The Windstream Disconnect

2008-07-21

Here's a surprising non-WTF. I worked at the bursar's office at my university. Every semester, all outstanding student bills less than a dollar were just set to zero. This policy wasn't published anywhere, presumably to prevent students from cheating the school out of $12 or so.

Still, that's totally how these things should be run. Who really cares if you're $1 short on your $10,000 bill?

snoofle · 2008-07-21

fanguad:
Who really cares if you're $1 short on your $10,000 bill?

Chase Manhattan.

When I was in school, I had student loans totalling about $10K (thirty years ago). After working for a while, I decided to just pay it off. I called them and asked for the pay-off amount. They sent me a letter saying the amount was $xxx if paid by [date]. I sent in a check for that amount. Apparently, due to a round off error in their calculations, my balance was $0.01, which after several months of dunning me, they put in for collection.

They refused to correct their data and wouldn't accept their own correspondance as proof of what they told me, so I sued them. Does their lawyer even call me before going to court? Of course not.

We get in front of the judge and he asks me why I hadn't tried to work this out. I show him a 3 inch thick stack of correspondance (long before email) attesting to the fact that I had. I also stated that their lawyer never even tried to contact me. The judge ripped the Chase lawyer a new one and ordered him to get it fixed. The lawyer asks for my name and number (um, look at the summons) and says I'll be called in 3 days.

Three days later, some VP of Fuck-ups at Chase calls and tells me that he is assigned to track down and work through my problem. Three months later, I told him I would no longer take his calls, and if it wasn't removed from my credit report, that I was going to sue him and the then CEO of Chase personally. It disappeared the next month, and I never heard from them again.

I know it was only for one cent, but they pissed me off so much that it was the principal of the thing.

Ya gotta love corporations and the drones that work for their billing departments.

2008-07-22

Huh. Many years ago, I was visiting the US when my wife required emergency treatment. Although she did not use the services of an anesthetist, she was billed for his services.

I wrote the hospital concerned numerous times over a period of some 18 months from my home in SA. Nobody ever responded.

Finally, I wrote this:

"Enclosed is payment for services rendered." and sent the mail. I received a reply a couple of weeks later, saying "You forgot to enclose the check."

I wrote back: "I said 'I enclose payment for services rendered.' The payment was nothing because there were no services."

I never heard from them again.

So it is possible to make a payment of nothing.

If I'd thought about it at the time, a check for zero bucks would have been a real hoot! <g> I bet they would have processed it!

PSWorx · 2008-07-22

Bob N Freely:
After arguing with him for a while about why I would be paying for my parents' phone bill, and why I would fake different handwriting to do it, he finally agreed to contact my parents and confirm that it was okay to remove the payment from their account and apply it to mine. I don't think he ever called them, probably because he was too afraid of admitting a mistake, but he did credit my account.

... which is of course much easier than, you know, just paying again and asking your parents to give you the money back.

I agree, company bureaucracy makes for some really impressing WTFs, but this one seems self-made to me. The employee who wrote the number probably did its best to "save the ticket", so the company wouldn't need to transfer the money back to you and cause even more paperwork for everyone.

2008-07-22

"Ya gotta love corporations and the drones that work for their billing departments."

The first few years I was out of college, I wasn't landing the greatest jobs. In fact, it was a common occurrence to be without electricity for 3 or 4 days every month while I waited for the paycheck that would allow me to pay my bill. Needless to say, my student loan payments got put on the back burner WAY more often than they should.

So, one day I get a phone call from a real hardass collection agent, informing me that the entire $30,000 plus balance of my loan was due immediately, and would I like to do a "check by phone".

Trying to hold back my laughter at his belief that some young punk like me who had trouble paying a $60 electric bill could just go ahead and write a check for 30 grand on the spot, I informed him that it wouldn't be possible, I simply didn't have the money.

Having been trained to never give up, he offered to let me post date the check (as if that was going to do any good). I said "Sure, but I'll need to date it for about 10 years from now".

The WTF? He agreed to it.

I didn't go through with it, and did eventually get my student loans handled in a reasonable way, but it just goes to show you the stupidity that collection agents will display to get one more "paid" item on their daily stats.

The Windstream Disconnect

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