Editor, The Auburn Plainsman
I hate paying bills. We all hate paying bills.
Bill time is that time of the month when we see the bottom fall out of our checking accounts and our credit balances jump through the roof.
For the past two months, I've been pulling my hair out because paying the Alabama Power Company is like giving yourself a root canal, except you decided to use Tabasco in place of Novocaine.
Paying APC should be as easy as calling them up, giving them my info and being off on my merry way.
Or maybe I could set up an auto-draft so I don't have to deal with "pressing 1 for English" and that stupid recorded voice.
That's what it's like with every other company in the nation.
APC's payment setup has me absolutely dumbfounded, and here's why.
I got a bill from APC a couple of weeks ago that told me the date of my auto-draft and how much I would be charged on that date.
The date came and went, and I thought all was well, until I got letter saying they were going to shut off my power.
Totally baffled, I called up APC to inquire.
I went through their automated system to set up a "Payment Arrangement," which shouldn't be confused with an actual payment.
I still don't know what kind of "arrangement" I made, but the bill still wasn't paid.
I called them up again and hit zero about six or seven times before I finally got an operator.
I asked him why my auto-draft had not gone through.
Apparently I had to set it up again because of a change in address.
Fine.
I'll do that.
I asked the man if I could pay, and he told me to call Bill Matrix because APC is not equipped to take card payments.
Not equipped? What? You don't have a phone line and a credit card machine?
My cat could operate one of those things.
Why can't APC?
Anyway, APC has contracted an entirely different company, Bill Matrix, to handle their credit/debit billing.
When I say, "entirely different company," I mean exactly that. The two don't communicate.
Here's an example: I called Bill Matrix to pay my bill.
I put my account info in, but it came back saying I had zero balance.
I called APC to ask why they wanted to shut off my power if I didn't owe them money.
Apparently my account number was different from the one on my bill. Totally makes sense...
So I called Bill Matrix to give them my new account number.
They asked me how much I wanted to pay.
Apparently they have no way of actually looking at my bill, and I didn't have it with me at the time, so I had to call APC again to get my balance.
Then call Bill Matrix again to finally get everything solved.
Did I mention there's a fee for using Bill Matrix?
I simply don't understand why I have to wait through hours of redundant, automated systems just to pay my power bill.
Why can't I just talk to a human the first time? Why does it take a machine to answer a phone and take my 16 digits?
Why can't two companies communicate when each relies on the other so heavily?
This is the 21st century, y'all. It shouldn't take a philosophy degree and the patience of a pre-K teacher to pay my bill.
APC, you make millions yet refuse to adapt to a system that is actually easy to use.
Automated systems are NOT EASY TO USE.
When will companies understand that I'd much rather sit on hold to talk to a person and work through their terribly irrelevant phone script than get passed from computer to computer?
In my opinion, customer service will be the downfall of this nation. Now I'm ranting...
Long story short--no, my call is not important to you, and I'm sincerely considering making a jump back to the Stone Age.
Thanks for nothing.
See you assholes next month.
Philip Smith
2010 Auburn Grad
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