38: My PC Says What?

Damned computers!

Actually, it's not computers' fault – it the fault of the person who designed the software without thinking further than the end of his (or her) nose.

You might think that, with thirty years in the IT business, I'd either be an expert on how to get around the foibles or become numbed to them.

Neither.

So, when I get the zillionth email from AMEX informing me of suitable job postings within their company – which I can't access because I no longer have my User-ID or password and, to be honest, don't remember whether I ever did - I am irritated to learn that the only way to cancel the automated delivery of this email is to visit my AMEX profile and uncheck the item that authorizes email. In order to do that, I have to login with my User-Id and password; yet another example of circular logic.

It started me thinking back over all the other irritations with technology and how little effort the designers seem to put into what they intend for us to use daily. It's not always computers – software is just the most recent example of people not thinking. Similar incidents have happened many times and each sticks out in my memory, as it was so simple and yet so impossible to fix.

Imagine these...

Delta airlines' air miles account used the ZIP code from the original setup location address as some form of security PIN, but I couldn't remember where I had lived five years previously when opening the account, so I couldn't change any details or reclaim mileage. My problems was that I had somehow managed to acquire three separate accounts and wanted to merge them. Neither supervisors nor managers could help and the problem was never solved. Somewhere in the internals of their system there are still three air miles accounts bearing my name, all with different addresses, ZIP codes and mileage balances.

It's not that long ago that I spent a good part of an afternoon trying to book a Hertz rental car for collection at Auckland airport in New Zealand. After struggling with a non-intuitive dial-up system for almost an hour, constantly back-tracking to correct lost data, I reached the payment section to be told that the 'special rate' was only applicable to US residents. The site then closed. I am a US resident. I used a US credit card. I had a US address. So what was it trying to say? I never found out.

Westpac Bank Visa (Australia) list only toll-free phone numbers to call in case of emergency – but those numbers are only accessible from within Australia. The so-called 'international' numbers, which bear no relation to the toll-free ones, appear only on their web site. Who thinks to check the back of their card before traveling and ensure that all phone numbers are accessible world wide? Isn't is possible that someone might be in an emergency situation – without access to the Internet?

Everyone in the western world, I assume, has some tale concerning telephone voice menu systems. It's not simply that the required option is not obvious - some of them give no option to press keys and rely entirely on speech recognition, which fails to understand my accent. After several iterations of trying to pronounce a simple 'Yes' in a manner that the machine might accept, it will give up and allow me to press '1' instead, or even allow a person to come to the phone but, by this time, I am in no mood to be polite. What do people do, whose knowledge of the language is slight?

Some time ago, in England - my own country - I found it impossible to prove that I was entitled to open a new bank account. I could not identify myself to the bank's satisfaction. I produced a passport, credit cards, a British driving license, a British telephone statement, a contract of employment, British charge cards, British bank statements and a cheque book. One by one, each was dismissed as insufficient proof for one reason or other connected with security. The most absurd part of the situation was that I was trying to open a second account at the bank where I currently held an account that had been open for eighteen years and where I was personally known. It did not matter. Rules were rules, I was told.

Telephone credit card banking systems all require you to enter you 16-digit account number 'for faster service' but, as soon as an operator comes on the line, she demands that you dictate it to her. I have a Capital One master card and one of their phone options is to increase the credit line. I tried that and immediately heard a recording saying that it was not possible to change the credit limit in this way.

I get statements from my health insurance company, supposedly to inform me of whether they've paid a claim, how much they've paid or why they've decline it - but the numbers make no sense, the totals do not represent the figures they are supposed to include and I am bewildered. When I call, after navigating myriad telephone voice menus, I get a call center girl who knows nothing and can do no more than read to me exactly what I can already see, but not understand, from the statement. I cannot speak to a supervisor but one will supposedly call me within 24 hours. It never happens.

Citibank's system dictates that they send your new credit card by regular mail. If you are not there to receive it, you have moved or there is some other reason that it cannot be delivered, it will be returned to them and your account will be suspended without warning. It happened to me five times in a single month before a Citibank manager suggested changing my address to a friend's, where a new card could be delivered and simply reside, unused, allowing the one in my hand - sent to me at a hotel via UPS - to work.

So many telephone systems either have no listed keys entry to get a human operator that there is even a web site dedicated to what key, keys or commands one must give to summon one. It's not always '0'. Sometimes it's '00' or an asterisk or two pound keys or a combination even more convoluted and unguessable.

Orbitz travel booking site, which has multiple credit cards listed on my account, will not allow me to change the details or delete one without entering the 3-digit security code; the number printed on the back, which fades quickly. That card is destroyed, which is why I want to delete it. I have no record of the 3-digit security code – after all, they tell you not to write it down....

We're heading into the realm of science fiction as it was before computers took over the world. Our lives are controled by computers and by simpletons who are little more than mouthpieces for the machine.

In the 1980's and before, no one would actually believe that society would be so dumb that they would believe every line on a computer screen or bank statement - but now they do. Otherwise intelligent adults are convinced that anything the computer says is correct. I have listened to educated people trying to rationalize and defend what is so obviously an error – as if incorrect data is something for which the machine should be forgiven.

Where do we go from here?

I don't know.

Maybe the third world has it right.

I'm gonna go live in a hut.