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How to bring down the System
There are a lot of angry people out there. I see it every day in my
writing. All you have to do is look at the comments at a site like Zero
Hedge to realize that fact. To some extent you saw this in the last
election. Those who vote (less than half the population) sent a message
and as a result there has been a significant change in the political
landscape.
But what do the voters get for sending the message? A slap in the face.
A few weeks later we get a monster tax break for high end earners, a
roll over of the tax treatment for hedge fund mangers (just obscene),
another $120 billion “stimulus” that won’t do a damn thing but add to
the debt and an extension of unemployment payment for yet another year
(now three years!)
If you pay bills (who doesn’t) you know that all banks, credit card
companies, utilities, insurance companies and all the others are just
nickel and diming us to death. Every month I am nicked for some damn
thing or the other. I think the FinReg rules that were supposed to
protect the average Jane or Joe actually just codified what the bastards
could charge. As a result we get hit with new fees, charges and higher
costs.
The very frustrating part of all this is that there is not a thing you
can do about it. Go write you congressperson, you’re lucky to get a form
response. Get on the phone to your CC provider and bitch over a $25
late charge on a $15 balance? Good luck.
I have been doing something for the past few months that might send a
message. If I continued for the next hundred years it would not make a
dent. If a hundred thousand did as I am doing it would be noticed but
still wouldn’t mean a thing. But if the number got into the millions it
would start to make a difference.
I have been sending 1 cent more than what is due on every bill that I
get. Citi sends a CC balance of $134.82? I send them $134.83.
I have a small sample of about 30 bills that I have been doing this
with. Well more than half get it right. On the next month CC bill you
get the Prior Balance as (-0.01). What this means is that a real person
actually got the bill and the check (or electronic payment) and made the
correct entry and gives you the once cent credit you deserve. This
result should not be surprising as people make incorrect payment amounts
all the time. What I am trying to do is force more human intervention.
That is time and money.
I paid a six-month insurance bill and added a penny to what was owed. So
far I have two letters that show the credit. How much does two computer
generated letters cost? At least a dollar a pop. There is no better
measure of success of my approach than to get a letter like this.
More exciting are the bills that do not pick up the one-cent variance.
When this happens your penny is lost. It will show up in an Exception
Report. Some computer recognizes that there is a penny that is not
properly accounted for. I assume that this happens (accidentally)
thousands of times a day. But what would happen if the number of
Exceptions all of sudden exploded to 20-50 million a month? Once again,
this would force humans to get involved.
The cost of this social protest is very minimal. Say you get 4 bills a
month. 48 pennies a year is the maximum cost. Based on my experience the
net cost would only be 20 cents or so. But the rewards on the 20 cents
just keep on giving. Every month after you can see the results. Either
they do it right or wrong. Either way there is an incremental cost. Your
penny is gumming up the system.
What if 10mm people did this on a regular basis? That would be a half
billion one-penny exceptions a year. If just one in ten resulted in an
“exception” it would mean that there would be an incremental cost
someplace of at least $50 million. In my dream world 25mm people would
do this and get just two letters a year as a result. Cost of that? Who
knows? It would imply 1.2 billion exceptions a year. That would be
noticed. (It would blow their collective minds if this started to
happen)
So if you’re mad at the system and want some revenge send an extra penny
to your friends at the gas-company, electric company, insurer, bank, CC
company, etc. I highly recommend it. The cost is negligible. Yes, it is
true that this form of protest will accomplish very little unless it
catches on like a fad. But should you get (as have I) some evidence that
your lousy penny is in fact causing someone someplace to spend time and
money trying to figure it all out you will beam with happiness at your
success. I am.
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exactly.
If you want to solve the problem, take your money away from the money center banks. Move it to local banks/regionals/credit unions...or even better off-shore. BAC, JPM, WFC, C will never see a penny of my money as long as I live.
Simply, stop paying the bills.
This author does not understand how these bills are processed. I have written software for the big sorters for several companies (AT&T being one), and I can tell you that the -.01 issue would not have to be handled by a person... Not a chance..
However, if you do want to screw with them, just add a staple to the MICR code line. (NOTE: This is the series of weird numbers on the bottom of bills). Old MICR's are still processed magnetically instead of visually. Adding a staple to it will temporary shutdown the sorter and annoy the heck out of allot of people...
I also heard somewhere you can smear the numbers to jack up the read (e.g. lick a finger and give it a rub). This was suggested to delay the clearing of personal checks.
True?
Cooter
Not likely. The OCR systems that do this are extremely good. In fact, generally better than what a human can read from my experience. If fact, if you have ever wondered how the post office can deliver letters with hand written addresses, now you know how. In the case of checks, if you smudge it, the computer will simply take the value from your cursive line. If you mess both up, then it will definitely reject it, but the bank will treat it as the same as you not paying your bill which they prefer in the shortterm. (aka Extra Fees!!! Yippy!!)
In short, the author above clearly has never worked in this industry.
Neither have you, baby. Maybe you are talking zip codes only, human handwriting is exactly the sort of thing OCR systems fail at. That's why you see CAPTCHAS on the net.
On the neighborhood level, mail is sorted much like it was 50 years ago. The human sorting the "walk" knows it backwards and forwards, even a partial scribble will get the letter to the right place. I did it for one summer... I did Chinatown, the hardest "walk" in the city... you get very good, very fast... very few letters go back.
Also, the OP is jokes. Many companies will throw your account into limbo over a small overpayment... Thomson Reuters sent me threatening letters for 6 months after a $0.03 overpayment. This post is incredibly stupid and self-defeating.
They won't if you do it with your mortgage. My bank was annoying the shit out of me wanting me to switch to bi-monthly payments to shorten the term. They charge $150 or so for the conversion. The tipping point was when they did not include the amount due one month, only the option to change. From that point on, I have sent an extra $25 each month and have been for at least a year. They have to apply the overage as principal prepayment. I get my term shortened on my own terms and without charge. They haven't offered any more specials, either.
TGATLIFF - you have no place on the internet. You actually know what you are talking about. Please go.
BRILLIANT!!!! +100!
Incorrectly fill in your scan-tron forms, give your fellow man a job!
Thanks for the staple tip & the info. What if the amount was larger, say a nickel or 7 cents - would that help gum up the works?
No amount will gum anything up. I dont really care if you paid half, full, or twice the bill. Once the raw information is loaded into the system, the analysts will simply workout the remainder.
If you want to annoy someone, then you need to do it before the physical image processing can occur. Keep in mind, however, that almost everyone outsources their physical processing, so it will not ultimately affect them. Rather, it will just piss of the contractor assigned to the task.
I doubt it, a computer can just as easily count $.07 as $.01.