Ever since I switched my business telephone account over to Eastlink several years ago, I’ve been frustrated that, on the business side, they don’t support online bill payment. My natural inclination would be to jump ship back to Aliant. But they spent 10 years pissing me off, and I’m not ready to make up just yet.

As I abhor writing cheques (too many steps required, and who has stamps just lying around?), my billing relationship with Eastlink to date has gone like this:

• Bill arrives.
• Bill placed aside.
• Month passes.
• Another bill arrives.
• Another bill placed aside.
• Month passes.
• Another bill arrives.
• Another bill placed aside.
• Friendly Eastlink clerk calls and leaves a “we are going to disconnect your phone” message for me.
• I call clerk back, ask if I can pay the bill online.
• Clerk tells me “we’re working on that” and I pay by credit card over the phone.
• Repeat.

Today, though, the pattern broke: apparently I can pay my Eastlink bill online now, using a kludge that they’ve worked out:

• I need to select “Eastlink Long Distance” as my payee.
• I need to pad my 6-digit account number with an initial four zeros because a 10-digit account number is expected.

I’ll let you know if this works.