In the past two weeks I received three notices from our mortgage bank stating I was about to be socked with a massive late fee and penalty if I didn’t pay up – toot sweet! I knew I had paid this, early in fact, but after the third warning I started to think that maybe I didn’t. I almost always save my receipts and about a year ago it came in handy when this same thing happened. Back then I called the bank and told them I paid it, but since they had no record of it, wanted to know if I had a receipt as proof. A bank. Needing me to keep track of their business. I had the receipt and read off all the info. They researched it and sure enough, it was paid.
This recent time when I called, a teller took my information and put me on hold while she looked into it. When someone came back on the line, not the same person, and asked if I could be helped, I said that a teller was already helping me with a mortgage payment issue. She asked if I got the name of the teller (a tactic I hate, designed only to shift the blame) and when I said no, she offered to check around to see how they were doing with it. After more waiting, the second person came back on to say that no one there was working with a phone customer on a payment issue. In fact, she even went around in person to check with everyone there that day. No one and nothing. After releasing a healthy string of laughs I suggested she check with the bank’s janitors and groundskeepers to see if they had taken my call. “Well,” she said, “I’ll look again.” You know, she’ll look again for that pesky teller who likes to come in on their day off, take calls and then hide somewhere! More waiting.
When she came back on, she said that Megan had been researching this “in a different room from another computer.” I decided to sidestep making her explain that, but sure enough, I had paid it. But I couldn’t resist pulling a more technical answer from her explaining how this could happen, yet “scanning error,” was all I heard back. Happens all the time, right? People slap things on a scanner, the scanner targets a single number or letter to flip upside down or just ignore and – bingo! – I didn’t pay. But I still wanted to know how this happens, since it was the second time. She offered to have the branch manager call me back.
The branch manager was full of apologies when she called. Then I asked my question. At least she knew the answer and wasn’t afraid to tell me the truth. After receiving a payment, the check is scanned along with payment information that is hand-written by a teller. When this info is sent through the chain for completion, “It’s possible that someone incorrectly enter a teller’s handwritten information” at the final stage in the process. No dancing little people speaking backward. No mysterious hot new virus. Just the same old boring teller error like the ones we saw in the ‘70s.
3 Mulligans 