Monday, March 12, 2007

Dumb-Uv-the-Day: Waste Management

Ah, Waste Management. I'd like to think of it as my only legitimate tie to organized crime. I wonder if they'll sue me for that. Anyhow, here's one for you. I signed up for their EZ-Pay (a misnomer!). First off, while you're signing up for automatic bill pay, you still have to then initiate the first transaction manually on their site for reasons I don't get. During the sign-up process, there's a field called "Maximum Charge" -- that is, the most you will allow them to charge your card.

Now I don't know if there are some businesses with more lenient terms and bills that fluxuate more, but I get a pretty standard bill every three months and I have the oh-so-gracious net-10 billing cycle. So there's no reason for me to put in a maximum charge because the box was too small to type "The amount on my bill." So I left it blank. Everything went through fine, no error messages, no indication that I hadn't filled out something that I should have.

It occured to me the other day, looking at Money that it had been awhile since I had gotten charged for garbage service, like four months. So I went online and looked at my bill. It had been due just about a month earlier. I e-mailed them asking what the deal was. A day or two later I got a "delinquent notice" in the mail. So I called this morning and found out that because I hadn't put anything in the maximum field, they hadn't charged my card.

And still no response to the e-mail I submitted last week.

Argh. Boneheads.

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