Technology BLAH!!

TECHNOLOGY BLAH!

On May 3rd I paid my April Verizon Mobile bill directly from my checking account.

Despite this I received a fair number of recent texts and e-mail messages from Verizon, stating that my account was in arrears, and that I could lose service as I was in arrears.

When I checked my Verizon account it was to discover that the payment I had made had been sucked back into my checking account on May 12th -   go figure(!).


With that in mind, after the 10;00 a.m. service at St Boniface Church on Siesta Key, I  took myself via the north Siesta Key bridge  to the Verizon store on the South Trail,  (very near Trader Joe's), check in hand. to pay the bill.

This was my journey (SRQ friends will understand the following geography) 

A right turn onto South Tamiami Trail.from Bay St, and then a U-turn at Glengarry to the Verizon Store.  I was expecting a desk, staffed by a clerk who would accept my check.
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FAT CHANCE!

At this (and most likely every Verizon store) you pay your bill at a machine.  A machine which would not accept my check, not my debit card, nor a credit card because I was "in arrears" (for $106). It would only accept cash.

So back on the Trail, I went driving North.   Crossing Bee Ridge and Siesta Drive to a Bank of America ATM.  Withdrawing $120 from the ATM.

North on the Trail again until I could make a U-Turn.  Then South on the Trail, crossing Siesta Drive and Bee Ridge Road, and once again making a U-Turn at Glengarry to the Verizon Store.

There I inserted my $120 worth of greenbacks into the machine, a machine which "told me" that it did not give change, and that my surplus of $14 would be applied to my next bill.


I am back into the good favour of Verizon.  My service will not be cut.

BUT  -  what a palaver.

Remember the old days when you could pay your Ma Bell bill at a local Bank, corner Store, or Post Office?

Technology has given us computers, ATM's, Smart Phones and the like.  That's mostly good.


But it can be a bear when it goes wrong.

Next month I will pay my Verizon bill with a good and old-fashioned check/cheque!

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This photo' has nothing to do with this evening's blog.  It is a gratuitous attempt to gain your attention.

 It is a photo' of jmp taken in Fitchburg MA in 1980. I gave it to two pillars of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Annie Speed and her daughter Ruth Card, when I left that congregation.

Ruth's son Steve Card gave it to me a few months ago when he and his spouse Rick visited me in Sarasota.

Was I ever that skinny?

Was my hair ever that red?