Would you like to feel better?

And note I'm supposedly an accountant with many years experience and a lot
of time on computers. Other people think I'm good at what I do and pay for
my advice. (Right)

Two years ago while paying my bill online for use of tax software, a bill in
excess of $500.00, I managed to leave out the decimal point.

I still thank God and his angels that at least I made the payment to a
company that has real people in the receivable department and it only took
me two weeks to get my money back. Also pretty happy that Charlie never
opens the mail and that our credit is in good enough shape I was able to
keep everyone else paid and happy for those two weeks.

Jo


"Magic Mood Jeep)" wrote in message
...
Ok, This is a weird thing I did, but really STUPID!

I am in charge of all our bill-paying: mortgage, car loan, utilities,
credit cards, etc., etc....

Our bank of choice is Chase (actually, JP Morgan/Chase - our bank, Bank
One, was acquired by them, and they seem to be OK), and we do the online
bill-pay thing (saves us bookoo in stamps, plus, a *lot* of it is
electronic transfer, which only takes a day or two, so the money gets to
the creditors quicker than by mailing a check).

Our phone (landline) is AT&T, used to be SBC (which, about 10 years ago,
was AT&T, and why they've changed back & forth is one of those mystery
things that could only be explained by a corporate attorney, and us
lay-people *still* wouldn't understand it), and one of our credit cards is
managed by Citi Corp, but is 'sponsored' by AT&T, and the 'pay to' name is
"AT&T Universal Card".

When paying the bills online, they are listed alphabetically.

DH is a salaried employee, and they are paid monthly - on the *last
Wednesday* of the month (another one of those mysteries....)

Friday, I get a call from Citi, and they were like , "umm, we didn't get a
payment from you....", and I was "I *KNOW* I sent it"... I look in Quicken
(we don't even use a paper register anymore, the only checks we actually
write ourselves are for the auto insurance), and there it is, plain as
day..... While I have the Citi guy on the phone, I check the online
banking.... whoops! It says "AT&T" instead of "AT&T Universal Card".....
Seems that last month, while paying the bills, I sent the "AT&T Universal
Card" payment ($400) to "AT&T" the phone company, by simply clicking the
*wrong* box! This Citi guy is very nice and understanding (nothing like
the AmEx guy that someone wrote about here recently), but wants me to make
a payment over the phone. Not gonna happen. He wants to give me a phone #
to call back on - I don't even want it (how am I to know I'm not calling
some guy in a garage up the road?). I explain that I *will* make a
payment, but over *not* over the phone, it will be via my bank's online
services. It will *not* be the $400 that we sent to the wrong company, at
least not until we get it *back* from the wrong company (which they say
will take *three weeks*!!!). I did go online after discussing it with DH
and sent a payment of the minimum due, and that leaves us with a bunch of
money less than we thought we were gonna have to play with this month!

So now we will probably have a "mark" on our credit report because the
payment that I sent on Friday was about a week-and-a-half late, and all
our interest rates will more than likely go up....

But, I have found out that I can assign nicknames to the online bill
payment names, without having to change the "pay to" names - so "AT&T" the
phone company is now labeled "PHONE" so I *will not* do this again!!!

--

The ONE and ONLY
lefthanded-pathetic-paranoid-psychotic-sarcastic-wiseass-ditzy
former-blonde in Bloomington! (And proud of it, too))
email me at nalee1964 (at) insightbb (dot) com
http://community.webshots.com/user/mgcmdjeep