Seemorerocks

Once again I have been caught in a kafkaesque vortex involving artificial “intelligence”.

Some months ago I took out a temporary free account with SCRIBD that I forgot to cancel. After a while I discovered that I had been charged on my credit card so I immediately cancelled my account as can be seen here. 

When I discovered I had been charged  yet again I once again cancelled my account and went to the bank who told me they could not help me unless I had proof that I had “tried to resolve the matter” with the company.

I went on an experimentally to try and log into an account that I had earlier been told didn’t exist and after resetting my password I was in once again.

I was back to cancelling my credit card for the third time in one year.

The bank sent out a replacement credit card and while it was in transit another amount was deducted on the new credit card. When I took it up with the bank they found my card was on Google Pay (something I have never heard of) and so was automatically deducted without any reference to me, 

The bank tried to tell me that I was somehow responsible and that I had pressed something by accident (sic) on my “Go Money” (that’s their jargon for an internet banking app) and that accounted for the situation but that makes zero sense because I only use the app to move money to pay for things I have already been charged for. 

So, once again, for the fourth time I have had my card cancelled with the promise they have removed the Google Pay option, something I don’t trust them over one iota.  In the meantime we noticed that a large amount had been taken out from my VISA account by Bluehost, the dreadful web hosting company I had signed up to and which account I had cancelled some weeks ago and received money back.

We took this up with another call to Bluehost, going through all the rigmarole with AI, having to retrieve an email with a ticket number before getting a very helpful Indian man who was able to confirm that the account had, indeed,been cancelled and I should take out (yet another) dispute with the bank.

It gets even worse.

When we went back to the ANZ bank we had to go through the whole AI palaver again – establishing my identity, Pam speaking for me, re-establishing my identity.

Pam spent perhaps 30 minutes trying to explain things and finally it came out that the vendor has access to my credit card through Google Pay (quite a different story from what we got the day before).

So, if I cancel a credit card they have automatic access to the new card before I even have it in my hands.

Then the guy unnerved Pam by telling her that it had been charged to her card – once again something that was not true and quickly checked by looking at the transactions record.

I don’t know; perhaps Google knows so much about us that they CAN use my partner’s credit card to pay for transactions if all else fails.

There is no escape

This took a whole afternoon and cost us both our nerves.

Unless I can get an iron-clad guarantee that this will never happen again I will impose my own lockdown by cancelling the card forever. Meanwhile, I am still locked out of the Paypal account that I have used for years with the same password.

For some reason, the old password does not work any more.

Such is the world of AI that we live in. Last time I had to ring the bank I got a real person. Now, I ring, have to go through a whole palava establishing my identity and speak to (usually) an Indian in God-knows what location.

I think the banks are being emptied of staff to prepare us for the Brave New World and the Great Reset.

Perhaps this is a mild forewarning of what is yet to come?