Why MSD might have issues collecting funds

July 24th, 2010

When I moved into this house four years ago, I set up an auto-pay account with MSD (St. Louis’s Metropolitan Sewer District, for those lucky enough to have never heard of them before.) I have pretty much ignored it ever since. Periodically they take some money out of my account, my sewer continues to work, and that’s about how much thought I want to put into the whole affair.

A few months ago they sent me a letter, saying that all the old recurring bill payments were being discontinued, due to “maintenance.” Which, that’s a pretty shitty maintenance if you ask me. The kind of maintenance you do that means money stops coming at you automatically is stupid fucking “maintenance.”

I noticed lately in my MS Money register that I had a bill coming up from MSD. So I assumed they’d, you know, BILL me, since they’d discontinued the way that I used to send them money. But no. They did not. So now I start to worry that they’re going to try to not bill me, then charge me a late fee. That sounds about their speed, given the level of ineptitude they’ve evinced so far. So I go online and try to log into my old account. No dice – discontinued. I try to set up a new account as they’ve asked me to do. I come up with a new user id (TEN characters? That’s really long. Isn’t the standard six? Perversely, the password only has to be four characters. Don’t ask me, it makes no sense.) and give them my email address. But no, want to set up new online profile, but can’t do it. To set up a new online account, you need your account number. I have no idea what that might be, as I do not have any old bills (do I even GET mailed bills which would have my account number on them? I don’t remember getting them. I would hope I don’t get mailed bills even though I pay online, but who knows.) and naturally they have helpfully NOT INCLUDED MY ACCOUNT NUMBER IN THE LETTER THEY SENT TO MY HOUSE.

They HAVE included a customer service number, which I call. It has an option for online bill pay setup. It tells me to go online and set that shit up. Helpful! Thanks! The other option is to request a form be mailed to me for online signup. Since I am not my own grandma, I skipped having them mail me the online signup form. Those being the only two options, I tried to back out of that part of their phone system. Helpfully, at this point they disconnected me. Not to be daunted by this, I called them again. This time I pressed the options that would lead me to a customer service worker with whom, it was promised, I could discuss my bill. I thought that I could at least pay by phone this time, and then get the online bill pay set up. Or maybe she could give me my account number. Nope! Their call center is only open from 9-5 on Monday thru Friday! That is SO HELPFUL OH MY HOLY JESUS.

So I give up for today, thinking I will call them on Monday and get this sorted, and that they are assholes. Then five minutes later I get an email from MSD congratulating me on setting up my new online account! :-/

What the fuck MSD, you totally fail at taking my money.