26 minutes

That's how long it takes to get something resolved with AT&T.  I signed up for autopay for my cell phone bill.  With so many bills to take care of, I've found that autobill is my best friend.  It can also be your worst enemy.  For constant bills like mortgages and condo association fees that don't change, it's great.  But for other bills, not so much.  Because by looking at the amount billed doesn't tell you much.  It just so happened that the hubster and I were going to AT&T to combine our phone lines into one family line hoping it would save us some money since I get a discount through work.  To determine how much the hubster was going to pay me, we looked through our past month's bills.  I noticed that I had an unusual amount due this month and a portion of the payment was past due!  There was also a late fee.  What?

How can an autopayment not be paid?  I first thought was maybe my card had expired.  I went online and checked, nope.  So I call up the customer service line and am met with an outsourced customer service representative.  I relay my issue to him and am put on hold.  He checks in on me a few times and finally comes back to tell me that I had insufficient funds and that's why the payment never happened.  I not so calmly told him that the credit card I use has a $20K+ credit limit and that I go nowhere near that on a monthly basis, and that insufficient funds was definitely not the problem. The hubster got a good chuckle from that.

He puts me on hold yet again, and comes back to tell me that I should check with my financial institution. There was no offer to to take the late fee off as the problem was not even my fault..  My 12 other autopayments managed to go through just fine.  I finally got fed up and asked to talk to a supervisor.  I get put on hold and get checked in on like 5 times.  Is this new SOP for call centers?  I'd rather not have them check in on me every two minutes.  Anyway, I get on the line with the supervisor.  He puts me on hold for 5 more minutes to call someone to get the information.  The resolution that is agreed upon is that he will give me a $5 credit to cover the late fee and that he would take my credit card information again to fix whatever problem was had before.  Maybe autopayment is only good for one year.  I don't know.

While he's taking care of this is where it gets weird.  All of sudden, he's chit-chatting with me and making small talk.  The nature of his questions almost become flirtatious.  I'm just grossed out.  I was really mad when I got on the phone and just didn't know how to respond.  I guess I did ok because then  I was offered a $20 credit! Yay for me, boo for creepy CSR guy.

Moral of the story:  it takes too long to deal with this shit.  I wonder if that is their plan, to annoy the crap out of their customers before they even talk to them in hopes that they just give up.