Back in the day, I had a case of the opposite problem: my check to the phone company got cashed for $89.89 rather than the $89.98 that was due, even though I ha

Back in the day, I had a case of the opposite problem: my check to the phone company got cashed for $89.89 rather than the $89.98 that was due, even though I had written both the digits and the spelled-out version of the number indisputably correctly. So PacBell decided to slap me with a $35 fee for not paying my balance off on time. The cancelled check that I had in hand clearly showed that the mistake wasn’t mine, and it also had been imprinted with the wrong amount at some processing step along the way. Needless to say both the bank and PacBell declined to take any responsibility, and it took a lot of time on the phone before getting a sympathetic rep who could reverse the fee “for goodwill“. Surely this must not be a unique case; what’s supposed to happen in this sort of situation?