A while back, in one of my earliest posts on this blog, I described the billing problems I had in setting up an account with my gas company, ATMOS Energy.
I seems they must have a pressing desire to appear here because the billing problems continue.
After the initial billing issues I wanted to wait a couple of billing cycles before enrolling in their automated payment plan. That way if there were any further SNAFUs I would see the bill before they tried to take my money. Having been lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that they actually got my last two bills right, I decided to move forward with the automated plan, which conveniently you can sign up for online.
Before you click the final accept button, the web site kindly informs you that the automated billing will take a full cycle to kick in, and therefore you still need to pay your current bill. That's fine and I commend them for making it clear. What I condemn them for is not informing you that as soon as you enroll for automated payments, you can no longer make a manual payment online. They actually go so far as to display an error message suggesting that you call them to cancel the automated plan so you can make your payment and then re-enrol!
Good grief. They know you're an online user, they know you'll still need to pay your current bill, and they know they've just taken away your ability to do it online. Developers make mistakes like this because they don't understand the business process, but who on earth in management would sign off on this? I'm almost lost for words to describe the extent of their stupidity. Notice I said almost. Here's some synonyms for stupidity courtesy of thesaurus.com. Take your pick, they all apply.
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