Land of the free (to pay)

Don't trust this guy.

This week my anxiety generating problem has to do with the way utility companies do business in this part of the world. I always heard that American businesses are all customer centered, and that they treat the customer as king and whatnot, however this sounds like bullshit to me now that I am here. It seems that no company trusts their customers at all, especially the crappy utility companies, since they all demand very significant "security" deposits to start service with you. Moreover, since Americans still use very archaic banking practices (like paper cheques), by the time it is my turn to receive my deposit back, I will not even be in the country to cash the cheques they send me with the money I wasted on their deposits.

Any more blindly patriotic American reading this might get a fit for my rant, but I miss England so much, because for all people here like to criticize them, the British are, as Bertrand Russel once said, the only ones using common sense ever since it was invented by themselves. Actually John Locke is usually credited to have invented common sense in the 17th century, an Englishman, nonetheless.