Whiny

[valis2]

I'm back, and I'm waaay angry.

I have six credit cards, each with their own balance, from when I started the business. I've been working on them slowly for years. Well, last month I decided I would do a balance transfer to consolidate two of them together for a better interest rate. Card #1 has a 29.99% interest rate. Card #2 has a 13.99% interest rate, and balance transfer checks for a 5.99% rate. So I've been waiting for #2 to send me the monthly bill so I could pay it off. (I'm never late on my payments (maybe once in the last five years), and generally keep them all in the same place so I can pay them as they come in.)

I come home today, completely strung out from the road (yes, you're right about that, Bob Seger), totally worn out after 28 hours of driving, and with an appointment early tomorrow morning, and then four days of day job. I find the monthly bill for card #1. Yay! I shall transfer your balance, and never shall you bother my mailbox again! But wait...what's this? "Turned over to collection agency"? WHY?!!

Sure enough, I look through last month's checks, and realize that I never received a bill. (Yes, I do understand that it is my fault, it's their courtesy to provide a bill.) BUT WHO TURNS IT OVER TO A COLLECTION AGENCY FOR ONE MISSED FUCKING PAYMENT?!!!!!

So I find the balance transfer checks. They've expired YESTERDAY. I decide to do an electronic transfer over the phone. I call, and end up speaking to a service rep who is very difficult to hear and understand. I have some hearing damage, and I'm trying desperately to understand her, and I keep asking her to repeat herself, but it's no use. I can only make out every third word, and she's saying that an electronic transfer will take 7-10 days, and some other stuff that I just can't make out about lower interests and higher interests.

WTF?! When I send a check, it takes 3 days to get there and be cashed. It's going to take TEN days electronically?! I start to get very stressed out, and finally tell her to mail me some new balance transfer checks. She says something about connecting me and then HANGS UP ON ME.

@#$:OIU*(P%O:ITYPIOERHG:KLWRTHPO@#UI%Y!@OY$@@!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to go to bed NOW before I smash something. Seriously. I'm sleep-deprived, stressed, and completely going crazy that my credit is going to be affected by this jackass company.

Comments

[cactus-wren.livejournal.com]

WTF? Turned over after one late payment? I'd call them up and bitch. Well, start out nice, then bitch if you are getting nowhere - catch more flies with honey and all that shit.

My CC company just tacks on a late fee the second you are late, not off to collections. Granted, they are mega-quick to stick that late fee in there (only happened once or twice, and I usually got it reversed with a phone call), but the lateness is my fault.
Definitely pay that card off and close the account. And do everything mysduende said, cause it sounds like she/he really knows his/her stuff.

I once had a hospital send me to collections for a missed/late payment. I called and told them I had sent the check a couple weeks earlier (and I *had* in fact sent it), but they said too bad, we didn't get it, it's late and you're off to collections - unless I wanted to pay them in full right then on the phone. I told her she could piss off, I'd deal with collections, then the hospital wouldn't get all the money and I'd get my petty revenge. ..... Four months later the check was cashed, and I received a check from the hospital for overpaying them. Asshats.

[cactus-wren.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I hope tomorrow is a better day and you get it all worked out. *hugs*

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I've had a missed payment once or twice before (and one time I accidentally switched checks, that was oodles of fun), but I've never had a reaction like this. It's insane. I'm still hot under the collar about it.

(mysduende's advice is excellent, btw, and is advice I've read before in articles about getting rid of debt, but some of the avenues she mentions aren't open to me, unfortunately.)

That's a crazy story about the hospital. It took them over four months to cash a check? Ugh.

I've sent in what was suggested on the bill, and requested new balance transfer checks. We'll see what happens.