I love online bill-pay. I don't have to buy stamps, I get instant results, I can track things quickly... it's great.
Except for tonight. I went online to pay a phone bill. It's 10:15pm, and I should be in bed, but Elli was still awake and very loudly complaining that she didn't want to go to bed yet (still... at 10:15pm!), so there was no point in me going to bed.
So I logged onto our phone company's website. We have both our home and our wireless account through them.
Unfortunately, I could only find the account information for our home phone! I tried every which way I could think of, including clicking links from within e-bills they had sent me for that wireless account and typing in account numbers from actual paper bills (I can't believe I even found the paper ones since I try to go paperless whenever possible), but they kept taking me back to the home phone bill ... which is not even due.
I gave up and decided to try calling them.
I got the lovely digital lady asking me to state my phone number, social security number, height, weight, dog's name, and favorite toothpaste, then they finally started listing options.
"For billing and account balances, say 'Billing.'"
"Billing."
"I'm sorry. I did not understand. For billing and account balances, say 'Billing.'"
"BILLING."
"I did not understand. Would you like to try again? Please press 1 to try again."
"I don't get another option?"
"I did not understand. Would you like to try again? Please press 1 to try again."
-silence-
"I did not understand. Would you like to try again? Please press 1 to try again."
"PAY. MY. BILL."
"I did not understand. Would you like to try again? Please press 1 to try again."
-beep- (as I press "star" to try to get out of this infinitude of hopelessness)
"If you need assistance, please hang up and try again between the hours of 7am and 7:30pm Monday through Friday. Thank you. Good bye."
Oh. My. Goodness. The phone company hung up on me.
At least Elli is asleep now.
