I haven’t been posting because I’ve been pretty sick with some crud. And now I’m ROYALLY pissed off.
You may remember this post and this post, where I wrote about Duke Hospitals fucking up, and not billing me for three months and then turning my account over to a collection agency, so the first I heard about the charges was from a collection agency? Remember that? And then I called, and talked to someone there who realized it was their fuckup, and he promised to fix it by taking the account back from the collection agency so I’d get bills from Duke and have three months to pay like I was supposed to have gotten in the first place?
Guess what didn’t happen.
Yeah. So, today, as I’m leaving work I notice a missed call on my phone – I don’t recognize the number, but I don’t really think anything of it. When I get home, there’s a letter from the collection agency waiting for me, “graciously” giving me another month to settle up with them before they take “further, more serious collection activity.” Apparently Duke authorized them to extend me this “courtesy.” At the bottom of the letter it says, “The law does not require us to wait until the end of the thirty-day period before taking action to collect this debt.” That missed phone call from around lunch? Was from the fucking collection agency. And I got the letter today, and this shit shouldn’t even be at a collection agency. You guys are beyond assholes.
Here’s the thing – I am not at all disputing this charge, I have no problem paying it, it’s just that it’s just large enough that I cannot easily come up with it over the course of two paychecks, which is what I have between now and the end of the “courtesy month.” My dispute is that it never should have gone to the collection agency in the first place, and that after it did and I talked to Duke and they told me they’d handle it and not to worry about sending payments into the collection agency but to wait for the bill from Duke, they didn’t do what they said, and now I’ve still got this collection agency looming over me, and they’ve already started harrassing me about this. This is jacked up. This is beyond jacked up. I cannot convey to you with words how mad I am about this. I fucked up my credit as a freshman in college (I mean, it’s a common mistake), and I have been working hard ever since to get my credit score back to a good and respectable level. And I’ve done well, and it’s not great but it’s pretty good, so this shit really pisses me off. If I’d fucked up and not paid that bill for three months, that’s one thing, and yeah I deserve to get a gnarly note on my credit report. But the original mistake was not mine, and when I found out about it I tried to handle it as best as I could – I was even ready to pay the collection agency if it came to that, but damn Duke told me not to, since it was clearly their mistake, and to wait and pay them when their bill came. And then it didn’t, because they didn’t do what they told me they were going to do, and didn’t tell me they weren’t going to do it. Like, if they had just said, “Sucks to be you, pay the agency,” I would be mad as hell, but I’d probably have paid the agency. If they had just said, “Well, we can’t get the account back at this point, sorry, so you better go ahead and pay the agency, and we’ll see if they’ll extend the time you have to repay,” I would have said thanks and started paying the agency. But no. They said, “Don’t pay the agency – we’ll have them transfer the account back to us, and we’ll bill you, and you’ll have three months to pay your balance.” So I’ve been sitting and waiting for the Duke bill, and actually wondering if I needed to call them and make sure THAT bill actually got mailed out, or if it had gotten fucked up in the system like the original three bills. And now there’s no way I can pay the balance in full to the agency over the next two paychecks, unless I don’t pay some other bills or bounce some checks, and that’s right back to bad credit – and even if I pay the agency, won’t they still show up on my credit report, that the account had to go to them before I would pay?
So, now I’m mad as shit, and I’m going to call Duke up tomorrow and explain that I need to come over there and talk to someone in person about this, and if that doesn’t clear it up, I’m seriously considering talking to a lawyer (like I need that) because this is all just bullshit. The money isn’t the issue – it’s Duke dicking me around and mistreating me, like my credit doesn’t matter, and shit, it probably doesn’t because I don’t have enough money or clout to be a real concern of theirs, but they’ve pissed me off so much I’m damned if I’m just going to sit here and take this. God help them and the collection agency if anyone starts calling me at work. Oh hell no. I’ve dealt with collection agencies before – and when I was a freshman and actually owed people money, I put up it with it, put up with them calling my boss (when I was a student assistant) and telling them all my business so they could leave me a message and embarrass the shit out of me in the hopes that I’d be shamed into paying (which would have worked, had I had the money). But I’m older and wiser and not in the wrong this time and fucking pissed off. So that shit is not going to play.
On top of all that, I found some brass, printed up a new design to etch, and it occurred to me tonight that the brass plate might be too big for the etching vat I have – and, yes, it is. Son of a bitch. Not really a big problem, but it means that I’ll need to print up another image (because the image for the brass is too big for the copper blanks I have) and etch the copper. Now I meant to etch tonight, and be done etching tonight, so I could get some last few sewing supplies and finish the big project tomorrow night, and I’d have Friday, Saturday, Sunday night, and Monday night as a buffer in case I needed to tweak a little something at the last minute, before mailing off on Tuesday. When I realized the brass was too big, I thought, “Well, that sucks, but I’ll just etch some copper tomorrow night, and finish the large project Friday, and I’ll still have the weekend to tweak, tidy, and package shit, and mail it out Monday or Tuesday.” (Tuesday’s the deadline.) Now it looks like I’ll have to go to Duke in person tomorrow afternoon or Friday, so that’s going to cut into my crafting/etching plans, and that’s pissing me off, too.
Goddammit. Godmotherfuckingdammit.
