Debt brought on by large, unexpected expenses caused me to lose access to my credit card. I’d put a close friend’s storage unit in my name and on my credit card while they relocated and job-hunted. So my payments on my friend’s behalf were no longer going through, and the storage company began texting me about the missed payments.
Sounds straightforward, ordinary, and boring. Turned out not to be.
Meanwhile, my friend—after moving house twice—has landed a terrific job, and is beginning to dig themselves out of their debt. But they can’t pay the full amount of their storage fee yet. Or transfer the unit from my name to theirs.
They tried to make a partial payment by telephone, but the company’s “partial payment” line didn’t work.
It didn’t work in a highly specific way.
Specifically, it let them waste ten minutes entering data by hitting their phone’s keypad and typing “1” after each step to confirm that it had been completed correctly. Finally it asked them to confirm the entire order and type “1” to pay and finish. As soon as they did so, the bot told them that the payment had not gone through … asked them to “wait to speak to a manager” … and immediately disconnected them.
Each time they tried, they got to that stage and were immediately disconnected. With all the goodwill in the world, my friend could not pay their bill. So it was up to me.
“Nothing works” is working as expected.
I had enough cash in the bank to make a full payment on my friend’s behalf; and since the unit was in my name anyway, I followed the company’s text message instructions—sent to me personally—to pay the full bill online on their behalf and set up automated payments for future bills. My friend would pay me back when they could. Eventually we’d transfer ownership. All would be well. Such was my naive hope.
The website let me enter my data step by step, including “new card” data. I removed the defunct credit card info and replaced it with my debit card data. Unlike a credit card, my debit card never lets me spend more money than I have in the bank. That is a good thing when you’re in debt. And even when you’re not. My debit card is with one of the largest banks in the world. If I said the bank’s name, you’d know it. Cole Porter mentioned it in his lyrics. I’ve had the account for over 30 years. In short, it’s a stable account with a long history.
The website allowed me to enter my data, a process that took about five minutes.
When I hit “Send,” the website announced that the payment had failed to go through because the bill was past due.
The system is designed to block payments after first encouraging you to try sending them. There I am, working to send them my money. And the system refuses. Not to put too fine a point on it, consider the facts: their system was designed specifically to let customers make payments. It already knew who I was. It told me my name, my storage unit number, and the amount due. The notes I’d scribbled prior to using the website were unnecessary. The site knew me. It knew what I owed. It was theoretically optimized to take money sans friction. And it failed every time I tried to pay.
Two design choices are worth noting.
- The system only accepts timely payments, not late ones. But…
- The system deliberately doesn’t tell you that it won’t accept your payment. It encourages you to waste time trying. That’s key.
Is the software poorly designed? Was the company’s QA process less than perfect? Did some sadist deliberately set up the system to punish folks who are struggling?
The answer, of course, is yes. To all three questions.
I tried.
I tried three times, even switching options. Like, the first time, I asked the company NOT to use my debit card number to automatically pay my friend’s bills in the future. The next time, I said, OKAY, go ahead and charge me automatically. No matter which options I chose, the result was always: “The payment did not go through because the amount is past due.”
Who chose those defaults? Elon Musk?
Since the payment website did not accept payments, I called the special “call this number to pay” line the company’s text messages had shared with me. Again, this was a special phone number with a specially built system set up explicitly so existing cutomers could pay their bills by phone.
The number was smart. It had been waiting for my call. It recognized my phone number and told me my storage unit’s account number. It remembered my old credit card number—the one it knows doesn’t work. It asked me if I wanted to pay with the card that doesn’t work. It allowed me to say “No.” It enabled me to enter the account number and other data for my “new” debit card. It encouraged me to type “1” each time I completed a step. It asked me to confirm that everything I’d entered was correct. I did. It asked me to hit “1” one final time to finish making the payment. I did that.
The automated phone voice then informed me that the payment had not gone through, instructed me to “hold the line to speak to a manager,” and immediately disconnected me. Same as what had happened to my friend when they tried to pay.
I tried three times. Each time, the same.
Enter a ton of data by phone. Say yes over and over. Hit the phone equivalent of Send. Get the same error message, followed immediately by disconnection. (Why did I try three times? Why not two? Why not eleven? That’s a QA subject for another day.)
When one door closes, so does another.
Clearly the payment line—like the website—was not working. So I looked up the company’s website to find their main number. Not the smart automated number that knew who I was and what I owed. A dumb number, but presumably with a human being at the other end.
I figured I’d call the main number and explain that I’m trying to pay a bill, have my account number and unit number ready to recite, and all set to approve the dollar amount. If the human being on the other end told me to use the “bill payment number,” I’d explain that the bill payment number wasn’t working at the moment, and ask them to please please pretty please with sugar on top ever so kindly allow me to send them my payment.
So I called and got a busy signal.
Hung up.
Waited ten minutes, called again.
Busy signal.
I’d now wasted at least 30 minutes and it was a work day, so I turned my attention back to my job, and away from nut-grindingly pointless exercises in futility.
After roughly an hour, I tried phoning the company’s main number once again. Busy signal.
Busy, busy, busy. The call never went through. Nobody ever answered.
Here’s what I think: I think if you’re late, this company’s systems stop working. Not because they don’t want your money—they do. But because they want you to suffer for being late. Before they’ll take your money, they want you to crawl. At one time, there was probably a Japanese newsgroup dedicated to this kind of kink. And the beauty part, for the perverted, is that the pain is pointless and nonconsensual. Just like our country’s new government.
The company wants you to try paying them via the payment website till your eyes cross. They want you to dial the “payment” phone number and jump through your own anus until you tire of being disconnected after approving the payment. They want you to weep endless, useless tears. To curse. To try dialing the main number a thousand skrillion times before you get through to a human being. They want you to break down altogether when you finally hear a human voice. Like you’ve been rescued from a desert island and had forgotten the glorious sound of ordinary human speech.
There’s probably a German word for the relief you feel after banging your head against the obtuseness of American business systems until you are finally, after great sorrow, permitted to pay your bill and get back to your life. It’s like the relief you feel when the cable internet finally comes back on after an unexplained blackout. Or when the New York landlord finally fixes the water heater so you can stop washing your private parts in ice water. Or when your trainer finally says, “Good job, let’s go stretch.”
The underlying belief is clear: making a payment should not be routine. It should be a privilege, forged in fire and earned in blood.
Mind you: I don’t know that there actually will be a human being at the end of the phone line if I spend all day Saturday trying to reach one, but, at the moment, that’s my plan. Try and try and try and try and try again and keep trying world without end ad infinitum until at some blessed hour, some stranger finally agrees to take my money.
And here’s the point of all this:
I encounter broken systems like this almost every week.
As a UX person, it makes me nuts. Also as a human being. It’s not right. It’s not fair. And we all put up with it.
Even if you’re lucky enough to have a good job, and even if you live in a progressive city like New York, our increasingly automated business systems are not our friend. In short:
They want to take your job and replace you with a machine that doesn’t work.
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