In 1997 I signed up for online checking and my loving spouse thought I had lost my mind. Of course, he was afraid that all of our money would be swallowed up in cyberspace and we would face eternal poverty. I assured him that wouldn’t happen and that I had this 800 number to call if it did and they would give us back all our money. I was very naïve perhaps, but I did trust the system and my bank and knew that pencil and paper statements were only a desk drawer away. And so, I forged on and trusted our accounting to Quicken®, my bank, and cyberspace.
What I really liked about using my online banking service was the ease with which I could pay bills and balance my checking account. Now I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t tell you that there was an occasional problem. But when that happened I sent an email to some stranger and told them the check never arrived. They would check it out, solve the problem, and that was that. I never had to get a copy of both sides of the check, argue with the person who said I didn’t pay and get all wound up in financial mess-up stress. I loved my online checking. Until today!
Today I went to balance my checkbook – online as usual. When I opened the “Balance Checkbook” link the “Opening Balance” box had this ridiculously wrong number. What? Where did that come from? Now, like most people I have occasionally had to make a “bank adjustment” for some dumb mistake or other that I had made. But, this – this was over a thousand dollar kind of error. Being more or less computer literate I immediately went to “Help,” and found a gaggle of gobble-de-gook answers involving checking your last correct statement, manual changes you might have made, even duplicate transactions the bank might have made in error. I mean, the list was long!
Being a patient person and willing to try whatever it took to fix the problem even using pencil and my paper statements to check and recheck if necessary. I forged ahead. That was at 10 a.m. this morning. It is now 5:43 p.m. and I give up. I must confess that after checking and re-checking I cannot find that money anywhere. And, much as I hate to admit it my loving spouse has scored a win. Our money IS lost in cyberspace. For sure I know that I cannot crawl into my computer and go looking for it! As for eternal poverty – well, probably not, but we’ll have to tighten our belts for a while to make it up. Drat! Maybe it will magically re-appear next month just as it mysteriously disappeared this month. Sigh!