Solving One Mystery

Unlike Nancy, I did not look super stylish
while solving this mystery--I was in my PJs

I spent a delightful part of my Friday morning on the phone with the Direct Loans folk trying once again to figure out why the hell I keep telling them to take my money and they just won't.  The girl I spoke to, Amanda, seemed more engaged than the guy I had talked to previously, and she took another look at all of the payments I had made, and told me that they had been reversed, which is why they never actually cleared my bank.

"Well, I didn't do that." I told her.

"No," she said, "but it's possible your bank did.

Intrigue.  Why would my bank do this?  This is my money, and I can use it how I see fit, no?  Also, I've always paid my loans out of that account (my savings account, where all my money is so I don't have to worry about overdrawing), and the payments used to process just fine.

So I got on the phone to ING and had a lovely conversation with Jerome.

*Note* You may think it's weird that I remember the names of each of the people I spoke to, but I can tell you, as someone who worked nearly two years in a call center, you get much better service if you not only remember that person's name and use it over the course of the call.  Call center operators thrive on anonymity, and if you have one person who said he or she was going to solve a problem for you and didn't, and then you call back and say something like "It was a girl, kind of deep voice..." You get nowhere.  As a formerly lazy call center worker who did not believe in the products I was selling, I would count on making lavish promises and then fading into the ether dumping the extra work on my co-workers.  Is that fair?  Hell no, but that's reality.  Always remember names, or if you can't remember, write it down.

Jerome was swell--understood my problem, took charge of the call in a way that was reassuring and told me that the reason the bank was likely reversing the payments is because you're really not supposed to pay bills from your savings account.  This is somewhat annoying because seriously, these are my accounts, let me do what I want with them, but whatever, it's a quick fix.

Jerome opened a checking account for me right there on the phone, and told me that I will receive a debit card for free in the mail, and if I use that debit card three times in the next 45 days, ING will give me a $50 bonus.  That quelled my annoyance considerably.  Since I never use a debit card, I will most likely make teeny tiny purchases and then think I'm so smart when I get free money for doing so,

So if anyone else is in a similar predicament, it may be that you're using a savings account, which is not allowed.  Or it may be that Direct Loans new website sucks, and I can't help you with that.