Well, it’s been an interesting week for realizing that the dystopia of too much AI could be on top of us already. I have a Payoneer account, as a mechanism which allows me to have an account with a US bank, meaning Amazon can pay me by direct deposit. If they pay me by cheque – I cannot deposit the cheque on the island, because we don’t have a bank here anymore (Wespac and Bendigo both reneged on their promises not to close rural banks) and it costs me around Aus $50 to do so, plus their cut of the currency exchange, and will take around a month to clear. So, flying off island costs around $350. So: unless I am being paid more than Aus$400, my Amazon income is worthless, unless direct deposited. Even at more than that, I’m paying a hefty share of my income, for nothing I want.
As transferring money costs money, and the US$ to Aus$ has been getting slowly better for me, I’ve put it off as long as possible. My local account is running on fumes… so I decided to transfer some funds. Payoneer says “Your password has expired. You need to register a new password before you can log in.” So, I do. And it says 2 step verification: we will SMS you a code. They do. I enter it. And it says ‘we have e-mailed the second part of your verification to you, you have 10 minutes to respond.’
Only… it never arrives. I try again, and again and again and again… I test the e-mail sending to it from my own machine, different e-mail (should near immediate). The test does not come through. I check I am still a paid-up member of the e.mail service. I am. I try to contact assistance at Payoneer. There are 3 alternatives. chat, phone or e-mail. I try chat… “you must log in – your password has expired – enter the same loop.” I try phone – enter the same loop. I try e-mail – the only address it will allow me to use is… the same one that doesn’t appear to be working. I try it anyway.
About 12 hours later after a midnight callout, I am wound up, and can’t sleep, so try again. I open my e-mail to discover my messages from Payoneer are there, as well as my test. I test again, it appears to work. I try again. I get the e-mail link… and… it says the link has either been used or expired. I try again.
I go to bed, don’t sleep very well – and wake at 5.30AM and check my post. An AI generated message informs me I don’t have to log in for Amazon payments to be made to my account — and the matter has now been resolved and closed. I send another message saying it bloody well hasn’t.
The next day I call my ISP – Activ8, and demand to know what the hades is going on. Five hours on the phone later… They say their e-mail server is overloaded, with Christmas messages and commercial advertising. Email is taking 4-8 hours (and up to 24). It may be better after the 5th of January. To me it sounds like their whole system is collapsing and they will shortly be out of business – but _I_ can’t leave them as this e-mail is the only link with my Payoneer bank account. As soon as I can log in, I can change that e-mail – BUT I can’t log in. I send a message to Payoneer’s complaints e-mail from other e-mail, explaining it all. Automated reply about how seriously the take complaints – and that they will get back to me within 3 weeks.
I try calling Payoneer’s Australian complaints number (a process to find, as was the e-mail). The number rings ‘line busy’ for around 40 attempts across Friday.
I check my activate email again. And lo, there are some AI generated instructions in response to my second email. Completely irrelevant, but saying they consider it resolved, but if I have a problem to reply and I will get a staff response. I respond.
24 hours later, I get a HUMAN response. They understand I am having trouble with my SMS part of the two part verification, so they have disabled that, and I can now do BOTH steps by e-mail (remember SMS is working perfectly, email not at all).
So: I replied, politely explaining this. No reply as yet. I suspect the saga continueth. I hope, anyway. But it’s the sort of loop that authors like Kornbluth and Pohl wrote of so long ago, where the individual could literally vanish due to some computer/AI glitch. Being part of dystopian sf is less pleasant than reading about it. And the complications of getting paid as a foreign author may make being based in the US even more attractive.
So, I wish you all a Merry Christmas — and hope it goes better than mine, so far! If you want to know what to give an author: great reviews are always welcome and cheap. And while I am begging for things: a little word of thanks to those first responders (especially the volunteers) working over the Christmas holidays never goes amiss (yes, I am on duty Christmas day. Hope I don’t get too many calls for a surfeit of plum pudding, and lots for ‘read your book and laughed until I need medical help’).
Blessings to you all!
Mad Genius Club 
15 responses to “Ding-dong”
… and hopefully we get the next segment next week.
Ouch! On behalf of the cryptocurrency industry, I would like to express our gratitude to all the incompetent banks with their.lousy.customer service for showing the world why it needs us.
As I once told a patient my crew and I were transporting on Christmas (air Ambulance), “I’m very sorry that you needed us, and I’m very glad we can help you.” And I’m very glad for people who keep doing that on Christmas, New Year’s, Easter, and other holidays.
My condolences on the computer/bank mess. I forget how spoiled I am, to be able to walk into most places and talk to a Real Live Human™ in person. They might not be able to fix the thing right then, but it is less stressful, even for an introverted introvert.
It’s nice when that works.
I had trouble getting my e-mail working back in 2020, after the move to Kansas. I called AT&T, who were supposed to be providing it, and talked with a real live human. In fact I did this multiple times over, I think, a week. Every single human assured me that they had fixed the problem in their records and someone would soon show up to get things working. Nothing ever happened, and the problem was never fixed. Eventually I signed up with a different provider, who got things working in three days. As far as I could tell, the function of AT&T’s real live humans was to reassure people who called with problems, while doing nothing to solve the problems.
Do you know the story about the bedbug letter?
My sympathies to DF, who does not need these problems.
So basically you have a choice between artificial intelligence and natural stupidity?
I’m caught in a fail-loop of my own making myself.
My publishing receipts bank acct is in Virginia, and I am now in Pennsylvania. The only activity is the receipt of royalties (I pay most of the costs elsewhere). Every year, since I moved (a decade ago), I keep meaning to move all those payments to my PA bank, but keep kicking that can down the road. And, so, every year at tax time, I have no access to the bank statements I need to do my taxes (inactivity logging in) and have to suffer through the “yes, here’s my identity documentation so you can un-close my online account access for inactivity, again” and the “no, I am not going to drive a couple hundred miles to show up in person”.
I tell you this as my method of forcing myself to follow thru on fixing it this year so I can close the account, now that I have admitted my incomprehensible avoidance behavior in public. (“My name is Karen and I am a bureaucracy-idiot-avoidant.”)
Step (1) – Get my online bank access back. (Will take days, as I know from experience.)
Step (2) – Find all my publishing channels, including the ones that do little or nothing, contact them all, argue with them all, change the destination, search the statements for anything else I may have forgotten (once I get access to them again).
Step (3) – Wait at least 2 months to make sure there’s no leftover delay still showing up after step 2.
Step (4) – [the best part] — kill the VA bank acct.
I swear it’s easier for me psychologically (and far more fun) to write the next book than to go through this one more time. But I’ll be even more gaga next time, and I need to do this for end-of-life planning anyway.
you have my prayers that they pull their head out of their fourth point of contact.
I obviously don’t know how much flows through that US account, so account fees might make it impractical (above certain balances, most banks now have no fee banking).
If it is practical, set up TWO accounts in the US. One or both might be savings accounts. Then, every 21 days, get on line and shuffle money between them. That will keep the inactivity monster at bay. Drain one of them down to the minimum no fee balance when you need the money in your Australian account. Keeps some money tied up over here (and at a miserable interest rate), but avoids the mess you find yourself in now.
Oh, alternate solution. DJT wants to buy Greenland – maybe he can be convinced to buy your island, too.
Dave, if you do happen to relocate thiswards, consider Texas. No, we don’t have the amenable climate Flinders has, but it’s very amenable politically and socially. And you have lots of friends here.
“If you take a walk I’ll tax your feet …”
[…] THE RUSH TO USE A NEW TECHNOLOGY ALWAYS RUNS AFOUL OF BUGS. WISH BIG CORPS GOT THAT: Ding-dong. […]
I particularly liked your Reverend Joy mystery a decade ago. Hope you get your electronic communications worked out so there may one day be a sequel. I also very much enjoyed Cloud Castles.
As you now know, try very hard to avoid single points of failures in all your financial dealings. And you make a good point that it helps to be able to walk to speak to a human when dealing with such issues.
Dave? If you sell on Amazon.AU does it deposit directly to your Aussie bank? It might be awkward for us here to buy through .AU but we could try, and then some of your income would be regularly available.
Good luck with that. A year or so ago, I went through trying to gift one of my works to someone outside the US, and they wouldn’t let me because the same work was available in Amazon.com.