Over a year ago, I have decided to become a Lifetime Member of the NRA to give my full support. Prior to that, I have been an Annual Member, for many years. When they had that Easy-Pay Life Membership for $600, I have decided to go for it. Monthly payment $25/month until paid off. Not a financial burden.

My balance is $150 as of September 2018. Each month, they keep of sending me letters to commit to auto-pay. I always decline as I don't want to give away credit card info (if I can avoid it). I wrote them a check each month. For September, I did not receive my bill/statement. Therefore, I was not able to send $25 check. October, I received a statement for $50 with a Warning in CAP LETTERS, "THIS ACCOUNT IS PAST DUE: IF PAYMENT IS NOT SUBMITTED, ACCOUNT WILL CONVERT TO ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP STATUS"..

This irritates the hell out of me. Last payment was sent "10/15" for $50. NRA cashed check on "10/24". After This nasty message, I sent another check for $25 on "10/30". It is now 11/26. NRA have NOT cashed my check.

This morning, I called NRA and spoke to 2 different Reps. First one, Donna O. was polite. Introduced herself (full name and empl #). Unfortunately, she had to transfer me to Member Services. Second Rep was RUDE. Did not even introduce or identify himself. I had to ask for his name (Jimmy G.). I explained the entire situation. He kept talking over me and would not let me finish. I told him that my bank still have not cleared the check. He told me that the last check was NOT cashed by my bank because NRA did not receive it. WHAT??? I sent it to them using the pre-paid envelope they always send with my statement. Now, he is saying that my account is PAST DUE, AGAIN!!!

Well, NRA... you can F yourself. I give you my hard earned money to support your (our) cause, to defend 2A. And this is how you want to handle Life Members? You can take my previous payments and shove it. You don't even have to change my membership to Annual. You might as well just CANCEL it altogether as you will NOT see another dollar or cent of my hard earned money.

Rant Off!

Kathryn Hollifield
703-267-3772
KHollifield@nrahq.org

She is the one in charge of recruiting in the west.

Notwithstanding the operators rudeness, the USPS most likely lost your last payment in transit, or something out of the ordinary happened and it's the NRA's fault.

Granted they should have simply said they will put a hold on while you stop payment and resend a new check, as most creditors will do, this happens all the time.

A bit of an overreaction...

For God's sake

I can understand being annoyed at the Rep being rude, but to abandon an organization your once thought to be worth lifetime support because of one rude Rep is just a little >< over the top.

If a Rep is not getting the job done you demand to speak to a supervisor.

As for them not receiving the payment: In my experience the USPS does a pretty decent job, but sometimes they do drop a piece of mail. And sometimes mail rooms do. The fact that "NRA have NOT cashed [your] check" is something of a dead give-away.

If what you've posted here is any reflection on your interaction with the NRA Reps, I suspect that 2nd Rep's attitude, while not excusable, probably wasn't entirely one-sided.

Get a grip, man.

Well, it's a slightly better reason than junk mail. Not much, but slightly.

Or your check was stolen while in transit. We see that frequently.

NRA just pissed me off with this Warning in CAP LETTERS on the October statement: "THIS ACCOUNT IS PAST DUE: IF PAYMENT IS NOT SUBMITTED, ACCOUNT WILL CONVERT TO ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP STATUS".. What exactly will this move accomplish? Other than make me pay membership dues yearly? Again.

They could have simply asked me to send my payment ASAP to make it current. When I sent the $25 check with my payment (the MISSING one), I included a note that said "I don't appreciate the message on this letter". I then highlighted the bolded message above. So, I am more inclined to think that someone from the NRA receiving of the billing department didn't like my note and decided to toss my payment away. Or maybe not. Maybe it got lost in the mail like some of you have suggested. Maybe.

But that second Representative's attitude made it worse. They should be reminded that us members are donors. We donate our hard earned money for a cause that we believe in. The least they can do is be more tactful when dealing with their members/donors.

I was even thinking of paying my entire balance after they cash the last check so I have fulfilled my obligation as a Life Member. Now, I seriously doubt it.

Maybe I am over reacting. Or maybe I need some chill pills

First, thank goodness they didn't use a mean font AND some hurtful RED colors!

Second, nobody likely sees any part of a note on a remit. Those almost 100% go to a bank lockbox, the bank deposits and scans the documents, and the software extracts the account number and payment amount to import to their system. Except for exception, no human interaction. There's not some little old lady reading your messages and saying "mean man, go in trash".

Could have been a anti-gun USPS worker "lost" the mail.

OK. You got me.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
First, thank goodness they didn't use a mean font AND some hurtful RED colors!

There's not some little old lady reading your messages and saying "mean man, go in trash".

Grow up. The NRA is the only thing keeping us from throwing rocks.

Frustrating? Yes. Worth tossing out the window? No.

You sound like my FIL. Men of a certain age (trying to not say old, lol) struggle with the modern way of bill paying. Giving the NRA your information for auto pay is simpler and SAFER than your current method. Sending a paper checked which can be stolen, lost, forged into another larger check to a different entity is significantly more risky than giving out CC info. Plus, any fraud on your CC, heaven forbid, is 100% covered and you get your money back. That isn't always the case with a check.

Give them the auto pay information and sleep easier knowing your bills are being paid on time, every time, and you are protected financially from theft.

Not everything in the modern world is better, but this is better than putting a check into hundreds of hands on its way to the payee. Many of whom are larcenous and/or incompetent.

One potential draw back to auto pay is should you die, it can be very difficult for your spouse/beneficiary to end the monthly automatic withdrawal.

An officer that I used to work with lost his wife to an unexpected illness. She paid for their cell phones through VERIZON with auto pay. He didn't need two cell phones. It took him months to get the $35 auto pay to end.

My wife pays for much of everything with auto pay. My concern is the large scale hacking of company computers.

This and getting hacked are my concerns why I don't like auto-pay. The only auto-pay that I have is my Life Insurance. That one, I NEED to be sure the policy is paid each month, without any interruption. I pay some of my bills on-line, but not set up with auto pay.

quote:

Originally posted by az4783054:
One potential draw back to auto pay is should you die, it can be very difficult for your spouse/beneficiary to end the monthly automatic withdrawal.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
Frustrating? Yes. Worth tossing out the window? No.

You sound like my FIL. Men of a certain age (trying to not say old, lol) struggle with the modern way of bill paying. Giving the NRA your information for auto pay is simpler and SAFER than your current method. Sending a paper checked which can be stolen, lost, forged into another larger check to a different entity is significantly more risky than giving out CC info. Plus, any fraud on your CC, heaven forbid, is 100% covered and you get your money back. That isn't always the case with a check.

Give them the auto pay information and sleep easier knowing your bills are being paid on time, every time, and you are protected financially from theft.

Not everything in the modern world is better, but this is better than putting a check into hundreds of hands on its way to the payee. Many of whom are larcenous and/or incompetent.

Exactly. Use the credit card and the anti-fraud protection it has built in.

And while the poor treatment is not pleasant, I'd suck it up in light of what the NRA accomplishes. I know they aren't perfect, but they do a lot for gun owners.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jhe888,

Re auto-pay, depending on what credit card you have, it can be very controllable.

My card offers "virtual cards." These are credit card numbers that are generated for a specific merchant. The card is only valid for that merchant, any attempt to use it elsewhere will fail.

So, I have a collection of virtual card numbers, one for each merchant that I pay online -- one for city water bill, one for auto insurance, one for reloading toll road transponder, etc.

A neat feature is that each card can be turned on or off individually. My default is to leave all cards turned off, so even the linked merchant will fail on an attempt to charge something. I have a pop-up reminder set, so that a few days before a payment is due, I turn that card on. Then, when the scheduled payment has been made, I can turn the card off again, until the next month or calendar quarter or whenever next payment is due.

With this method, my exposure to fraud is very limited, and if I depart this life before my wife does, she won't have to worry about how to stop payments, if the card is turned off.

quote:

Originally posted by ador:

quote:

Originally posted by az4783054:
One potential draw back to auto pay is should you die, it can be very difficult for your spouse/beneficiary to end the monthly automatic withdrawal.

This and getting hacked are my concerns why I don't like auto-pay.

1. If somebody has trouble cancelling something like that they're Doing It Wrong. I used to manage the wireless accounts at work. I brought-up and dropped lines all the time. There was some percentage that Verizon would bungle and we'd get charges the next month. Another call and it was fixed, and they'd credit the mis-charge.

2. We've had one or the other of our credit cards compromised three times. In all three cases it was them being compromised at Point-Of-Sale terminals, not by being used for on-line purchases or auto-pay. I more fear card scanners at PoS terminals than I do auto-pay systems.

quote:

Originally posted by ador:
I pay some of my bills on-line, but not set up with auto pay.

And I bet you log in to your bank or whatever each and every time. Every time you do that you risk your account information being snagged by malware on your computer you don't even know is there. Particularly if you're using MS-Windows, as it's the most attractive, most exploited target on the Internet. (Used to be the most-easily exploited, too, but that's no longer as much the case.)

This is the kind of thing to which I was referring in the Google Reveals Plans to Monitor Our Moods, Our Movements, and Our Children's Behavior at Home in The Lounge: To protect yourself in this day and age you have to do your homework to understand the threat vectors.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
My card offers "virtual cards." These are credit card numbers that are generated for a specific merchant. The card is only valid for that merchant, any attempt to use it elsewhere will fail.

That's why I like Apple Pay for use at PoS terminals. It uses virtual card numbers that are limited to the charge amount and become invalid as soon as the charge transaction is complete.

I don't like "Auto Pay" either and prefer paying with a check or with plastic.

But....don't give up on the NRA. Just consider for a moment if the Democrats took control of the Congress and the Presidency like in 1968 and we didn't have the NRA.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Re auto-pay, depending on what credit card you have, it can be very controllable.

My card offers "virtual cards." These are credit card numbers that are generated for a specific merchant. The card is only valid for that merchant, any attempt to use it elsewhere will fail.

So, I have a collection of virtual card numbers, one for each merchant that I pay online -- one for city water bill, one for auto insurance, one for reloading toll road transponder, etc.

A neat feature is that each card can be turned on or off individually. My default is to leave all cards turned off, so even the linked merchant will fail on an attempt to charge something. I have a pop-up reminder set, so that a few days before a payment is due, I turn that card on. Then, when the scheduled payment has been made, I can turn the card off again, until the next month or calendar quarter or whenever next payment is due.

With this method, my exposure to fraud is very limited, and if I depart this life before my wife does, she won't have to worry about how to stop payments, if the card is turned off.

Would you mind sharing what card it is?

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
For God's sake

I can understand being annoyed at the Rep being rude, but to abandon an organization your once thought to be worth lifetime support because of one rude Rep is just a little >< over the top.

If a Rep is not getting the job done you demand to speak to a supervisor.

As for them not receiving the payment: In my experience the USPS does a pretty decent job, but sometimes they do drop a piece of mail. And sometimes mail rooms do. The fact that "NRA have NOT cashed [your] check" is something of a dead give-away.

If what you've posted here is any reflection on your interaction with the NRA Reps, I suspect that 2nd Rep's attitude, while not excusable, probably wasn't entirely one-sided.

Get a grip, man.

Totally agree.

Just take a deep breath, keep calm, have a nice cold beverage of your choice and take it in stride.
NRA does great things and to let a little low level employee get you down is just stupid, IMO.