We have paid with AutoPay from one checking account for several years without problem. Then we switched it to another checking account. When I told it to pay the bill, it reported bill paid. But there was some problem with the numbers so it did not come out the new checking account. Tried again: sam result. So, the nasty letter arrives, we pay the balance by credit card. Next bill arrives; we send a check, which they refuse because of "previous payments returned by your institution." We are not allowed to write checks to them until at least May. And even though they did not even try to cash the check, they charged us $40 for a returned check.
There is no way ton talk to a human there. I am waiting for online chat. If there were any other wireless provider in Horseshoe Bend, we would switch.
You should be able to get that dealt with at a store, though (I'd go to a corporate-owned one, not an authorized retailer.)
ReplyDeleteThat sort of experience has changed this conservative's mind about corporate regulation. I think that companies can and do get too big to be allowed. It doesn't matter whether it's the two banks that control virtually all of the affiliate credit cards (think COSTCO and airline miles cards), or the few companies that control the phone market, or the Silicon Valley giants.
ReplyDeleteAnd, these same companies are not responsible to their stockholders, as you can tell from the stratospheric executive pay scales - which themselves create a new class of rich overlords - ones which are also thoroughly "woke" about anything other than regulation that might cut into their lifestyle.
Enough is enough. Break them up. Start with the banks by going back to the era without interstate banking, and without banks also being allowed to sell investment products.
Then go after the big vertical monsters - such as Verizon.
Take Facebook and split it into about 20 companies, along vertical lines, not the horizontal lines that seem to be the target. Make there be 20 Facebooks, and require any that reach a certain size to open up interfaces so any other Facebook can interact with them - thereby preventing the "network effect" that creates the tech monopolies.
Oh, and do cut it along horizontal lines too - when small companies can only get funding if they are created in order to be acquired by the biggies, or they will be crushed by the biggies, the market has faildd!