Adult Finance
May 29, 2009
Kim is coming to Boston! Yes, Miss Self is rolling into town next week and I am immediately spiriting her away to New York, because I have a driving desire to attend the MoCCA Festival and bask in the glory of comic and cartoon arts and their creators.
So Tuesday night I was purchasing bus tickets and event tickets in a foresightful, grown-up kind of way. MoCCA has passes available for purchase through PayPal, and I clicked through the ordering process without paying a lot of attention to the print on the screen until I got to the "your order has been processed" notification and noticed that my PayPal account is still linked to my US Bank account. US Bank, despite its very misleading name, does not have branches all over the country; the nearest one to me is in Cincinnati. I dislike being unable to go up to a desk and talk to a human being when I am having a problem with my money. So I opened a local account when I moved here, and I've been steadily emptying the US Bank account by using it to pay my bills. Last month I finally used up the balance with a student loan payment. It is empty.
But it is still active. And that $20 purchase would bring all sorts of overdraft hell onto my head.
Shiii-eeeet.
Immediately--I mean literally within seconds of the purchase--I sent an email to the PayPal customer service desk begging them to cancel the order. It was eight thirty in the evening here on the east coast--for most of the United States, bank operating hours were over until the following day, surely I could nip this mistake in the bud. Realizing that the email probably wouldn't be read for the same reason, however, I called the PayPal helpline. After holding for eight minutes and repeating my problem in various phrasings to the polite Indian man on the other end, I was informed that the purchase had already been processed by PayPal, and my best bet would be to call my bank.
I was not hopeful but I accordingly did so, and after holding for six minutes, I passed all the security checks and asked if I could cancel an eCheck--one can cancel a real check, right? Unfortunately the withdrawal had not yet gotten as far as the bank, and until it had done so she could not cancel it. Yes, I said, but once it had reached the bank it would result in an overdraft. I need to initiate a preemptive strike! The woman on the phone didn't offer any hope of putting a hold or a flag on my account, or even freezing it. Why don't I make a deposit before the withdrawal had a chance to be processed, so that there would be funds available for withdrawal? Well ma'am, I live in Boston and the nearest branch of your bank IS IN CINCINNATI, could she accept a payment over the phone? She could not. My only other option was to send a deposit via conventional mail, and that would manifestly take longer than an eCheck traveling at light speed. I emphasized that the time-lapse, over which I had no control, would incur overdraft fees for every day that my deposit tarried in the postal system. The woman said that no, I was given a grace of four days before the overdraft fees began at $8/day. And that was the best that I could do.
Unconvinced, and furious that the computer system managing my entirely fictional "worth" could not be bypassed to stop a payment, my last act of the evening was to email MoCCA directly and ask them to cancel the PayPal transaction. I slept very badly that night but woke to find an email from MoCCA, who had accordingly cancelled the order. For a few hours I was hopeful that this action would curb the rest of the process. Around noon another email arrived, this time from PayPal customer service, in response to the frantic email I had sent the night previously. They acknowledged my problem and apologized for the confusion, but offered no solution. However, they saw in the transaction history that the seller had cancelled the order at my request, and warned me that the withdrawal from my bank account would proceed as usual; the money would simply wind up in my PayPal balance.
Swearing fluently at the idiocy of The System and moreover at my own foolishness for NOT PAYING ATTENTION in the first place, I rummaged through the rubbermaid container that serves as my filing cabinet and found the last two remaining deposit slips for my US Bank account, then wrote a check to myself for $30, which I figured would cover the cost of the withdrawal, and cover the possibility that it might arrive a day after my grace period ended. (But surely no more than that.) I mailed it that afternoon--Wednesday.
This morning the withdrawal finally reached the bank, and I was officially overdrawn for the amount of $20. Then this afternoon I was charged at $19 overdraft fee. What what? I called the bank again--by now I am so sick of listening to hold music, especially when it is "Dancing Queen" for god's sake--to find out what this was all about, since I had been informed that I had four days to spare. The woman on the phone said that yes, the four days was my grace from the daily fee--but the $19 was the fee for having overdrawn in the first place. Which means I was now $40 in the hole, and my sad little check was zooming its way to Cincinnati $10 short. I explained the problem of geography, and asked again if there was any way I could pay over the phone, with a credit card, anything. She transferred me to one of her superiors. This new woman was at least able to grasp the fairly impossible situation at hand--the payment I had already sent would probably not arrive until Monday, it wasn't enough to cover the overdraft plus the fee, never mind the rapidly increasing cost of a simple mistake. I have plenty of money, I just don't have any way of GETTING IT TO THEM. She examined my account information for a minute and then observed that I had been pre-approved for a US Bank credit card. If I enrolled now, I could use it as overdraft protection, the card paying off the original amount and thereby preventing the fees from mounting into next week. I cringed inwardly but agreed, so now I am signed up for a credit card I don't want, to pay off a transaction that I didn't intend to make, and I STILL DO NOT HAVE TICKETS.
And then I remembered suddenly that in the hassle of numbers and addresses on Wednesday, I had forgotten to endorse that $30 check to myself.
Reality check: as frustrating (and daily more expensive) as this is becoming, there isn't that much money at stake. I didn't overdraw with a rent check or the purchase of a computer.
Lesson: bank locally. Like, ideally keeping your money in a coffee can buried in the back yard.
Edit: Dad has bought tickets for us. So I'm still sorting out my mess but we have tickets!
So Tuesday night I was purchasing bus tickets and event tickets in a foresightful, grown-up kind of way. MoCCA has passes available for purchase through PayPal, and I clicked through the ordering process without paying a lot of attention to the print on the screen until I got to the "your order has been processed" notification and noticed that my PayPal account is still linked to my US Bank account. US Bank, despite its very misleading name, does not have branches all over the country; the nearest one to me is in Cincinnati. I dislike being unable to go up to a desk and talk to a human being when I am having a problem with my money. So I opened a local account when I moved here, and I've been steadily emptying the US Bank account by using it to pay my bills. Last month I finally used up the balance with a student loan payment. It is empty.
But it is still active. And that $20 purchase would bring all sorts of overdraft hell onto my head.
Shiii-eeeet.
Immediately--I mean literally within seconds of the purchase--I sent an email to the PayPal customer service desk begging them to cancel the order. It was eight thirty in the evening here on the east coast--for most of the United States, bank operating hours were over until the following day, surely I could nip this mistake in the bud. Realizing that the email probably wouldn't be read for the same reason, however, I called the PayPal helpline. After holding for eight minutes and repeating my problem in various phrasings to the polite Indian man on the other end, I was informed that the purchase had already been processed by PayPal, and my best bet would be to call my bank.
I was not hopeful but I accordingly did so, and after holding for six minutes, I passed all the security checks and asked if I could cancel an eCheck--one can cancel a real check, right? Unfortunately the withdrawal had not yet gotten as far as the bank, and until it had done so she could not cancel it. Yes, I said, but once it had reached the bank it would result in an overdraft. I need to initiate a preemptive strike! The woman on the phone didn't offer any hope of putting a hold or a flag on my account, or even freezing it. Why don't I make a deposit before the withdrawal had a chance to be processed, so that there would be funds available for withdrawal? Well ma'am, I live in Boston and the nearest branch of your bank IS IN CINCINNATI, could she accept a payment over the phone? She could not. My only other option was to send a deposit via conventional mail, and that would manifestly take longer than an eCheck traveling at light speed. I emphasized that the time-lapse, over which I had no control, would incur overdraft fees for every day that my deposit tarried in the postal system. The woman said that no, I was given a grace of four days before the overdraft fees began at $8/day. And that was the best that I could do.
Unconvinced, and furious that the computer system managing my entirely fictional "worth" could not be bypassed to stop a payment, my last act of the evening was to email MoCCA directly and ask them to cancel the PayPal transaction. I slept very badly that night but woke to find an email from MoCCA, who had accordingly cancelled the order. For a few hours I was hopeful that this action would curb the rest of the process. Around noon another email arrived, this time from PayPal customer service, in response to the frantic email I had sent the night previously. They acknowledged my problem and apologized for the confusion, but offered no solution. However, they saw in the transaction history that the seller had cancelled the order at my request, and warned me that the withdrawal from my bank account would proceed as usual; the money would simply wind up in my PayPal balance.
Swearing fluently at the idiocy of The System and moreover at my own foolishness for NOT PAYING ATTENTION in the first place, I rummaged through the rubbermaid container that serves as my filing cabinet and found the last two remaining deposit slips for my US Bank account, then wrote a check to myself for $30, which I figured would cover the cost of the withdrawal, and cover the possibility that it might arrive a day after my grace period ended. (But surely no more than that.) I mailed it that afternoon--Wednesday.
This morning the withdrawal finally reached the bank, and I was officially overdrawn for the amount of $20. Then this afternoon I was charged at $19 overdraft fee. What what? I called the bank again--by now I am so sick of listening to hold music, especially when it is "Dancing Queen" for god's sake--to find out what this was all about, since I had been informed that I had four days to spare. The woman on the phone said that yes, the four days was my grace from the daily fee--but the $19 was the fee for having overdrawn in the first place. Which means I was now $40 in the hole, and my sad little check was zooming its way to Cincinnati $10 short. I explained the problem of geography, and asked again if there was any way I could pay over the phone, with a credit card, anything. She transferred me to one of her superiors. This new woman was at least able to grasp the fairly impossible situation at hand--the payment I had already sent would probably not arrive until Monday, it wasn't enough to cover the overdraft plus the fee, never mind the rapidly increasing cost of a simple mistake. I have plenty of money, I just don't have any way of GETTING IT TO THEM. She examined my account information for a minute and then observed that I had been pre-approved for a US Bank credit card. If I enrolled now, I could use it as overdraft protection, the card paying off the original amount and thereby preventing the fees from mounting into next week. I cringed inwardly but agreed, so now I am signed up for a credit card I don't want, to pay off a transaction that I didn't intend to make, and I STILL DO NOT HAVE TICKETS.
And then I remembered suddenly that in the hassle of numbers and addresses on Wednesday, I had forgotten to endorse that $30 check to myself.
Reality check: as frustrating (and daily more expensive) as this is becoming, there isn't that much money at stake. I didn't overdraw with a rent check or the purchase of a computer.
Lesson: bank locally. Like, ideally keeping your money in a coffee can buried in the back yard.
Edit: Dad has bought tickets for us. So I'm still sorting out my mess but we have tickets!
