Remember that with the exception of the Allegheny Mountain & Lehigh Valley tunnels, all of the PA Turnpike tunnels were once railroad tunnels for the never-finished South Penn.  The concrete shell you see today was built sometime between the late 1930s and early 1960s, depending on whether you’re travelling through the newer twinned tubes (mostly eastbound) or the original tunnels (mostly westbound).  All of the original tunnels date back to shortly after the Civil War.  I point this out only because in today’s Interstate-highway- and jet-based world, it’s easy to forget that railroads were once the dominant force in our economy.

The East Broad Top Railroad was founded in 1856, six years before the start of the Civil War.  Due to funding considerations, it wasn’t actually built until the 1870s and did not enter service until 1873.  Over the next few decades, the EBT expanded passenger and freight service throughout the towns of Mt. Union, Orbisonia, Saltillo, and Robertsdale, as well as several nearby boroughs and villages, before crossing into Fulton County and servicing several mines.  Service ended in 1956 — exactly one century after its charter.  Much of the rail remains throughout the easements, as you’ll see in a moment.

Today, the line is used to run a number of tourism- and photography-oriented events and is operated by the East Broad Top Preservation Society.  A non-profit organization, the Friends of the East Broad Top, exists to help preserve and maintain the EBT.  If  you have any interest whatsoever in capturing some unique, truly Pennsylvanian photographic and/or sightseeing opportunities, I highly recommend their Fall Spectacular.  The 2010 Spectacular has unfortunately concluded, but they still have other events remaining this year — and I will be hosting a group trip up for the 2011 run.  Naturally, there are costs involved — but considering the cost of maintaining and operating the line (after all, you can’t exactly swing by Costco to pick up a replacement locomotive), as well as EBT’s relatively close proximity to Harrisburg (about 90 minutes), the price is beyond reasonable.

This past weekend, however, focused on one particular unused segment of the line.  Calling the run west of Orbisonia “abandoned” is technically incorrect.  The line still exists and is still the private property of the EBT.  It is simply out of service and, for the moment, unusable.  The owners generously gave us permission to walk the line as we saw fit, as long as we agreed to hold them harmless from any injury.  Let’s face it — the segments we walked hadn’t seen maintenance in over a half century, and the tunnels are collapsing.

If you’d like to see the line, the absolute best way to do so is to volunteer with the Friends of the East Broad Top.  They need everyone from general laborers to skilled tradespeople.  The EBT is an important chapter in Pennsylvania’s history, and even if you can’t volunteer, their memberships are dirt cheap.

After spending some time navigating a half dozen state highways from Breezewood, we arrived at a conspicuous cutaway flanking either side of PA-994.  After turning around and parking near the game lands at the top of the mountain, we took a short walk down the hill and were shocked to find fully in-tact rails.  Armed with permission from the owners, we set out to walk the easement in search of whatever time would permit us to see.

There were two aspects of the track that I wasn’t expecting.  The first was the curvature of the track.  This by itself wasn’t shocking, but the curve continued through the tunnel.  The second was the elevation of the easement.  Because of the steep slope of the mountain, the track obviously had to be leveled off with heavy-duty mounts of dirt.  And because of the curved approach, it was necessary to build an actual hill into the mountain — complete with a miniature valley between the mountain and the easement.

The tunnel itself wasn’t very far off the road.  But like all good disused tunnels, it wasn’t obvious until you were within a stone’s throw.  And it was incredible.  To a casual observer, it may appear as just another hole in the mountain.  Perhaps nothing more than a cave.  Yet when you consider how much strata had to be punched through in order to make this happen, and when you consider the era in which this was done, the tunnel becomes truly amazing.

Unfortunately, despite its awesomeness, the tunnel itself is in pretty bad shape.  As this area is laced with anthracite, and given that anthracite will begin to slowly erode after being exposed to oxygen, the tunnel is littered with rubble from multiple collapses.  A giant boulder (formerly part of the ceiling) and tilted timbers provide an unmistakable warning sign that this tunnel is dangerous and unstable.

A spring covers the tracks inside the tunnel with several feet of cold water.  Despite the fact that this is all well below the surface of the top of the mountain, the relatively short length of the tunnel means that temperatures inside do dip below freezing (history confirmed this when a locomotive hit a patch of ice in 1911 and derailed).  With each passing winter, the ice penetrates into every tiny crack and crevice, putting additional strain on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the tunnel.  Given this unending cycle of stress, and given the inherently unstable nature of the surrounding strata, the tunnel should not be entered.  Footsteps alone could be enough to trigger a rockslide, and your rescue would be unlikely.

Needless to say, we didn’t hike through the tunnel.  We returned to the car and drove a few hundred feet down to the crossing on the opposite side of the hill.  Like before, the crossing was obvious if you know what you’re looking for, but completely anonymous to anyone passing by inattentively.  We pulled off, collected our gear, and began walking towards the opposite portal.

The easement grading wasn’t quite as severe as it was on the opposite side of the tunnel, but it was still noteworthy.  Nonetheless, it still presented us with its share of surprises.  Shortly after departing the roadway, we encountered an unmistakable reminder that nature will ultimately reclaim this land.  A decent-sized tree — still alive, no less — had been topped over and had taken the track with it.  This had the effect of lifting about a dozen feet of track several inches off the ground.

The most perplexing feature was the narrowing of the track.  Naturally, the rails on a track must remain an exact distance apart; there is minimal tolerance for variation.  But here, the individual rails were barely more than one foot apart in stretches.  The explanation is surely a simple one — shifting land, tomfoolery by locals, slow-but-steady pressure from growing trees — but neither of us found any evidence to determine the actual cause.  Perhaps a railfan with more experience will find this post and comment on our observation.

As we walked towards the tunnel, we encountered a three-story wooden structure that we initially thought was a building used by the tunnel watchmen (a door on the entrance you’re about to see necessitated manual operation).  Further research revealed that those buildings have long since disappeared, and that this was most likely simply an abandoned house.

The southern / eastern portal has a concrete face that was installed around 1919, several decades after the tunnel was opened.  This face slightly reduced the length of the tunnel and featured a door used to keep snow and ice out of the tunnel.  Initially manually controlled by watchmen, the system was briefly semi-automated in the late 1940s so that the engineers and brakemen could open and close the door themselves.  By the early 1950s, the doors were returned to manual operation after a few too many incidents involving the door shutting on a caboose.

The conditions inside the tunnel are generously described as “unknown”.  Although it is possible to walk inside this portal, doing so is not recommended.  The risk of being hit with falling rock is substantial.  Surprisingly, the ties and rail are in good condition, despite being surrounded with running water.  While the ties are rotting away, they are still visible and clearly identifiable.  The entire line is clearly visible up until the first rubble pile, at which point they begin to fade away under the dammed-up reservoir of the spring.

If the tunnels and rails don’t look bad from the outside, the inside of this particular portal gives a good indication of exactly how much time has passed since the line was last maintained.  Rotting wooden planks are slowly dropping onto the track below, resulting in ever-growing piles of rock throughout the tunnel.  While it’s pretty slick to look at, it won’t be much longer until this tunnel — or at least the wooden structures within — are no more.

As both daylight and my batteries were fading, we had to bail a little ahead of schedule and return to the car.  We will definitely return in the spring.  There’s another tunnel nearby, and the entire length of the East Broad Top is filled with what looks to be incredible scenery and rich history.  I will also be taking a group up for one of their tours in the fall.

As a footnote to this whole adventure, our first stop of the day was a very brief tour of the abandoned turnpike tunnel in Sideling Hill.  As we passed the Route 30 parking area, I counted no less than a dozen cars in the lot and on the shoulder.  And as we went past the Oregon Road parking area, we observed a van full of cyclists unloading their bikes from the trailer.  And when we finally reached Sideling Hill, there was a group of about ten people pausing at the entrance.  These numbers all add up to far, far more visitors to the AT than I have ever seen in any one trip.  In fact, moreso than all the trips combined.  I’m glad to see more people learning about and enjoying the Abandoned Turnpike.  I just hope that common sense prevails among the visitors, and that the site continues to remain largely in-tact and free from aggressive vandalism.

There is a long-standing (and incorrect) Internet Urban Legend that has spent well over a decade misleading people who should know better.  The legend in question pertains to sites that contain user-submitted content, such as — for example — PennLive.  The legend goes something like this:

“If you edit, delete, or otherwise modify user-submitted content, you become responsible for said content and any legal ramifications it brings.”

This wildly-inaccurate assumption is regularly dispensed by Armchair Internet Lawyers and dime-a-dozen consultants.  And it needs to die.

For context, the Clinton administration passed a very evil piece of legislation in 1996 called the Communications Decency Act.  Like so many laws, it was well-meaning in spirit but outright oppressive in its approach.  It was a knee-jerk reaction to some senator discovering that the Internet has offensive content.  To make a very complex issue very simple, it effectively held everybody responsible for any content that passed through their grasp.  If the CDA were still in full effect, any offended reader would be able to hold any given news site liable for any offensive third-party user comments, just as if the news site had written them itself.  The consequences would be staggering.

Needless to say, the CDA was a ridiculous law that was torn to shreds almost immediately after its passage.  But one critical section remained.  Section 230 of the CDA actually establishes immunity to content providers.  This is why sites can allow users to submit content (sometimes anonymously) without fear of prosecution.  Yet somewhere along the line, some Armchair Internet Lawyer ™ decided that Section 230 contained a footnote waiving all protection if the content publisher edited the content itself.

Curiously, the law — and subsequent caselaw — says no such thing.  In fact, courts have repeatedly explicitly stated the opposite.

One of the simplest-to-understand cases involving Section 230 is Zeran v America Online.  There are mountains of interpretations available online, but the court’s decision is crystal clear on its own (emphasis mine):

The relevant portion of § 230 states: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1).2 By its plain language, § 230 creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service. Specifically, §230 precludes courts from entertaining claims that would place a computer service provider in a publisher’s role. Thus, lawsuits seeking to hold a service provider liable for its exercise of a publisher’s traditional editorial functions — such as deciding whether to publish, withdraw, postpone or alter content — are barred.

Put simply, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the notion that content publishers are free to exercise any editorial rights over user-submitted content as they might if they created the content themselves.  It strengthens this by affirming that actions against any legal claims — in this case, a claim for damages resulting from alleged defamation — must be brought against the content creator and NOT the publisher, even if the publisher edited (or deleted, or even published) the content.

The distinction here is clear and important:  The publisher can be held responsible for their own content, and a third-party creator (in this case, an anonymous user) can be held responsible for their own content, but neither party can be held responsible for the other’s content, regardless of any subsequent editing.

So what brought on today’s post?

The Patriot News’ website, PennLive.com, is a comic cacophony of trolling, racial slurs, bigotry, and other signs of civilized behavior.  This is nothing new; it’s the way it’s been for a while.

If the Patriot News wants to maintain this as their public-facing  facade, then such is their right.  Online distribution will be their future, and if this is the image that they prefer to maintain for themselves, then so be it.  I understand that the newspaper industry is in its death throes, largely thanks to an ongoing resistance to adopt to changing times (see paywalls), and a paper’s gotta do what a paper’s gotta do.  I personally think it undercuts any image of professionalism or journalistic integrity when that much of your site consists of trolling, but what do I know?  I must admit that I’ve never been at the helm of a single failing newspaper website — not that PennLive is “failing”.  Not one.

On the other hand, there are ways to effectively moderate your site’s content.  Sites like Fark, Slashdot, Engadget, Something Awful, and even Digg — all of which pull more traffic than PennLive — use unpaid, community moderators to cancel out crappy content.  The result is interesting (if not always upright) dialog.  Sure, those sites still feature trolls and stupid arguments.  But the instigators wind up getting whacked over the head with suspensions of posting privileges and/or bans so many times that the prospect of re-registering for every comment they post becomes enough incentive to drive them away.  Fark even has a unique facet to troll-defusing in that freshly-registered accounts can’t post for the first 24 hours.

Now, PennLive and/or the Patriot News can make any argument against content moderation they want.  They can argue that it’s their *right* to publish racial slurs (and it is).  They can argue that they *like* publishing personal attacks (which they may).  They can argue that there’s simply no way to effectively filter out content at this volume (which is entirely untrue; see the rest of the Internet).  They can even argue that they just don’t care (which does, in fact, appear to be the case).

But then I’d just have to ask:  Why even bother having a “Community Rules” section in the first place?

The Patriot News has slowly-but-surely been dragged kicking and screaming into the Internet age.  Even PennLive has improved itself slightly over the past 18 months.  But it’s still a stale print-and-deliver content delivery mentality (really — their latest innovation is, I swear I am not making this up, a video of a woman talking about upcoming stories).  I get breaking news through Twitter and Facebook, then read about it a few days later in the paper.  I could devote an entire site to how the newspaper industry will either modernize itself or continue dying off, but there are already plenty of those out there.

PennLive, moderate your content.  Screen user comments before publication (honestly, there are scripts to do this; failing those, it takes one employee to handle your entire family of sites with a delay of only several minutes).  And when users do report content, delete the content that’s actually offensive and in violation of your already-existing rules, and not just every report that comes in (I don’t know if you know this, but people will often report content that disagrees with their own worldview just because).  Recruit your most active users as community moderators to police and maintain your user-fed areas.  Score users so that users with oft-reported content are forced into a moderation pool, or go the other way — give users with over 100 posts and under 1% reported content a pass, and put everybody else in the pool.  There are literally countless ways to do this, and the sites that have a handle on their content are the very sites who have been raiding your readers for the past decade.

To put it another way, catch up to where the rest of the Internet was ten years ago.

Or don’t.  Journalists don’t die; newspapers do.

* – There’s a catch.

It’s as if Peter Falk, dressed in full Columbo attire, reached down from above, tapped Rendell on the shoulder as he was walking away from his congratulatory speech, and said “Oh!  Er uh, there’s just one more thing.”

Because it would be asinine for our legislature to do things like sane people would, this year’s budget was passed with the assumption that Pennsylvania will receive $850 million in federal funding.  Unfortunately, it’s beginning to look like we won’t.

I don’t know how you do your own personal budget, but I’m willing to make a fairly safe bet that at some point in the process, you add up all your assets and distribute them among your liabilities.  Your paycheck gets carved up between rent, mortgage, car payments, student loans, day care, food, taxes, retirement, healthcare, credit cards, and whatever other obligations you have.  Simple enough, right?

Naturally, that’s not how they do things over in the legislature.

The 2010-2011 budget clocked in at $28.04 billion.  Of that, $850 million is anticipated — but not guaranteed — to come from the federal government.  At just over 3% of the total budget, it appears to be a fairly small slice.  If your personal paychecks totaled $5000 in a given month, this would be like allocating $150 of your budget.

The problem is, that’s not entirely accurate.  Sure, it’s 3% of the total budget.  But $850 million — $850,000,000.00 — is a lot of money.  I mean, a LOT.  If you put that in a savings account today (yes, I know, you wouldn’t put that much money in a single account; bear with me), then even today’s paltry 1.25% interest rates would earn you a whopping $10.6 million in interest annually.

If you divide $850 million by a salary of $45,000 (a number I’ve admittedly pulled out of nowhere to represent the annual salary of a state employee, from the most entry-level grade-1 employee to the highest executives), it would pay a full year’s salary for 18,667 employees — or a lifetime 35-year salary for 533 employees.  In fact, those numbers are actually higher, as this doesn’t account for the state income and sales taxes paid by those employees.

$850 million is enough to a school district the size of Central Dauphin for the next half-century.  For that matter, it’s enough to give 50+ schools the size of Central Dauphin one year of taxpayer-free operation.

$850 million would be enough to pay off the remaining debt on the Harrisburg incinerator, AND pay the city’s entire operating budget for the next eight years, AND hand out a generous $4.75 million refund to all 47,500 (estimated) city residents (that’s $100 per person, to clarify), AND devote nearly $30 million to city beautification (actual dogparks, anyone?).

$850 million would give every Pennsylvanian six cases of “Pennsylvania Style Lager” (you know that $9.99 30-case of beer you see at the distributor?  The stuff you buy when Keystone Light is “too high-brow” for your function?  The stuff you get when you “ain’t servin’ none o’ that there fancy elitist Bud Light stuff”?  Yeah … it’s like spilling a can of Coors Light into a puddle along Front Street, then lapping it up three days later).  Or, one case of the really good stuff.

$850 million would buy every Pennsylvanian a pet monkey.  (edit: Sorry, we already have a legislature)

$850 million would fund major progress towards eliminating the homeless problem in Pennsylvania.  While exact numbers are difficult to come by — largely because homelessness is such a fluid problem — it would go a long way towards building or enhancing shelters that provide 24-hour access to showers (try getting a job when you haven’t showered in two weeks), food (free groceries help, but not when you can’t refrigerate them), means of contact (try applying for even a temp labor job without an address), basic medical treatment (you and I already foot the bill when someone without insurance visits the ER), and basic counselling.

$850 million would revitalize the dead zone near the intersection of Market & Cameron Streets in Harrisburg — and then some.  Imagine that row of vacant warehouses converted into loft condos, boutique shops (think a St. Thomas Roasters satellite instead of Starbucks), restaurants, and office space.

$850 million may only be 3% of our state’s annual budget, but it’s still a massive amount of cash.

And yet to our legislature, $850 million is throwaway amount.  Because it represents only a fraction of the Pennsylvania’s budget, they aren’t interested in its implications.  They don’t even have a contingency plan if it gets denied.  They passed the budget assuming — and knowing the risk — that the $850 million would make it through.

Now that it’s looking like it won’t, what do we do?

We’ve been doing these things for a while now.  What’s it been … two years?  Normally we do this at the Abbey Bar, upstairs at Appalachian Brewing Company.  Over the last few tweetups, several people have suggested rotating through different venues for a change of scenery.  Between the clamor of wrapping up 2009, selling my house, and preparing everything for Moving Day ™, I completely forgot to post about the matter.  So, with a week and a half to spare, here’s your chance to sound off on how the Tweetups go.

I personally like ABC.  Our service has always been good, and hey — ABC on tap.  So I have nothing against them when I say I wouldn’t mind changing up the scenery just for variety’s sake.  Anyone have any ideas to share on where?  Bear in mind that any new venue should have the following:

• WiFi (because it is, after all, a tweetup)
• Food
• Alcohol (because it is, after all, a tweetup)
• Free parking
• Open to all / appropriate for our group

The last line is important.  We’ve had tweetups range in size from three people at any given time to three dozen at peak.  Although the colder months generally bring smaller groups, we have no way of knowing how many people will attend each gathering.  So any chosen venue should be able to, without advance notice and without splitting us up, handle a boisterous group between 3 and 30 people.  Any given venue should also be reasonably centrally-located; let’s say anywhere from Mechanicsburg to Colonial Park.

Do you think we should rotate our locations?  Do you like the all-in-one convenience of ABC?  If you’ve never been able to make it before, would an alternate location make it easier for you to attend?  If you’re one of us regulars, would an alternate location make it less likely that you’ll continue coming?  Post a comment below and sound off!

This is a melted circuit breaker.  Specifically, it’s the 15-amp breaker from my central air.  The previous owner of my house installed the compressor himself, and used a 15-amp breaker where a 20-amp breaker was called for.  My adventures in discovering this and getting it repaired explain why you never, ever reset your main breaker without calling an electrician.

This all started Thursday afternoon.  I arrived home from work, disarmed the burglar alarm, and was greeted by my security system’s digitized voice:  “Disarmed.  Ready to arm.  Check system for trouble.”  I hit my status key and was told, among other things, “AC failure”.  I logged on to NextAlarm and saw that my power had gone off this afternoon at 1:29.  Knowing that the food in the fridge was still safe, I pulled out some formerly-frozen ground beef that had been thawing overnight and went to grill some burgers.  Up until this point, I had assumed that this was just another Met-Ed line failure (an all-too-frequent occurrence in my neck of the woods).

When I stepped out onto my deck, I noticed my neighbor’s TV blaring.  The juice was still on.

I went back inside with a sinking feeling.  As I approached my breaker panel, there was a strong smell of ozone and hot plastic.  Not good.  Something was seriously wrong.

I grabbed a shop towel (in case the panel itself had somehow become energized, because apparently some major, unknown failure was already in progress) and opened the breaker panel.  The smell got stronger, but I didn’t see or hear anything unusual — except for the fact that my main 200-amp breaker had tripped.

Everyone has experienced a tripped breaker on a branch circuit before.  It’s usually no big deal.  If you reset it and it doesn’t happen again, you pretty much forget about it.  But a tripped main is a different story entirely.  A tripped main indicates that something attempted to pull more than 200 amps of current through your home.  200 amps is, without qualification, a massive load of power.  Your main breaker should never, ever trip.  Even if one of the branch circuits shorts out, it should only trip that branch’s breaker (usually 15 or 20 amps).  To cause your main to malfunction requires some serious failure, like this:

I called an electrician to come check things out (because I know better, and because my neighbor’s main tripped once).  Upon arrival the next morning he immediately commented on the same ozone smell.  He popped open the panel and began removing breakers one by one.  The first breaker was for my air conditioning (the breaker you saw at the top of this post).  We immediately found the problem.

It turns out that the previous owner of the house had apparently installed the air conditioning on his own.  And although he properly wired the circuit with 12-gauge wire, he only used a 15-amp circuit breaker (the AC calls for 20).  After about 15 years of cooking at or just over capacity, the thing slowly melted into an inevitable failure.  I foolishly ignored the early warning signs — repeated trips of the same breaker — and ended up with what you see above.

Note the scorch marks.

See that stump between the two arrows?  That’s supposed to be a metal fork, just like the ones next to it.  All that’s left is a blackened metal stump and signs of arcing.  What likely happened is that the circuit overloaded, and the time-battered, under-rated circuit breaker failed.  Ironically, the circuit itself — being designed to handle the load — was fine, but the breaker — being designed to only handle 75% of the load — failed in spectacular fashion.  It appears to have melted and/or shorted out the two buses (the metal legs running down the length of a circuit breaker).

In the end, though, the breaker panel as a whole did not fail.  In fact, it performed exactly the way it was designed to.  When the short-circuit happened, the main breaker opened up, immediately cutting power to the system.  And the sealed metal box kept the sparks from spreading to the surrounding wood, drywall, insulation, or living space.  To be fair, the original circuit breaker performed its job as best it could.  It only failed because 15 years ago, someone made a terrible decision.

I picked up a new Eaton Cutler-Hammer panel and some replacement circuit breakers from Lowes.  Total cost for labor and materials was $550.  Although money is tight, what with us state employees not being paid right now, $550 is not a bad price for an emergency call, and is a steal against the expense of losing everything.

And besides, the guy who originally did this job in the early 90s probably saved a whopping two or three bucks by using an undersized breaker.  I hope I get a chance to meet him someday.

The first thing I noticed about Integrity Bank is their unorthodox branch design.  Frank Lloyd Wright would be proud.  And there’s function to the form; not only is the exterior design unique, but the interior layout took a very obvious cue from Commerce.  As you walk into the stanchion-free sunlight-drenched lobby, complete with a ridiculous number of free pens, you’re immediately greeted by the smell of cookies and coffee.  FREE cookies and coffee.

And I’m not talking about a shady-looking coffeemaker next to a pile of styrofoam cups cranking out burnt Folgers.  Two stainless steel carafes offer two different blends (in my case, Costa Rican and French Vanilla) next to environmentally-friendlier double-walled paper cups.  These were set next to a assortment of about a half dozen types of (soft! chewy!) cookies.  Since I walked in just before closing, it’s safe to assume that the coffee (and cookies) are fresh throughout the day.

While all of that is nice, it doesn’t mean anything if the service isn’t up to par and/or the rates are no good.  With a checking account at .5% and savings account at 1%, Integrity actually had the highest rates in the area for no-fee, no-minimum accounts.

My only complaint — which ultimately became a tale of epic customer service success — about Integrity involves their online banking website.  It is not good.  While their website is technically functional and can do everything I need it to, the overall navigation is awkward.  For example, when I click on “Bill Pay”, a popup window appears letting me know that I’m entering bill pay.  When I click “Ok”, a second popup window appears letting me know I’ve just entered bill pay.  It gets old pretty quick.

I emailed the bank to ask if there was any way to improve upon this.  Almost immediately, an employee responded thanking me for my feedback and stating that my concerns would be “forwarded to senior management”.  Sure – I’ve heard that before.  I figured that would be the end of it.  Companies always like dumping customer feedback in to the Pit of “We Value Your Business” And Other Cliches.  If you’re lucky and 50,000 other people happen to complain about the exact same thing, you might reasonably expect a slight improvement at some point before the next century.

Imagine my surprise when the next day I received another email from Integrity Bank.  It thanked me again for my feedback and explained that they are currently executing a complete overhaul of the online interface to “a more robust platform”.  While she didn’t have an exact date, she expected it to go live sometime this fall.  Furthermore, she said she’d inquire with their current vendor to see if the popups could be disabled.  The fact that I received any further response at all is impressive in its own right, but this particular response came from Laurel Leitzel, Integrity Bank’s CFO.  That’s right; their Chief Financial Officer took the time to personally respond to my complaint! It’s not like I have a $500,000 mortgage and three car loans through them.  Just my no-frills, low-balance checking & savings accounts.

If this is how Integrity treats me as a brand-new, low-revenue customer, then I know without a shadow of a doubt that these are the guys I want in my corner when I go for my next mortgage.  The fact that my concern received a response straight from the top speaks volumes to the value Integrity Bank places on customer service — far more so than any billboard, pamphlet, or website ever could.

The staff at the Allentown Boulevard branch was great.  Nobody tried to hard-sell me any “upgrades” or unnecessary services.  The customer service representative I worked with was able to answer all my questions without hesitation (based on my experiences shopping some other local bank branches, this is a pretty big deal).  The branch manager came over and chatted with us while I was doing my comparison shopping.  And until this past Thursday, I’ve never had a bank teller come over and refill my coffee, let alone without me asking.

Sweet.

Another nice touch is that Integrity will not only destroy your old checkbook(s) and ATM / debit / credit cards from your previous financial institution, but they’ll actually pay you $2 per checkbook and $1 per card up to a maximum of $25.  No forms, no haggling – I just took in my leftover bank remnants and received an immediate deposit into my account.  Not bad.

The icing on the cake (as if the email from the EVP / CFO wasn’t enough) was the hand-written thank-you card I received in the mail a few days after signing up.  It’s a minor detail, and one that ultimately doesn’t impact my finances at all.  But I prefer to do business with businesses that treat me like a human being, and this goes a long way towards showing that.

If you’re one of the many former Commerce customers who has been obliterated by Metro Bank, take a close look at Integrity.  They seem to have expanded upon most of Commerce’s more unique features while adding a few of their own.

For what it’s worth, if I hadn’t signed up with Integrity, I probably would have gone with either Centric or E*Trade.  Like Integrity, Centric has some very pro-consumer policies (for example, transactions post immediately with no daily cutoff time).  E*Trade has a very, very robust web interface (and their commercials are great).

An anonymous source just forwarded me a very interesting email concerning Pennsylvania’s threat to require its employees to work with delayed pay.  While it’s already been fairly well established that federal labor law will apply, our Governor and our legislature seem to think that it does not.  I can not fathom why they would put Pennsylvania taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in civil damages by breaking the law.

At any rate, the US Department of Labor — the federal agency tasked with enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act — seems to disagree with them.  And Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority (469 U.S. 528 (1985)), decided almost a quarter century ago, says that government workers are, in fact, protected by the FLSA.

(The precedent used to state that government workers who performed “traditional” duties were not covered.  However, Garcia rightfully asserted that defining “traditional” government duties in this day and age becomes far too complex of an issue.)

Here’s an excerpt from the email I received, which comes from the US Department of Labor:

While employers have the right to change the pay period, recordkeeping laws under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) require employees to be paid on the established payday in relation to a specified workweek used to determine when overtime pay is due.  This issue is handled by the Wage and Hour
Division (WHD).

Employers can change the paydate, and it’s not necessarily a violation for a company to delay your pay when they move your date back one half period.  But the law could not possibly be clearer:

If you work, you must be paid, and you must be paid on time.

There’s been talk about whether or not federal law even applies due to interstate commerce concerns.  I have to admit I’m staring into a gaping maw when I try to figure that one out.  I am not a lawyer, and given my lack of any legal experience or training, I can’t begin to cover all the ins and outs of what constitutes “interstate commerce” or if it’s even relevant in this matter to begin with.  But I can tell you that Pennsylvania absolutely, positively engages in interstate transactions with other states, other companies, and other persons.  At the risk of sounding naive, how is that not interstate commerce?

There’s one loophole that the state can apply to get out of damages.  The FLSA only requires an employer to pay minimum wage.  So, Pennsylvania can temporarily drop every state employee’s wage to $7.15 an hour. The discrepancy between this and our agreed-upon pay rate would be a civil matter for the courts to take up.  Nonetheless, I think I speak for every Pennsylvania state employee when I say we’d rather get a $536 paycheck (before taxes, pension, benefits, and AFSCME; for myself, I’d take home about $381) every two weeks than no paycheck at all.

No matter what happens, no enforcement action can begin until the first missed payday comes and goes — at the earliest.  Until then, no laws have been broken and no damages have occured.  And there are still possibilities for a successful budget resolution.  We still have two weeks until SAP goes into hibernation.  An actual budget could be passed, or a stopgap funding measure could be enacted.  AFSCME could … do something.  Someone could point out to the legislature that they’ll all have to go home and explain to their constituents why the spending power of 90,000 state employees vanished overnight.

UPDATE 3: If you’re having trouble with Metro Bank, I’ve added another post detailing how to file a formal complaint and how to make sure your complaint is effective.

UPDATE 4: The Consumerist has linked to my story.  Thanks, guys!  Since Metro Bank isn’t paying attention to individual consumers, maybe some nationwide bad publicity will help out.

UPDATE 5: The Patriot-News ran a story on Metro Bank.  CEO Gary Nalbandian says things “went well overall”.

So I’ve been a Commerce Bank customer for a few years now.  I’ve always enjoyed their focus on convenience and customer service.  This past weekend, they shed their old moniker and became known as Metro Bank. They replaced the website, re-recorded all the greetings, and I believe all their signage has now been replaced.

As an added bonus, there’s a puppy wandering around their homepage.

Commerce Bank Harrisburg was always well-known for treating their customers well.  And yet it’s as if Metro Bank — with the same people in charge, mind you — has thrown out everything they knew about good customer service.  From major faults such as cutting off ATM cards with no warning, to tiny details (such as having their customer service reps recite an uncomfortably-long 20-second greeting when they answer the phone), Metro Bank has really fouled this one up.

Right now I’m on hold with their customer service call center.  The 20-minute mark has long since come and gone.  And since this is my third time calling in the past 24 hours, so has my patience.

This all started Saturday morning.  I tried to log on to the Commerce Bank Harrisburg website, and was redirected to a “coming soon” Metro Bank page.  I needed my account balance before I headed out for the weekend, so I called their direct-to-operator customer service line.  I was told that because the systems were “updating” (that’s call-center speak for “down”), nobody could answer any of my questions.  Awesome.

I generally stay on top of my accounts, and I had a rough idea of what was in there.  So I went out and spent about 20% of that amount on groceries.  But when I got to the checkout line, my card was declined. Turns out that Metro Bank had shut off a number of Commerce ATM cards.  No forewarning, no explanation.  Just gone.  Sweet.

Upon returning home from the supermarket, I called Metro Bank to find out what happened.  I was told that my account was overdrawn (heart attack!).  I was told that no, wait, maybe it isn’t.  Or maybe it could be, but nobody was really sure because they wouldn’t be able to see all of Friday’s transactions until sometime Sunday.  Or maybe Tuesday.

I had to hang up.  I let a few hours pass in order to cool off.  There’s nothing to instill confidence in your bank like hearing a customer service representative use words like “maybe” and “I’m not sure” and “I don’t know what this is”.

Now I’m back on the phone.  We’re blazing past the 40-minute mark on hold with no end in sight.  While I’m wondering where a $200 discrepancy between my available balance and actual balance went, Metro Bank’s hold music is reassuring me that they love dogs.

No, I’m not kidding.

Now, at the 1:14 mark (that’s one hour and fourteen minutes of hold music), a voice appears on the other end of the line.  While struggling to remain calm in the face of utter indifference and lack of urgency on Metro Bank’s part, I’m trying to form rational, courteous responses to the representative’s wildly inaccurate statements.  It seems that my direct deposit paycheck from Friday has vanished.  They aren’t sure if it ever posted.  The supervisor asks if I made that deposit in person.

I remind her that it was direct deposit.  She helpfully offers to call the branch where I made it.

If shuffling my feet and clearing my throat would have been a visible gesture over the phone, I would have done it.  I point out that, being direct deposit, it wasn’t made at any branch.  Perhaps there’s an internal “ghost location code” to which direct deposits are posted, but as they’re done through EFT, nobody physically walked my paycheck into a store.

“Well, no … sir, I don’t think you understand.  The branch.  The store where you made this deposit.”

It wasn’t made at a branch.  It was a direct deposit.  A direct deposit of my paycheck.

“Well …  I think I’d better call the store just to be safe.”

Fine, go ahead.

So now my account is overdrawn (or not) by a random amount.  My bills may or may not have been paid.  I may have unknowingly walked into a branch (or store) and deposited (or not) my own direct deposit personally (maybe).  Plus, they promise (sort of) to have an answer for me (maybe) tomorrow (or within a few days) about what may (or may not) have happened (or not) to my money (which may or may not even exist).

Thanks for the effort, guys.  Great work.

Going online for help is impossible, because Metro Bank’s website is badly broken.  When I was able to log on during a 15-minute window last night around 9:30, my account balances were all wildly inaccurate.  There are no pending transactions, so I can’t get a current balance.  Maybe this was acceptable in the earliest days of online banking, but even my circa-2000 NetBank account had a vastly superior web interface.

I understand that, from time to time, companies change names or billing systems or call center management.  Sometimes, all three happen at once.  But they don’t just happen.  There’s always time for forethought and planning.  Metro Bank failed on multiple levels:

• No capacity planning for their website.  Website loads in a static environment (such as a bank) are unbelievably easy to forecast.  Why didn’t Metro Bank provide adequate servers and/or bandwidth?  Will they do so in the future?
• No capacity planning for their call center.  “Day One” always involves a number of users calling in for support, especially when you’ve just completely replaced your website.  In 2009, a 75-minute hold time for the most basic of questions — “What is my account balance?” — is completely inexcusable.
• ATM outage.  Why were the ATM cards shut down?  For how long?  When did they come back up?  What operational circumstances did Metro Bank not foresee?  Or did Metro Bank anticipate the outage, but neglect to inform their customers?
• Terrible web design.  I realize design quality is subjective, but Metro Bank stripped out at least one very important function — the “pending transactions” area.  You can’t see what charges are pending on your card, so if you suddenly find a $200 hole in your account — as I did — well, then, you’ll just have to wait 5-7 business days until all the charges post.  Just hope it’s not a mistake on Metro Bank’s part (as it was in my case).
• Untrained employees.  The second supervisor to handle my call was unable to tell me the total sum of my pending transactions because “there isn’t a calculator on this screen”.  Because apparently banks have no need for calculators.  Of course, this doesn’t even begin to address why my account was hosed up in the first place — an issue nobody has been able to fully explain.

And easily the most critical of all failures:

• Blatant indifference to the customers’ needs.  When you tell me that my account may be overdrawn and that there’s a $200 discrepancy between what should be there and what really is there, you need to follow up with an explanation.  Pronto.  Telling me that you’ll have a supervisor get back to me on the following business day is not only inexcusable, but it reeks of arrogance in assuming that I plan on keeping my account open.

Anyone else have any experiences — good or bad — with Metro Bank?  Post in the comments and let me know.  In the meantime, I’m heading over to PSECU to open an account.

EPILOGUE:  It turns out that the problem was that one bill payment was double-dipped.  I spent well over two hours on the phone trying to get an answer to a very, very simple question.

UPDATE 1: I arrived home today to check my account balance online (“mymetrobank.com” is not yet unblocked from work), only to find out it had grown to an overdraft of $196.  A supervisor had offered to credit back $100 from the double-ding, but had incorrectly inserted it as a debit.  Presumably, they caught the mistake, becuase it was followed by a credit.  Effectively, they cancelled out their own credit.  And to add insult to injury, the thing double-dipped again.  So now I have a total of three $100 bill payments and one $100 credit.

I called Metro Bank — again — for assistance.  I was actually able to drive to my local branch before anyone picked up, so I went inside for help.  The woman working behind the counter was the very definition of indifference.  As I explained the situation, she was either texting or playing with her nails below the counter (I couldn’t really see).  When I stopped talking, she continued staring down in silence.  The woman working next to her commented that they’ve had a lot of problems.  Then she went back to counting money, while my cashier just started straight down in silence.

Finally a guy came over and offered to help.  While I was trying to explain how inconvenienced and frustrated I was at Metro Bank, he kept alternating between offering excuses (“we lost our license to use that website”) and insulting Metro (“nobody at the call center knows what’s going on” and “I hate Metro right now”).  Not exactly the kind of thing to say to a customer.  Especially when that customer is asking where his missing $300 went.

I have to go do something else now.  Anything.  It’s infuriating that they lost my money, it’s infuriating that they obviously weren’ prepared for this switch, and most of all, it’s infuriating that nobody at Metro Bank knows or cares about what’s going on.

I think I found the perfect slogan for their new venture.

Metro Bank:  We Don’t Know.

UPDATE 2:  After reading the comments from “Shannon”, who appears to be an employee, I think I found a much better slogan for Metro Bank Harrisburg.  What do you think?

Metro Bank:  Go F Yourself, Pennsylvania.

Because our union is worthless on the matter — all they’ve done is publish links to unemployment benefits, which don’t help us since we’re still employed — I called the US Department of Labor on the matter.  Since it’s a federal law being broken, why not ask the federal government for assistance?

The woman who answered at the DOL was very helpful.  She helpfully collected some basic information and helpfully referred me to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry.  She helpfully informed me that the USDOL does not have the authority to enforce labor laws, even at the federal level.  I helpfully thanked her for her time and helpfulness.  Then I helpfully hung up.

Unfortunately, my call to L&I was not nearly as productive.

“Hello, this is (redacted)”

Hi, (redacted), my name is floor9.  I’d like to speak with someone about a concern I have regarding my employer threatening to withhold pay.

“That would be me.  Go ahead.”

Good to hear.  Well, basically, my employer is telling me that starting sometime in July, I’ll be expected to come to work but won’t actually be paid until sometime later this year.  Unfortunately, they’re not sure how long this period will last, nor will they tell me when I should expect my next paycheck.

“Well, you see, that’s not permitted except in a few very specific sets of circumstances.  Did they give you a reason?”

Oh, yes.  Absolutely.  They were very clear about the reason.  It seems that somewhere in the upper echelons of management, someone has hosed up our operating budget.  I’m no accountant so I couldn’t even begin to tell you what’s wrong, but I get the impression that we’re out of money.  Apparently, they know how to fix it, but some of the people don’t like some of the other people, and are apparently refusing to agree on one plan because nobody wants to be seen as “weak”.

“Oh that’s terrible!”

It sure is.  I don’t know exactly what I’m going to tell my creditors if this isn’t resolved, because the impression I’m getting is that we could go several months without pay.

“Well that’s definitely prohibited.  We can start an investigation on your behalf.  What is the name of your employer?”

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

“…Excuse me?”

Pennsylvania.  I’m a state employee.

“…Well … who was this employer you were talking about?”

Pennsylvania.  Surely you’ve heard of this in the news.

“…Well …  I don’t …  I’m not sure that …  You see, that’s different.”

Oh?

“Yeah.”

How so?  I’m pretty sure labor laws apply to government employees just the same as private-sector employees.

“Well yes, technically they do, it’s just …  See, you’re getting into federal law here.  We don’t represent state employees.”

You don’t?  Why?

“Well, federal law, I mean … the paperwork is totally different.  We’d have to use new forms and everything.”

New forms?

“Yeah.  Whole different set of paperwork.”

Ok.  Your name was (redacted), was it?

“Yeppers.”

At that point I hung up.  The Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry won’t get involved because it’s a whole different set of forms.

I swear, sometimes it’s like I work for a bureaucracy.

There’s just one problem with that:

WE’RE NOT UNEMPLOYED!

We can not collect unemployment because we are still employed.  I’m not clear on which is worse; being laid off and collecting unemployment, or being forced to work without a paycheck.  Oh sure, we’ll get paid — but it will be somewhere between 1 and 52 weeks late.  I’m sure Honda, Sallie Mae, my mortgage company, and my credit card company will all understand.  And I’m positive Giant will be willing to just let me take whatever food I need and pay for it “later”.

Thanks, guys.  Big help.  Glad to see you’re on this.