought I was avoiding websites by talking to humans. But a good agent will walk you through the steps once you’re ready to make the changes yourself. Unless your account is frozen. frozen? Why is it frozen?
“Well, obviously I haven’t used it in about a month.” Why sign up for Medicare Part D once a year, so why sign up every month? You will need to go to another agent (Level II in technical terms) who can help you. However, in some cases you may have to physically fill out a form and mail it (this is where the problem started) or send it by fax.
So, once the form arrives via email, you can fill it out and return it by fax. (Thankfully we still have a landline and we pay $15 a month from Comcast to fax him 3 times a year). Then the good news is that the form he will apply will be processed within 5-10 business days. Does it really take 5-10 days for the computer to process?
The lessons I learned from this made me nervous about writing a check ever again. If he doesn’t trust USPS, he has to drive to USPS and physically hand over the check.
Our bank states that they do not recommend the use of isolated blue USPS mailboxes. This assumes that the criminal is attacking separate persistent mailboxes. What if I work from home? So what? We use credit cards whenever possible. However, some organizations may not accept credit cards or may require you to pay a transaction fee (2% or 3%). People are starting to carry more cash and debit cards.
I’ve heard so many disappointing stories about debit cards that I don’t want to take that adventure. So I think there’s only a huge chance that AI will completely take over my financial world, whether I want it to or not.
Michael DeGuire is a former systems manager in Tallahassee who started his career with 80-column punch cards instead of cell phones.
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