Day: December 9, 2013

Thursday I closed some more accounts.

Both electronic and in the real world.

1 Bank account and my toll road account.

Getting rid of accounts as always is liberating. I got rid of the toll road transponder because it was ridiculously expensive. 

What was happening is the amount on account was being decremented by 7 dollars a month in any month in which I didn’t exceed 7 dollars in tolls. Since I was only in a position to use the dang thing once every couple of months it worked out that I was spending $15 every time I took the toll road.

The bank account was a little more interesting. This was the termination of a 20 year long relationship. About a year ago they hired a a firm, (I’m betting offshore) who “updated” their online banking site.

The “Update” made all Macintosh browsers completely unusable. At the same time the bank engaged a third party to process online bill pay. The third party then wanted every single account number, user ID and password for vendor websites. This is a concern to me for a number of reasons.

It didn’t matter though, since the bank neglected to let us know that NO payment had been made for 2 months, or could be made until I provided them all the requested information.

Uh OH!

Since everything was online through the old banking website including billing notifications… It was at this point that I discovered I had unpaid bills! OH JOY!

So the priority then was to contact every biller that I’d switched over to this bank, then switch everything back to paper statements, and of course write a bunch of checks…

Flash forward a year, and the bank still hasn’t corrected the problem. But it didn’t really matter because I’d found another bank.

It’s nice to free of yet a few more responsibilities.

Yes, Responsibilities!

With each account you have the responsibility to create a user ID, a Password, and to keep track of this information. Then there’s the endless reviewing of the terms and conditions of your being a customer.

I’ve been on a campaign to simplify my life, not make it more complex.

This is a step in the right direction.