To this end, I want to pay my bill online. Seems a reasonable request to demand of a company that... provides internet service. Particularly since this conglomeration includes the number one site on the internet, according to alexa.com.
GOAL: Find a URL at which to pay my bill online.
NOTES: I'm a reasonably savvy internet user. In fact, as I'm currently transitioning from a job in customer support at a Large Internet Company to a job in web development at said Large Internet Company, I'd say I'm somewhere in the percentile of savvy internet users. So this task should be reasonably easy. Right?
Step one: look over bill to find a reference to online bill pay.
I check the envelope the bill came in--internet companies frequently advertise special features on the envelope. But this envelope seems to have been designed with the purpose of convincing postal workers to sign up for service, and not to advertiser to their won customers, who don't, I hope, need to be told how great the service we already have is.
I check my bill--surely, if I can pay online my bill will tell me so!
There are, it seems, no references to online billpay in any section of the bill. The only possibility I can find is the following:
For email inquires[SIC] regarding High Speed Internet billing only, contact http://www02.sbc.com/ContactUs/EmailUs/1,,,00.html?id=10&form=
Typo aside, this raises the question: who on earth is going to type this URL into the browser? Why didn't someone create a simpler link to go to the help center page? I mean, clearly this is a disconnect between the billing folks and the developers, but really. Could they have thought it through a bit more thoroughly?
My question is already answered: I, it turns out, am going to go to this link, in the hopes that the help center can tell me how to pay my bill online.
As it turns out, this is less a helpcenter and more a Contact Us form. I don't particularly want to write in for help; I just want my answer, so I give up and decide to pay by check. This turns out to be a mistake; I will later if I'd jumped through four more levels of redirection, I would have gotten complete instructions to pay the bill and a link to the online billpay; my impatience got ahead of me and I decided to go with the tried and true method.
Moving on, I am now on the internet--presumably there is something on the web that will help me pay my bills online.
ATT.net is a web portal; useless.
ATT.com is happy to sign me up for the services I already have, but has no login for existing users.
sbc.yahoo.com is, again, a web portal; I sign in to my account and find
- a search engine. I type in "pay bills" in the hopes that it will search only sbc.yahoo.com. Nope, this is just standard Yahoo! search.
- a link to my email account, which I rarely check because, well, that's what my work email, my college email, my GMail account and the Yahoo! account I've had since I was 15 are for. Maybe there is information in the inbox that will help me pay the bill?
No, there is no information in the inbox that will help me pay my bill. However, I do have messages letting me know that I can learn how to use Yahoo!Mail, import my bookmarks into my SBC account, buy movies online through Yahoo!, etc.
I give up.
I write the check. I sign the check. I pick up the self enclose envelope and check whether I have to pay postage.
And there, in the place where the stamp would be?
It's easy!
Pay online.
att.com/treelover
Well, now I feel sheepish, don't I?
I turn the envelope over.
Pay your bill Online. It's easy!
Visit us today at att.com/pay
So, it turns out, there are two different urls I can visit to pay my bills online. And it told me on the envelope.
Could they have disbursed this information a ::bit:: more widely?
Step 2: Paying the bill
So now I've got three places to go. There's att.co/pay , which will allow me to pay for Cingular Wireless, web hosting, or dial-up service, but not high-speed. There's att.com/treelover, where I can sign up to be billed automatically and never have my bills sent to me. I need to be reminded periodically of who I'm paying money to, thanks.
And there's the link on the helpcenter page, which I found after seeing the envelope, when I got curious about where I would have gone if I'd had more patience earlier. This turns out to be the most helpful source.
I can set up the paperless system as described at treelover. I can set up a regular billpay from the checking account of my choice; for which I will have to talk to my bank [check back later for a discussion of using automatic billpay with Washington Mutual]. And, blessed be, I can set up a one-time online payment. This is perfect!
So, I go to log in. After a few faulty tries with logging in, I figure out that I have to create a new login for the online payment system. This is, for the record, in addition to my web portal login, my login to manage my web services, and the security system I had to set up to connect to the wireless router.
I cheerily fill out the form. Now, before I go ahead, I should mention something. My roommates and I all have cellphones. In fact, two of us have AT&T wireless plans. So when we were signing up for the internet we got the cheapest phone plan possible (no local plan, no long-distance plan, tolled for any calls we make.) We don't have a landline in our house; we don't have a traditional telephone in our house. We just have a DSL modem/wireless router plugged in, ready to give us our internet. So.
I copy my "phone number" for the unused landline in to the form. I copy the last seven digits of my "account number", which is my phone number plus four digits, into the form to verify my identity (in case, I suppose, someone tries to pay my bill for me surreptitiously.) I put in my name, and address, and an email account I actually use.
And, at last, we come to end game.
Please correct the following errors:
We are unable to continue with your order. Our records indicate that you have not chosen AT&T as your long distance or local service provider. For further assistance, please contact an AT&T Online Customer Service representative at 1-888-9ATT-WEB (1-888-928-8932).
I guess I'll put this check in the mail.
