Online Forms

I have a ton of different accounts online. You've got your Netflix, your online banking, ITunes, web forums, online retirement plans, etc, etc... I was recently setting up an onoline payment at my car insurance company's website and it was totally infuriating me.

You know how you get your bill in the mail and it says "pay easily online at our website"? Great, so let's go. I sign up for access online and the form asks me for my account number. Ok, so I look at my bill and it shows my account number as 1111 4444... so I enter it as such. I then get the page back to me with the error message "Your account number is numbers only, do not add spaces, dashes, or other characters."

Ummm... well, there is a space on my bill between the numbers... This is a silly example, but the idea here is that if you have a space or a dash in your account number on your bill, why is it different online? And why can't they adjust for it in the form? It drives me crazy! Every website asks for your SSN and half allow you add the dashes, half ask you to just enter the 9 digit, and half automatically add the dashes for you. Ok, maybe that's too many "halfs" but you get the idea.

I also have an issue with these online bank sites... man, I've set up "payees" like ExxonMobile and Sears - I mean these are BIG companies... and my stupid bank sites can never "find" the payee to send an electronic payment. They end up requiring me to enter the mailing address so I can send a check via the mail. Wow. I can do that in my kitchen, I don't need to log in to my bank site and initiate a "paper check" to get my bill paid. Isn't the idea that you pay directly from your account electronically? If I wanted to pay with a check I could probably just write one out...myself.

In fact, that's not even the biggest compliant: why don't these wbsites ask for what they want up front instead of waiting for the error message to tell you? And I love the error messages that say something like, "Please do not use spaces in your entry. If you do not understand how to complete the form please call our customer service agent at..." Hey, I'm not a moron. I can figure out how to fill a form out, I don't need to call your 22-year-old college flunky to get help.

Ok, enough for now. Later.