I pay most of my bills online and I pay some of my mother's, as well, charging them to her credit card. I always pay them in full and many weeks ago, I paid what was then her most recent phone bill.
Turns out, the phone company computers made a mistake. The bill was for $57.31 but when I logged into her account (which I set up) on their website and clicked "pay in full," it charged $57.23 to her card.
Other bills were subsequently paid at the correct amount but for some reason, they did not reflect the eight cent discrepancy. Then the other day, my mother got one of those lovely paper statements that told her she was horribly delinquent with her phone bill, and if the unpaid balance was not paid in full immediately, someone was going to come to her home in the middle of the night and rip out her phone and she'd never get another one as long as she lived. Or threats to that effect.
This is over eight cents.
Now, I don't believe they'd actually shut down her phone over that. Not over eight cents. Not with a customer who's in her eighties and has paid her phone bill promptly at that address for around half a century. Not when it was their mistake. I clicked "pay in full" and it's not my fault it wasn't the right amount.
But you never know with a phone company. And when she has medical problems, as she sometimes does, not having a working phone can be life-threatening. (I also got her one of those "I've fallen and I can't get up" buttons. It wasn't the brand that advertised with that slogan — I found them to be hideously overpriced compared to their competitors — but it works the same way and it depends on a working telephone connection.) Plus, just getting that notice upset her. So I promptly logged into the website to pay the eight cents.
Problem: The website won't accept a payment for less than a dollar.
Solution: I charged a dollar to her Visa card…and now, instead of her owing them eight cents, they owe her ninety-two. I figured we could even it all out on the next bill.
Immediate Effect: Her e-mailbox (which goes to me) is suddenly full of offers for "pre-approved" credit cards, many of them linked to her phone company. She never got them before but apparently, the fact that she overpaid her phone bill, even by under a buck, has made a big impression on her credit rating or the desirability of having her as a customer or something like that.
Not a big deal. I can add those messages to my Spam filter and never have to deal with them…but I wanted to share this discovery with you. Someone reading this weblog is probably having trouble qualifying for a credit card. If it's you, it's probably because you insist on paying your phone company only what you owe them. Send them ninety-two cents extra and see if they don't love you then. If you give 'em a couple of bucks, they'll probably offer you free cable.