A Brush with Techno-Corporate-Bureaucracy
Even though I teach an entire 10-week undergrad course on Franz Kafka, sometimes the absurdity and our powerlessness in the face of techno-corporate-bureaucracy still take me by surprise. (I get that there are bigger problems in the world and I’m fortunate this is the worst thing that happened to me yesterday. But I’m going to tell you about it anyway.)
Our son lives in on-campus housing run by a company called American Campus Communities. Last year, we paid his rent monthly on a credit card and each month there was a $19.95 fee for a one-time payment. This year, we switched to automatic payments from our checking account so there would not be the $20 monthly fee and there’d be no chance of rent being paid late. That has been going smoothly since September 2022.
Yesterday, when I’m in the car on the way to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy, my son calls me because he is (along with friends) applying to live off campus and has to show his rent-payment history to the prospective new landlord, and when he went to print it he saw that there is a late fee for the current month and his rent hasn’t been paid yet. I’m sure that can’t be accurate, because we’re signed up for automatic payments and how can our payment be late if it’s automatic?
I call the property management office and ask them how it’s possible there’s a late fee and the rent hasn’t been withdrawn from our account when we are signed up for automatic payments. The worker who answers the phone doesn’t know, says I need to call a different company that processes the payments.
That company is Zego, which on its website describes itself as “a PropTech company that frees management companies to elevate the resident experience by easing friction, building connections, & making a difference.”
I wait on hold around 15 minutes. My friction is not feeling eased. The hold music is haunting, all intense, sad violins. Several times the hold music is interrupted and a voice tells me to remain on hold, my call will be answered in the order it was received, then more intense, sad violins. Finally, a person picks up.
The person is very nice, says some boilerplate line like, “How can I make your day better?” which is very encouraging. I explain about the automatic payment not being automatic and the late fee and that the property company said I had to call Zego.
I want my day to be better and the person is trying to be helpful, but it still takes a while for them to figure out why our automatic payment was not automatic. Why didn’t they withdraw the money from my bank, like I signed up for them to do and like they have done every month until now?
After consulting with others at Zego, the person I am talking to tells me that on the day of the scheduled withdrawal, the property’s website (or whatever it is) had “populated” (whatever that means) our balance to show zero money was owed, so nothing was withdrawn.
“Huh?” I ask.
It’s not Zego’s fault, they say. There must have been a problem on the property management’s site or portal or whatever they use. I don’t have to worry, though—Zego can take a one-time payment for the rent over the phone. By the way, they tell me, there is a $19.95 charge for making a one-time payment. I start laughing. Is there a hidden camera somewhere? No, and no, the charge can’t be waived. It’s automatic. I explain how absurd this is, but I pay the rent and the $20 for the one-time payment because my son’s rent is late even though we signed up for automatic payments. I ask, What about the late fee? Since I signed up for automatic payments, surely I’m not responsible for paying a late fee for some technical problem on their end, right? Zego doesn’t manage the late fee, they say. They tell me I have to talk to the property management company about that.
Yes, I have to call American Campus Communities, the people who told me I had to call Zego because that’s who processes payments. Meanwhile, my son is texting to see if this has been resolved yet because he has to print out his rent payment record to show to the potential future landlord.
I ask Zego if they can provide documentation of the error/problem on the part of American Campus Communities, and they tell me they cannot. I’m flabbergasted and ask, am I just supposed to tell the property manager this whole story without any evidence and hope they’ll believe me and remove the late fee? Yes, I’m told, Zego can’t give me documentation and that’s my only choice.
So, I call American Campus Communities and ask to talk to a manager. By now I am frustrated and wondering if my name has been changed to Josef K. I try to sound measured and calm but there’s an edge to my voice. The manager is immediately defensive. I try to explain the past hour of absurdity, how the automatic payments were not made automatically and how Zego told me to call the property manager because they handle late fees. Maybe I sound like a raving lunatic breathlessly recounting the whole thing, because the property manager asks, “Are you done?” They say the error can’t be on their end. Their records show we owed the rent. I understand, I say, but according to Zego, the system didn’t show that when the time came for the automatic withdrawal payment, so the automatic withdrawal payment wasn’t made. The manager says that’s not how it works, it’s not possible, and now I’m in The Twilight Zone.
Why am I trying to persuade the manager that American Campus Communities is responsible for the error? Why am I the go-between for these two corporations? I didn’t choose Zego. That’s the company American Campus Communities uses to process the payments. All I did was sign up for automatic payments, which should be automatic so I don’t have to navigate hellscape voicemail systems to talk about late payments in the first place.
The property manager is annoyed with me. This is not their fault—they don’t just give people late fees for no reason. I assure them I don’t think anyone intentionally gave me a late fee, I understand it’s automatic, but what am I supposed to do? I signed up for automatic payments using the company they told me to use, the link they provide on their site, my only option, and the automatic payment wasn’t made. How is that my fault?
Finally, the property manager agrees to remove the late fee, but they tell me I’d better check next time because they won’t remove the late fee if it happens again. That’s right. I have to make sure the company, Zego, that American Campus Communities uses to process automatic payments, does its job, even though Zego says it was American Campus Communities’ fault the bill didn’t get paid.
I ask how soon they can remove the late fee so my son can print out a clean record of on-time payments. The answer is whenever the bookkeeper gets to it. That’s all they can do and all I can do, so I tell my son to explain this to future landlord when he gives them the record of his rental payments. It’s been an hour since he first called me about the late charge. I’ve been pacing in the parking lot of the pharmacy the whole time talking to Zego and the property manager.
Now it’s 1:32 and I go into the store to get my prescription. There is a printed sign at the pharmacy counter informing customers that the pharmacy is closed from 1:30-2:00 for lunch. I almost laugh again, because I have read a lot of Kafka. I leave instead of standing around for a half hour waiting for the pharmacy.
I can go back to get my prescription later. And this absurdity will hopefully not interfere with my son getting the apartment he’s applying for. We’re fortunate to be able to afford to pay his rent and deal with this. There are worse problems to have. Obviously.
But I know not everyone has the time and resources to navigate this kind of thing. How many people can’t afford the $20 fee Zego made me pay? How many can’t spend an hour during a workday on the phone waiting to get through the voicemail system to talk to people who don’t have answers, and end up getting more late fees as a result? How much of this infects all of our systems, including the ones that put people in jail and decide if health insurance will pay for the liver transplant? It’s no wonder we’re all crazy.
