HBO Max software managed to take two payments from me last night, or twice what anyone would want to pay. They won’t actually take the money until June 5th, but right now they have two signups from me at $14.99 a pop.

My apparent mistake was signing in on an HBO Max iPhone app. I created a username and a password, and gave them my secondary bank account info. I started searching around, and was soon sold on the idea of watching David Lean‘s Summertime.

So I went to the HBO Max app on the 65-inch Sony HDR and tried to sign in. It didn’t recognize me. Tried again…nyet. Third time…same. Then it prompted me to sign in with my Apple username and password. Huh?

I gradually realized that HBO Max was using previous sign-in information that I’d supplied for HBO Now, which I’d abandoned several months ago. Until recently not that many people knew that HBO Max was a direct permutation of HBO Now with the same $14.99 per month fee. User-wise, the HBO Now app had simply switched its identity to HBO Max.

In any event I was infuriated that the system had failed to understand or recognize that I’d just signed up on my phone. If my HBO Max username, password and bank info was in the system, it should be in the system from any device and in any corner of the world. But no dice…thanks, guys!

So in order to watch Katharine Hepburn do her spinster-in-Venice I signed up a second time with my Apple ID, which is linked to another bank account and which is used for Apple music purchases.

I’ll eventually figure this out, of course. It’s just a matter of cancelling one of the sign-ups, but why the hell didn’t HBO Max recognize me when I tried to access content via the TV app? I think I hate these guys.