Aug. 5th, 2008 at 7:54 PM
"Oh, by the way," said the Bank of America, mildly, in their daily e-mail telling me how much money was being siphoned out of my life on a daily basis, "your balance has dipped below the level you set as a warning. Do run over and check it out, won't you?"
I was a little bewildered. I hadn't anticipated any major deductions, so I scrolled down to look at the balance.
"Six hundred and twenty nine dollars? How did it go down to ...?"
Then I looked at the balance again. There was a tiny little minus sign next to it. Well, THAT wasn't possible. I stared at it, speechless. Suddenly I was MINUS $629.00??
I of course assumed some sort of grand theft had taken place and frantically signed on to the Bank of America web site to verify that they hadn't thrown that minus sign on there by accident.
Well, that's not entirely true. It's true I was frantic. But thanks to Windows Vista and Hewlett Packard and their unholy alliance (see the Carbonite disaster), it took me 12 full minutes to get there, so apparently, being frantic was entirely on my end, not theirs.
No, the Bank of America hadn't put the minus sign there by accident, and it didn't take long to figure out why.
I dialed up the Bank of America in a panic. For some strange reason, they were a little slow to get on the line. They muttered something about call volume being higher than normal, and I'd have to sit there hyperventilating for another seven minutes. I sat there, turning purple, trying to imagine how many checks were happily bouncing while I sat there.
Apparently, there were a lot more bouncing checks than I thought, and not just mine.
Turns out that the automatic rent payment, which was pulled out of my checking account on the first of every month, had been sent through my account - twice. Two business days apart. Sitting there on the phone with the Bank of America, breathing through my nose and trying not to raise my voice: "Well, it's wrong. Take it out. Make it go away. Make it go away NOW." I kept insisting. They couldn't. They had to process everything and THEN fix the problem. "You can't do that, I have no money left, you can't, you can't, you can't."
They were going to do that, because leaving people without a dime to their name wasn't their concern. They told me to call back the next morning after the processing had gone through their system. I tried not to throw up.
Next I called the rental office in a state of rage. I got a nice young man who sounded as though he'd had a VERY bad day and was hanging onto his pleasantness by a very slim thread. Actually, he sounded like he was on the verge of breaking into hysterical giggling and would need to be carted off by officials in uniform. Now that I think about it, he probably was.
Turns out that PROPERTY BRIDGE, the crackerjack national corporation that processes automatic rent deductions had suffered ... is anyone surprised?? .... a computer malfunction!! Not just me and my rent payment, mind you. And not just the people in my apartment complex. And not just the people in my state.
No, they had done this to people ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. They're a nationwide outfit. I'm guessing I wasn't the only hysterical customer the Bank of America fielded that night.
So, basically, renters all over the country, who have their rent payments processed by this fairly large rent processing corporation - have had the rent taken out of their accounts twice: as of the first and fourth of August.
Just as people are getting ready to go on vacations - or may already BE on vacations - after they've paid their first-of-the-month bills (which are bouncing sky high all over the country) - they're looking at their checking or savings accounts and screaming "What the F^&%^&?"
By the next day, I was scraping through my purse for pocket change to buy a 1.99 baked potato for lunch. You would think that PROPERTY BRIDGE, realizing their error, would have frantically returned the double rent payments like greased lightening. And you'd be wrong. No, PROPERTY BRIDGE announced that they were going to follow their so-called "Business Process" and hold onto all those double rent payments for 3 days, to separate the returns from the non-returns. (Interesting. Their "business procedures" involve stealing huge amounts of money illegally and holding onto it for 3 business days? How often do they do this? And HOW much interest do you think they earned on all of it?)
So, maybe the crackerjack leasing billionaires at AIMCO, who manage the property and hired PROPERTY BRIDGE in the first place, would do something to help out their renters who were literally left without a dime to their name. Like, oh I don't know ... returning the FIRST rent payment which they'd already processed? Oh, hell no. Don't be silly. That would imply they gave a shit, and as long as they already had their money, they didn't.
And finally. BANK OF AMERICA. This was my reward, apparently, for being a long-time bank customer with a stellar record: they were holding the second rent payment as a "pending", instead of rejecting it outright, and then freezing the savings acccount, in case I planned to abscond with its contents, leaving a negative checking account balance. And meanwhile I had no money, and $125 worth of "insufficient funds" charges. The Bank of America told me I could contest the charge (oh gee, COULD I? Thank you so much. How thoughtful of you!) even though it was so obviously a duplicate charge it wasn't funny, by filling out a claim form which would take them 10 days to process. They told me they'd fax me a claim form. (They didn't).
As for me, between Carbonite, Windows Vista, Hewlett Packard and Dell, I can't handle one more computer disaster. I've started to eye my Bank of Sleepy's Mattress more and more intently with every passing catastrophe. The rest of you, my fellow renters, who thought automatic rent deductions was going to make your life easier might want to check your bank balance. Especially if PROPERTY BRIDGE is the one who takes your rent payment every month.
Update: 4:09 p.m. No sign of the returned funds. So, PROPERTY BRIDGE is apparently disregarding their own so-called "Business Process" and keeping it for 4 days. The AIMCO leasing office, which assured me yesterday that the funds would be returned by the 7th are now saying, "By tomorrow at the latest". Meanwhile, I had to pay a medical insurance co-pay today in laundry quarters.
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