Who's in Charge?

[aehurst]

Who's running businesses these days? The IT Dept or the CEOs? My sense is more and more it is the IT Department.

Recently logged into a financial institution to check the balances on my IRA, wife's IRA and some CDs... something I do regularly. But, they had a new privacy policy that I had to read followed by a check box that said I had to accept statements by email to continue on. I have good reason for wanting paper statements; the wife does not do computers and would be lost if something happened to me.

I called their customer service office and explained the situation. Lady's response was... "You cannot have paper statements and view your accounts on the web." Why? "The web page is not set up that way." Can we ask them to change that on the web page? "Nope."

Not satisfied, I submitted a complaint in writing to Customer Service. Got the same answers along with there is nothing that can be done. I knew of at least one thing that could be done, which I did the next day.

My complaint is not with those who did the web page, it is with management who would let the mindset that nothing can be changed exist. But I see that more and more. Two other similar instances in the past few months where the IT setup overrides what the people conducting business need to do.

Am I overreacting? You guys seeing the same thing? Doesn't IT talk to management given so much of today's business is being conducted on the web? Is there no communication channel between IT's and Senior Management?

[benwiggy]

There's a comedy sketch by the "Little Britain" team that exemplifies this experience.
"Computer says No." has become something of a catchphrase for the helplessness that customers -- and indeed the staff -- feel at the mercy of a computer process.

[capitalj]

The trend is toward paperless billing and statements. Businesses reduce cost and, it seems to me, fail to pass on the savings but use buzz words like "green" or the risk of inconvenience to persuade customers to accept the situation. That said, I've come to prefer electronic communication in most cases.

[NovaScotian]

IT departments have, in too many ways, become like the TSA -- in the name of security, they get away with murder using security as their crutch. When they don't want to do something or change something, they'll always plead that it's insecure. My rejoinder when I was in a position to have an IT department was always to say "You mean you don't know how to do that and make it secure? Maybe I should hire someone who can".

[acme.mail.order]

The unspoken part of "it can't be done ..." is often "... on your budget". Esp. if the whole thing was outsourced (big mistake).

And the other side of cost reduction is often not raising prices - cut out the paper handling and you can absorb the higher cost of armed guards rather than the 70y.o. retired guy standing at the door.

[anthlover]

I have a mildly amusing version of this. At the point When Wachovia bank shot themselves in the head buying another bank that played big the housing mess, Wachovia was forced to be absorbed by Wells fargo and they were consolidating their now combined website.

When this happened my 15 digit password stopped working, on the input screen for the site, but was still recognized by their change password screen. I called to complain and they tried to convince me that I did not remember the password. I explained that I did remember. I had created it.

While I gave them what for it turned out (I figured out was not told) their new maximum allowable password length was 14 characters. I had been caught in both a stupid human and computer loop both. I even changed my password back a couple of times to what it was using the now "invalid" 15 character password on the change password screen, which of course still did not work.

Eventually, I was forced of course to truncate my password by a character and tell the bank there system had issues with their computer, their people and their consolidation process.

In between this fun i also had to create a second account login for me since the primary login was technically my wife's and though It was a joint account with full rights to do everything even close the account (her password could not be reset by them for me, over the phone).

Naturally for this and more practical reasons when I moved to an area where Wells was not dominant branch wise I changed banks.

[aehurst]

We use the local teaching hospital for our health care. The physicians and the hospital (labs, other tests as well as inpatient) share the same IT and software, but use separate billing entities. Out of the blue, I'm getting huge bills demanding payment. This should not happen as I have 100 percent coverage and have been using this provider for 25 years.

I called and the short version is a new checkbox had been added that says "Insurance Verified," which I presume should be checked by the intake person. Again presumably, this should just be some kind of verification that insurance information is current and correct. But that is not what the software does. If the block is not checked it means to the computer that the patient has no insurance and that is auto transmitted to billing which auto generates a bill and demand for payment.

Since both the hospital and docs use the same software from the same IT department, when the block wasn't checked by one entity that was duplicated across the entire system... hospital services, doc services, eye care, etc. were all changed to indicate no insurance so everybody is suddenly demanding payment.

Easy fix once I was able to figure out what the problem was, but I had to call two separate billing entities to fix the bills that had already been sent. Future bills were not a problem because as soon as one entity checked the Insurance verified box, suddenly I had insurance again throughout the whole system. Course, it did take talking to a real live person to get the fix and getting to a breathing person is always a major chore.

[wendell]

Quote: Originally Posted by benwiggy There's a comedy sketch by the "Little Britain" team that exemplifies this experience. "Computer says No." has become something of a catchphrase for the helplessness that customers -- and indeed the staff -- feel at the mercy of a computer process.

A little like the term ‘computer error.'

[onceagain]

Quote: Originally Posted by capitalj The trend is toward paperless billing and statements. Businesses reduce cost and, it seems to me, fail to pass on the savings but use buzz words like "green" or the risk of inconvenience to persuade customers to accept the situation. That said, I've come to prefer electronic communication in most cases.

At least one reason to get paper - there are times where you need to "prove your physical address" - DMV, Post Office, etc., and what they accept as proof is "real" mail" sent to that address - which they define as certain bills, such as financial statements and such. Of course, the other issue with this is if you have a PO box, and have everything sent to a PO box, that mail no longer qualifies as "real" mail as far as these entities are concerned. It sucks and it is ridiculous.

We're going through this right now. We had to have some bank statements sent to the house we just moved into, so we had some "real" mail, then go to the post office with it, and then to the DMV with it, and then tell the bank we wanted electronic statements and then update our address to the new PO Box too.

Crazy ****, and ridiculous.

Of course, I prefer electronic statements - but there are times when you need paper.

[NovaScotian]

Quote: Originally Posted by onceagain At least one reason to get paper - there are times where you need to "prove your physical address" - DMV, Post Office, etc., and what they accept as proof is "real" mail" sent to that address - which they define as certain bills, such as financial statements and such. Of course, the other issue with this is if you have a PO box, and have everything sent to a PO box, that mail no longer qualifies as "real" mail as far as these entities are concerned. It sucks and it is ridiculous. We're going through this right now. We had to have some bank statements sent to the house we just moved into, so we had some "real" mail, then go to the post office with it, and then to the DMV with it, and then tell the bank we wanted electronic statements and then update our address to the new PO Box too. Crazy ****, and ridiculous. Of course, I prefer electronic statements - but there are times when you need paper.

I once lived in a town in Massachusetts that handed out windshield decals on that basis -- a huge PITA because I used a PO Box -- but without that decal there were a lot of places in town where "outsiders" couldn't park.

[capitalj]

Quote: Originally Posted by onceagain At least one reason to get paper - there are times where you need to "prove your physical address"

True. But since they normally want a statement, not the envelope, and (at least my) utilities provide printable statements with the residential address, that has not been a problem.

I did run into the PO Box vs residential address with my bank when refinancing to a better fixed rate years ago. At the time, all our mail was delivered to our PO Box — we had no mailbox at our home. They needed proof that my mortgage was for the residence at 123 My Street, not my residence at PO Box 123. After arguing in vain with a mortgage officer, we switched banks. (And put up a mailbox at our street, just in case.)

[onceagain]

Quote: Originally Posted by capitalj True. But since they normally want a statement, not the envelope, and (at least my) utilities provide printable statements with the residential address, that has not been a problem.

That works, as long as all of the utilities are not in the landlord's name and sent to the landlord (which is the case for me). In our case, we have no utility bills in our name, unless you count the Verizon FIOS bill, and that does to the PO Box. Since it is a portable service, the don't count that anyway.

Quote: I did run into the PO Box vs residential address with my bank when refinancing to a better fixed rate years ago. At the time, all our mail was delivered to our PO Box — we had no mailbox at our home. They needed proof that my mortgage was for the residence at 123 My Street, not my residence at PO Box 123. After arguing in vain with a mortgage officer, we switched banks. (And put up a mailbox at our street, just in case.)

It's just crazy out there. My house does not have a mail box at all - I took it down for security reasons. I also changed the house number on my house, for the same reason, but that's a different issue (:

[aehurst]

Old habits die hard.

Course we all know the electronic version of all these things really prove nothing. Right?