ADT Security Service Online Bill Pay - Fail

So I receive this email today from ADT Security Services who I signed up with about two months ago for my home alarm system. The body of the email introduces the new ADT Online Bill Pay system, and contains an image of a suitably excited lady looking at her laptop and using her cellphone.

So already I am pretty interested to see what this is all about. I love managing my bills online, both for saving the environment, and the fact that I lose papers pretty easily.

I go ahead and click the button to pay my bill that takes me to the Secure login form.

So at first I am vexed by the fact that I never received a login. Maybe I need to register? That seems like a logical next step.

This is where my search for a "Register Account" link begins, which after a minute or two of searching is nowhere to be found.

So I click "Cancel", the only other option I have at this time.

Lo and behold, the exact same form reappears, but now with a line reading:

"Not signed up yet? Create and online account"

To whomever designed the user interface, why not have this on the first login screen? It would have saved me at least 2 minutes of my life I will never get back.

After clicking the Create Account I go through another form that looks pretty standard. The only problem comes when I need to choose a password.

The password complexity rules are:

"The password needs to contain alphabetical characters and numbers, be a minimum of 4 characters, and can not contain 2 repeating characters"

This rules out both my super secure passwords that are 10 characters in length. One contains special characters (not allowed) and the other has two repeating characters (also not allowed). I end up going with something I'l probably forget. And by the way, they don't send you your password in email when you forget it, they only allow you to reset it to something new (that you probably won't remember).

After registering I try to login with my new user and password. The first two times it takes me back to  the login screen, no errors or notifications. 3rd time lucky!! I'm in.

Now I am faced with the following screen. The kicker here is the phrase "Please do NOT use your browser's Back or Forward buttons with Pay My Bill"

Are you kidding? We need to change the way we have understood browsers for the last 20 years just so we can operate the online billing payment system?

Obviously throughout my ordeal it was not able to figure out who I was and which account I needed see within the portal. Could they not have asked this during registration, rather than have a special "Enroll an Account" button so late in the game?

Well I sure as hell did not get this far to give up now.

What I was faced with now was the straw that broke the camel's back. Read carefully on line 2 of this form.

"Please have your paper bill in hand to help guide you though the fields below".

Two issues with this:

1. "Through" is spelled incorrectly. Very sloppy!

2. I dont have a damn paper bill. That's the whole point of me going through all this!!

I gave up at this stage because now I have to pick up the phone to spend the next ten minutes getting to someone at ADT to help me find my account number so I can complete the form. It finally becomes clear why the good looking lady in the email had a cellphone to her ear!

Really ADT, in this day and age we would expect you to be able to handle a simple online billing portal.