Posted on 09/19/2008 11:21:26 AM PDT by buccaneer81
Some stuck without power powerless to fight bank fees Friday, September 19, 2008 By Margaret Harding THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
When his power returned without Internet service Monday, Tom Perry had a bit of a financial freakout.
"It was kind of a panic-stricken moment there: 'Oh, no, what am I going to do?' " said Perry, whose credit-card and mortgage payment were both due that day.
Perry, like many others, pays his bills online. Online banking and bill payment are pushed as the easiest and most efficient ways to handle such transactions, but a power outage such as the one central Ohio is experiencing can leave people scrambling.
Perry was able to pay both bills over the phone, but not without a struggle. His mortgage company told him he would be charged $17 for using his phone to pay.
He avoided the fee by having his bank enter the payment, but he said he thinks companies should show a little compassion at a time like this.
"It's in their best interest to push their customers into this online payment because it cuts the cost of their collections dramatically, but things happen, and it's kind of hard when they penalized somebody when their choice of payment is unavailable," Perry said.
Huntington Bancshares didn't notice a drop in online-banking traffic this week or a spike in calls, spokeswoman Jeri Grier said. The company also has no special programs in place to accommodate customers who couldn't access their account because of a power failure, she said.
Likewise, National City didn't experience a decrease in traffic because of power failures, spokeswoman Kelly Wagner Amen said. She said the bank would handle such issues with customers on a case-by-case basis, but there would be no blanket power-outage grace period.
Key Bank spokesman Dan Davis said he didn't think there was a drop in online bank traffic, either. Instead, the bank is receiving questions on a different topic: the week's financial meltdown.
"We have been getting some calls from folks with all this turmoil going on with Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch just looking for some reassurance and trying to find out what's happening in the marketplace," Davis said.
Future Finances clients have called the wealth-management firm mainly to express annoyance that they don't have Internet access to track their investments, co-owner Brad Huffman said. One customer wanted to be kept up-to-date on the financial news he was missing during the outage.
Given the week's events, being in the dark might have been a blessing, Huffman said.
"For some people, it's probably been good because it's minimized the panic," he said.
Regardless of what's happening in the stock market, some residents were on a panicked hunt for Internet access to make sure that bills are paid and paychecks deposited.
Ohio State graduate student David Fooce said he sat in a Staples parking lot to check his bank account using a Wi-Fi hot spot. He's also been making visits to the Panera Bread on High Street to do the same.
"That was one of the things I had to do, come here and make sure I had the funds to buy a flashlight or some candles," Fooce said.
Frank Safranek of Clintonville has been making daily visits to the Whetstone Library to do "everything" online.
"I'm doing an awful lot of work here," Safranek said. "It's killing me."
Safranek said he runs out of the library to make business calls, then runs back in to check something online.
He's also wary of paying his bills online at the library, but he doesn't have a lot of other options, given that the banks around him are closed.
"I don't feel real secure doing it here because it's not a secure network like it is at home," he said.
mharding@dispatch.com
Online banks have the option of scheduling payments BEFORE THEY ARE DUE so you don’t have to pay them the day they *are* due—again, personal responsibility goes out the window because it’s all someone/something else’s fault that their bills aren’t paid on time!
Nanny state, nanny state, nanny state. *sigh*
Winter would suck, but my local police will have to suck it if they think I’m gonna care about a burn ban for environmental quality.
Spring/Summer/Fall...meh no power? No problem. These guys are just a bunch of whiners.
In my experience, in situations like this, most reputable lenders are very understanding and will bend over backwards to work with their customers.
The terrorists are probably looking at this and thinking about what an EMP burst would do.
Yep, we have become a country of spoiled, whining brats. All you have to do is look at the Katrina survivors, the Ike survivors, etc. They got to keep their lives, but the government didn't give each of them $25,000 so they could learn how to wipe their own bu . . . . . . . er, CHINS!!!!
Our frontiersmen ancestors would NEVER recognize the America of today!!
My power was out for only about 23 hours, but my cable has been out for 5 days so far. Not a surprise since Time Warner has never been able to find its butt with both hands, a map, and a team of bloodhounds. Right now I'm trying to decide what would be the best location to mount a satellite antenna and whether to switch to Dish or Direct TV.
Here, they’re reimbursing food stamp users for the food they lost during the outage. ARGHHH...!
Is there something wrong with paying your bills in person, I wonder?
I got on generator power before the grid came back up and we had cable and internet. It never went out.
Time-Warner sucks. If WOW! ever becomes available in your area, get it. Great service, and cheaper, too.
In Columbus here, too. A house several doors down from me was purchased by a young couple last month. On Sunday, the wind removed a large section of a huge maple tree in their front yard. The giant limb remains in their yard, untouched. Tired of the mess, a neighbor asked the owners when they were going to clean it up. The owner’s reply: “We assume the city will take care of it.”
The best part of the story...the limb crushed their Obama yard sign. :)
Well, 90% of banks had no power for a few days. But a cell phone would have done the trick.
...to check his bank account using a Wi-Fi hot spot...
Uh, um, OK...
.
LOL! Sounds like Clintonville.
That’s kind of old fashioned. Literally. As in people don’t actually have checkbooks anymore with which to pay bills in person. The modern world does depend heavily on the reliability and availability of computer networks.
It’s become harder to do that in some places. My husband’s job went to mandatory direct deposit. We rarely even see cash unless we do the cash back thing. Mailing letters is becoming expensive & to pay in person you have to use their business hours which are often the same as your own. They’ve made online banking so convenient it’s what a lot of people have opted to do because you can choose your day for the payment to be made. It’s not without its problems but it can take a lot of pressure off keeping up with the bills.
Over a million still out in Houston, and I’m one of ‘em. It’s been a week as of tonight. I’m staying with a friend but the instability and sense of being stranded away from home, added to the fun of having 120 mph wind gusts blow over your home, just take a lot of the fun out of things. I know many had it far, far worse than me. Sometimes it makes me feel better to think of them, sometimes it doesn’t.
See, it’s easy to call someone ELSE a whiner. You’re complaining about friggin’ CABLE when millions don’t have ELECTRICITY and fifty thousand lost their HOMES?
I think this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Of course not --- except when your bill has to go to a location that is not convenient - like a city that is 100-500 + miles away.
I have only had one bad incident where I noticed the check didn't clear my bank by 10 days and so was apparently lost in the mail somewhere. I called them about it and sent them another check that same day after they assured me it was not sitting on someone's desk. Well, the first check showed up "miraculously" and cleared my bank the same afternoon I called them....yeah, right. Of course, they cashed both of them. Fortunately, we don't live from paycheck to paycheck, but I was pretty ticked off.
That is unbelievable.
We have had trees go down from our property across a county road. This is, of course, the responsibility of the county to remove. However, my husband is out there immediately with a chain saw and most people will get out of their cars to help drag the pieces to the edge of the road, although some just swerve around and drive away. Later, the county will pick up the pieces, unless they are good firewood, in which case we trundle them up to the woodpile.
A limb from a tree in your yard that lands in your yard is your responsibility.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.