Twitter Quip

    Mini rants: The politics of fees

    Last week I walked passed a booth of volunteers trying to get people to register to vote. A gal jumped in front of me and asked with her biggest smile, “Are you registered to vote?”

    “Of course I am,” I said politely. While I saw no need to be rude, this was a conversation I really didn’t want to participate in. Being completely exhausted with work and having a newborn to worry about 90 percent of my brainpower was focused on something else. I was on autopilot: barely aware that I was even talking to her.

    “That’s wonderful,” she replied. “Would you like to volunteer your time?”

    And without realizing what I was doing, I blurted out laughing, “No.” I feel a little bad because I respect what she was doing…but volunteer work is just something I don’t believe in. Kinda like charity and the Easter Bunny.

    I hate fees. I don’t think this a word that makes me cringe more than fees. I know some things have a price; other things have a cost. But there’s something about fees. Name something–anything–that you ever paid a “fee” for–was something you actually wanted? When you get a parking ticket, you hafta . . . . .

     

    PayFail: the next epic war is about to begin

    Dear PayPal;

    I recently added a bank account to my PayPal account but I think doing so created some sort of major glitch in your system. The bank account was somehow removed from my PayPal profile. When I tried to add it again, the account was disallowed. An error message told me to fax over a recent bank statement and a cover letter provided to re-add the account. I did as told and received another email telling me that I now needed to fax over a copy of my driver’s license and a copy of my most recent bank statement on a paper with bank letterhead. Meanwhile, I’ve been having all sorts of problems making transactions. My most recent purchase was didn’t go through and was canceled by the vendor because PayPal didn’t transfer the funds. What’s going on?

    I receive paperless billing and don’t have access to my bank’s letterhead to print out a statement. Plus, I feel real uncomfortable spending copies of my driver’s license and bank statements to some foreign fax machine far away from me.

    What gives? Why am I having problems? PayPal is supposed to be easy. If I knew there would be these ridiculous . . . . .