If you saw Steve Martin as the bedraggled traveler in Trains Planes and Automobiles you have an inkling of my mental state in trying to pay my apartment rent. Most of you are aware that I am renting an apt while trying to sell my home in Dallas, TX.  We study Deming's Total Quality Management System in Managerial Accounting. After being hung up on multiple times and not being able to pay my rent on on line today, I sent this e mail, and yes I put whyme.com on the subject line. As the saying goes, everyone can serve as an example, even if a bad one…….

The Hollows

7520 Potranco
thursday July 2

I am trying without success to pay my rent. Your office was not open the last fwo days when I leave for work before 9 AM or when I return after six.  considering this is a complex for working class families this seems an odd choice of bankers hours for your staff. Most people need to be at work by 8 AM, not The Hollows staff though….

The former pay slot on the office is now literally screwed shut, so no luck when I tried to deposit the check the last few days. 

The supposed on line system will only let me pay the water bill which I paid. Who would design a system that prevents the person paying from entering an amount of money, well you managed it!

I have called at least twice today. When I explained the problem I was told I had not returned a lease extension supposedly put on my door June 15. Well what have you been waiting for?  the extension was to July 31, I guess another month of doing nothing on your part and it will not matter eh?  I get all sorts of things on my door, pizza coupons, chinese take out coupons, etc, frankly I do not pay them any attention and toss most in the trash, perhaps I did that with this lease extension, who knows?  Incredibly your position is that it is my fault you will not let me pay you. I explained that I am in Dallas, TX, which is why I tried to leave a check AGAIN this morning when of course your office was closed

Anyway the gal on the phone, this was about 1:30 PM said I would be able to pay on line later this afternoon.  No luck it still shows the water bill.

I am doing everything  imaginable to pay you but am being blocked at every effort. On my last phone call at 4:15 this afternoon July 2 I was put on hold and then disconnected. 

Again I will take a very dim view of being charged a late fee as hard as I have tried to pay you. 

I do not have a wife, girl  friend, boy friend, dog, cat, fish or other living creature in my apartment. I neither drink nor smoke. I have paid everything on time except for the first month. that month you intentionally waited until you knew I had forgotten to pay the rent, gee it happens to people with paid for homes, and THEN you sent me a dun for the rent including of course the late fee.  I am 

Struggling to pay in Dallas, which I would guess is more than a few of your renters are doing in San Antonio

You can call my cell at 972 835 7555, go ahead I open before 8 and answer after 6.

If nothing else this will serve as an example for my college students at SA A & M on how not to handle a customer.

Dennis Elam

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7 responses to “Whyme.com”

  1. Olivia Tober Avatar
    Olivia Tober

    Nice. I can feel your frustration. I had a similar situation with Bank of America. Right out of high school I had credit card issues and I now take them very seriously. Bank of America convienently sets due dates on weekends and holidays. Yet when you pay them on the weekend or holiday your payment is considered late and you will be charged a fee. I argued with many customer service reps and managers and it all fell on deaf ears. They were pretty shocked when I stated that it could be easily corrected with a programming change. They thought I had no idea what I was talking about. Well I use to work for Fidelity and we handled banking customers all the time. Our programmers set up their programs and had to follow the guidelines that the banking instition gave them. In other words…..Bank of AMerica is full of aware of this situation and continues to take advantage of their customers. I just don’t know how they get away with this!!!!!Bank of America has no ethics.

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  2. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Bank of AMerica is aware that most people do not inpsect their statements, so they get away with stuff like this, as American scale back buying let’s hope such stunuts become more obvious and they are called on it.

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  3. Adam Dupnik Avatar
    Adam Dupnik

    I have not lived in an apartment for 4 years or so now. And maybe it has changed since I last lived in an apartment, but why wouldnt they give you the option to have rent automatically deducted from your account. Car, insurance credit cards, loans all have this option, even a mortgage.
    This would make everything so much easier.

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  4. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    This apt is owned by a large corporation located who knows where that makes those kind of decisions. It is a classic we design this for us not you like not being open in the morning when a normal person would go to work. Home Depot and Office Depot open at 7 AM

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  5. Jamie Avatar
    Jamie

    Sounds like you are having a GREAT weekend. You could always arrange a class “field trip” to the office on Monday, discuss poignantly how this could be important for those in the class looking to be managers. And of course, require a paper!

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  6. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    I was finally able to log on friday and pay the rent, good thing they like me….

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  7. Felix Duque Avatar
    Felix Duque

    What I like about this, is like you said, the hours that they open. It doesn’t make sense 😦
    About late fees, I’m always having trouble with my automatic payments, I don’t know why something ends up happening, and I have to pay a late fee.
    Here is the big hole in the loop 🙂
    When you setup online auto pay, you have to wait for a month to take into effect. OK, I guess they have to make sure where the money is coming from.
    But, the first month after you setup the auto pay, you have to pay it somehow right? So that is what I did, I went online and paid it using my credit card. Well, guess what? If you pay with your credit card, the auto pay get’s reset.
    MMM… It sounds like a bad design to me.
    So, how am I supposed to pay for the first month after I setup the online auto pay?
    I setup Online auto pay…
    Pay first month after auto pay…
    Online auto pay gets reset..
    I setup Online auto pay
    Pay first month after auto pay…
    Online auto pay gets reset…
    It’s a never ending, so how am I taking advantage of something that was supposed to be built to improve customer service.
    Well, I finally setup my online auto pay, and then when my first month payment was due, I called and told them that I wanted to pay and that they had to make sure my auto pay was still configured, and now it is working 🙂
    Anyways, the reason I bring this out, is because in the process they recollected a lot of late fees from me 😦

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