Like other customers, I was recently surprised to learn that Sonic stopped accepting the credit card I've used for over a decade. A couple of phone calls and some forum searches reveal that they've dropped all forms of payment except Visa/Mastercard and ACH. I suppose that's no big deal for people who happen to have a Visa card, but for the rest of us, this is an onerous policy.
To be clear, it means that I currently have no reasonable way to pay my bill.
Instead of trying to understand why this is a problem, each of the Sonic representatives to whom I spoke have responded by suggesting one of the following:
Please, please, please, Sonic, won't you make some other payment options available?
My next bill will be due soon, and you're currently refusing every way I have of paying it. Any of these would work for me:
Pretty please?
Surely there must be another way.
To be clear, it means that I currently have no reasonable way to pay my bill.
Instead of trying to understand why this is a problem, each of the Sonic representatives to whom I spoke have responded by suggesting one of the following:
- Establish a Visa/Mastercard account. - My past experience with those companies was consistently awful. Between their constantly shifting terms, policies designed to trap customers into extra fees, and occasional blatant fraud, I have no interest in returning to them.
- Buy prepaid Visa/Mastercards. - The markup on those is quite high, and buying them regularly just to pay my Sonic bill would be not only expensive, but also a waste of time.
- Give Sonic my bank account info so they can pull money from my account. - ACH fraud and data breaches have been rising in recent years, and this approach would expose me to both. Risking my bank account being drained is unappealing, as is suddenly finding my balance unexpectedly low whenever Sonic makes a billing error (which is not uncommon in my experience).
Please, please, please, Sonic, won't you make some other payment options available?
My next bill will be due soon, and you're currently refusing every way I have of paying it. Any of these would work for me:
- Bill payment service
- Discover Card
- Check
- PayPal
- Cash handed over someplace near my city, or even handed to a shady-looking character outside the local telco central office
Pretty please?
Surely there must be another way.