Today, at about 2:30 p.m., I tooled around the web looking at medical insurance quotes following a conversation about priorities. I wanted to see if I could find a plan I could afford and which gave me the best deductible, coverage, etc. for a price I could afford monthly (answer = no plan exists). Most sites wanted my contact information before they would give me a quote, and since it is important I went ahead and put in my cell phone number and email, thinking I would probably get a few calls over the next few days or weeks from companies that had seen my inquiry.
Over the next few hours, I was called - wait for it - fourteen times. The poor first guy, who called from a local number, seemed kind enough, but the truth is I had been surfing those sites while communicating on my house phone to a tow truck company because my father had a flat tire somewhere near Columbus. (My father, being the old man he is, WOULD NOT go inside and get the actual adress of the gas station. He insisted on describing his whereabouts because he doesn't understand the drivers want to type an address into their GPSs and go. My mother had to go in and get the address when my mother arrived in my brother's van.)
Well, I answered the first guy's call because it was a local number, and my cell phone doesn't give names or businesses if it's a strange number, so I answered it hoping my mother hadn't gotten a flat or something on her way to help my father. The guy says, "Hi, this is Steve from _______ _________ Insurance, how are you?" And the poor guy, because I was just floored that he had called within five minutes of me looking at the website, now has no head because I shrieked, "This is a really bad time!" He seemed really apologetic and I didn't get to explain (because I didn't have time) but I just repeated that it was a bad time and said bye. I feel really bad for Steve because I'm sure his company makes him call people.
But maybe now, though I feel a little twinge of guilt, I don't feel so bad for Steve. Because thirteen calls later (which I gave up answering after the first few) I'm fuming. Fuming. I know, I know, I shouldn't have given them my phone number but I didn't expect fourteen calls within five or six hours. I only visited two websites, but they were the kind that compare quotes between companies so they probably gave my information to every one of those companies. One company, during the time I was on the phone to my mom because of the flat, called, I didn't pick up, the phone stopped ringing, then ten seconds later that same company called again. I couldn't pick up and I was so, so, so pissed.
I keep wondering: How many times do these customer service people go through this, where they call someone immediately after receiving information that the person has visited the website and had said person tell them they were, like, the tenth call in an hour? Why wouldn't they give the person a few days or a week or so? When I was venting to my dad, he reminded me they were trying to secure my business before any other company was able to. Yes, I'm aware, but trust me, harrassing me is sooooo not the way to do it.
June 21, 2011
June 14, 2011
Urban Fantasy
I had never heard of this genre of writing before, but it perfectly encapsulates the kind of writing I have always loved. While I enjoy fantasy here and there, knights and elves and witches and the like, I've really really always enjoyed books where our modern world and fantastic phenomena coexist. It's why I love magical realism.
A book Amazon recommended to me, Switched, by Amanda Hocking, is described as this kind of "urban fantasy." I LOVE this term. It is perfect for the kind of writing my favorite authors write. I would even put Harry Potter in this category because it is set in the modern world but deals with fantastic events. LOVE. Harry Potter most likely spawned this genre, or at least was the breakout star of it.
I'm excited to be able to tell people what I write when the ask, because they always stare blankly at me when I say magical realism and they roll their eyes when I say fantasy. "Urban fantasy" might at least get their attention.
A book Amazon recommended to me, Switched, by Amanda Hocking, is described as this kind of "urban fantasy." I LOVE this term. It is perfect for the kind of writing my favorite authors write. I would even put Harry Potter in this category because it is set in the modern world but deals with fantastic events. LOVE. Harry Potter most likely spawned this genre, or at least was the breakout star of it.
I'm excited to be able to tell people what I write when the ask, because they always stare blankly at me when I say magical realism and they roll their eyes when I say fantasy. "Urban fantasy" might at least get their attention.
June 12, 2011
For the people who keep trying to make me a social butterfly...I'm Emily Dickinson minus the suicide at 29.
I love my friends. In particular there are about four people whom I want to talk to on a regular basis (NGS, SM, CC, and WR). There are others whom I love and like to get together with here and there (CE). I love my family and am glad there's a way for me to contact my cousins and relatives if necessary. Facebook has its ups.
But for me, there are too many downs. I just opened my email account that I rarely use (but it's the one associated with Facebook) and found that on my birthday - in April, which should tell you how often I check that email - I had about twenty notifications saying people had wished me a happy birthday. I felt ashamed and quite bitchy that I hadn't gone on Facebook to thank them and that I hadn't noticed until more than a month later.
But Facebook scares me. What happens, and I think this happens to a lot of people, is you find friends you had long ago or acquaintances who were nice and you friend them or they request you and you accept. At first it's your best friends and some really good friends. Next it's a lot of people you went to high school with. Then it's members of your family (who are loveable and just want to keep in touch). Then it's the brother of your coworker, whom you met once. Then it's the creepy guy who knows your birthday even though you made it clear to him you didn't want to kiss him after that movie and even though he promises you will just be friends. Then a friend from high school starts sending you invitations to join Facebook clubs (five a friggin' day!), then it's please send me a goat for my farm, then it's just too much.
I missed three or so people requesting I "friend" them. One was my cousin's wife, one was an old friend, one name I didn't recognize. I know the advice I would get from the Facebook veterans: defriend the people you don't really want or give some kind of higher security to some people - that's possible right? But I feel like a total bitch because, you know, most of these people like me and just want a way to keep in touch.
And I don't think it would matter: I wouldn't keep up on my page. I...don't like socialization like that. I...don't want to "keep up appearances." I want a phone call from NGS to keep up on her world and an email from SM to see how she's doing and hilarious cartoons forwarded to me from CC. I want to do lunch with WR twice a year. I want to have a drink with CE every few months. And...that's it. Well, I want enough money to actually visit NGS for once.
What I'll probably do, tomorrow, is pop onto Facebook and apologize for being gone so long. I'll probably explain that websites like that just aren't my cup of tea, but I'll check on it like once a month. I'll reply to a few people, thank them for their birthday messages, friend my cousin's wife, and...exit stage left. For a month...or...so.
I love my friends. In particular there are about four people whom I want to talk to on a regular basis (NGS, SM, CC, and WR). There are others whom I love and like to get together with here and there (CE). I love my family and am glad there's a way for me to contact my cousins and relatives if necessary. Facebook has its ups.
But for me, there are too many downs. I just opened my email account that I rarely use (but it's the one associated with Facebook) and found that on my birthday - in April, which should tell you how often I check that email - I had about twenty notifications saying people had wished me a happy birthday. I felt ashamed and quite bitchy that I hadn't gone on Facebook to thank them and that I hadn't noticed until more than a month later.
But Facebook scares me. What happens, and I think this happens to a lot of people, is you find friends you had long ago or acquaintances who were nice and you friend them or they request you and you accept. At first it's your best friends and some really good friends. Next it's a lot of people you went to high school with. Then it's members of your family (who are loveable and just want to keep in touch). Then it's the brother of your coworker, whom you met once. Then it's the creepy guy who knows your birthday even though you made it clear to him you didn't want to kiss him after that movie and even though he promises you will just be friends. Then a friend from high school starts sending you invitations to join Facebook clubs (five a friggin' day!), then it's please send me a goat for my farm, then it's just too much.
I missed three or so people requesting I "friend" them. One was my cousin's wife, one was an old friend, one name I didn't recognize. I know the advice I would get from the Facebook veterans: defriend the people you don't really want or give some kind of higher security to some people - that's possible right? But I feel like a total bitch because, you know, most of these people like me and just want a way to keep in touch.
And I don't think it would matter: I wouldn't keep up on my page. I...don't like socialization like that. I...don't want to "keep up appearances." I want a phone call from NGS to keep up on her world and an email from SM to see how she's doing and hilarious cartoons forwarded to me from CC. I want to do lunch with WR twice a year. I want to have a drink with CE every few months. And...that's it. Well, I want enough money to actually visit NGS for once.
What I'll probably do, tomorrow, is pop onto Facebook and apologize for being gone so long. I'll probably explain that websites like that just aren't my cup of tea, but I'll check on it like once a month. I'll reply to a few people, thank them for their birthday messages, friend my cousin's wife, and...exit stage left. For a month...or...so.
June 2, 2011
Debt
Not too long ago my mother received a letter telling her she owed money to a credit card company. Let me make this clear: my mother has never had a credit card. Ever. She hasn't had credit good enough to be approved since she filed for bankruptcy in 1986 following my sister's motorcycle accident. My mother has so many bounced checks from the late 80s and early 90s she can't even get a checking account. Furthermore, the letter claimed she lived at an address in 2002 that she hadn't lived in since 1997. My mother called these people. I happened to walk into the house from work while she was on the phone with them and heard her arguing with them.
Me: "Hang up the phone, right now."
Her, to them: "I've never heard of this credit card."
Me: "You can't reason with them. You're just giving them what they want. Hang up."
Her: I didn't even live there in 2002."
Me: "Hang up. Now."
Anyway, eventually she hung up. BUT, not before confirming her social security number to them. Horrified, I tried to explain to her that they were probably fishing for information so they could use her social security number. At this point she blows up at me, telling me she's tired of having to deal with these stupid companies. She thought it was terrible OF ME to interrupt her on the phone. I took the letter from her and searched for the "collection agency" on the internet and found out they had received an "F" from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). I told her this information and told her to call her attorney. She sent them a copy of the letter and we're still waiting to hear back from them.
Since that day, my parents have begun to receive a slew of fraudulent letters. A few days ago my father was sent a $1900 check because he had been chosen to be a secret shopper. Sensing something dodgy, I decided to look this company up on the BBB as well. No listing. I looked for a webpage about them. Nothing. I put directions to the address on their letterhead into mapquest and the address doesn't exist. I told my father that and told him he should report this letter to someone, such as the BBB. I told him he should ask them what to do with the check and he said he didn't have time to worry about it and he would just throw it away. When I asked him if he had applied to be a secret shopper (the letter thanked him for his application), he said no, he hadn't applied for anything. He had no idea where they had found his name.
We're getting phone calls now from a lot of anonymous, private, or "unknown name, unknown numbers" who call ten times a day and who claim to be collecting debts my mother has never heard of. She wants me to just get a different phone number (the number is in my name), but that's not going to stop this. Now, I'm not going to pretend I don't have a few debts (not as many as I once did - I paid off all of my credit cards but one and now I'm working on some medical bills and that credit card). But I can't make my mother see that when we begin getting letters from fraudulent companies, running from it isn't a viable option (it's never a viable option). She needs to report these phone numbers and these letters to someone - such as her attorney.
Sometimes it's hard to know what to do. The one credit card I still have a debt to gave me a pretty bad run around and outright lied to me. The worst part was I would get phone calls from two completely separate companies about the same account. When I would say, "You just called me yesterday and I've already made my payment," the caller would say, "We didn't call you yesterday." When I would argue or when I would offer the phone number that had called me the previous day they would just say it wasn't their problem. I would ask if it showed that I had made a payment and they would say "Yes, but we don't know anything about a phone call." I would read the phone number to them and they would claim they had never heard of that phone number. I began to distrust this company. One month when I had gone over the limit I called them to ask how much I would need to pay to get my account under the limit and not have to make another payment until the next month. They gave me an amount. I asked, again, if that was the amount I needed to get under the limit and not have to make another payment until the next month and was told, oh, no you'll have to make another payment after this one because you'll just go over the limit again. I became so angry they sent me to a supervisor, who told me they had closed my account the month before. When I spoke to a third person, they told me they had actually closed my account in April - even though I hadn't missed a payment. I had been over the limit for two months (even though every month I would pay more than the minimum payment). They closed my account even though I was always paying more than the minimum. When I called them out on this they told me they can actually close my account for any purpose without warning. Which is certainly what they did to me, because they closed my account in April and I wasn't aware of it until July.
Anyway, I feel overwhelmed because I'm trying really hard to pay my legitimate debts. I can't pay them all at once, so I'm working on each one as much as I can. It means I do have to ignore some while I work on others. I hate admitting that. Right now, I'm focusing on the medical bills mainly because they're fairly small and I think I can get them out of the way quickly. I worry about what others think about me. I know a majority of Americans have some kind of debt and I know I'm not alone, but when you talk to collection agencies they tend to treat you like you're the scum of the Earth because you owe money and can't just pay it all at once. I had one tell me that if I had a job I had the money to pay the debt. When I disputed that idea, reminding her that a part-time job isn't much money, she said paying this debt (the medical bill) should be my first priority, and that it was just as important as rent or food. I laughed out loud and said, no, it isn't. I'm sorry, but it just isn't. I offered to pay $10 a month just so I could be paying something and she said that wasn't acceptable. I told her that was all I had and she asked me if that meant I was refusing to pay this debt, and I had no option but to say, "If that's the way you want to look at it."
Now that a lot of my other debt has gone away, I can focus on paying more than $10 a month to that medical bill. My biggest worry right now is how to weed out the legit companies from the fraudulent ones. I now have two companies, yet again, calling me about the credit card from the extremely long paragraph earlier in this post. I have to wonder if I'll be paying that debt twice. Neither company has sent me a letter (and under the Fair Debt Collections Act they are required to do so). They just call, ten times a day, and I've started to ignore them because I don't know who to talk to. I've gone through a consolidation company once, so I've begun looking into another one, this time one that will sit down to counselling sessions and actually help me. I feel frustrated and also like some kind of failure or some kind of rat hiding in some kind of sewer. Am I a horrible person because I'm trying to do what I can with what I have? I know I created this problem. I try to convince myself that at least I'm doing something to fix it.
Me: "Hang up the phone, right now."
Her, to them: "I've never heard of this credit card."
Me: "You can't reason with them. You're just giving them what they want. Hang up."
Her: I didn't even live there in 2002."
Me: "Hang up. Now."
Anyway, eventually she hung up. BUT, not before confirming her social security number to them. Horrified, I tried to explain to her that they were probably fishing for information so they could use her social security number. At this point she blows up at me, telling me she's tired of having to deal with these stupid companies. She thought it was terrible OF ME to interrupt her on the phone. I took the letter from her and searched for the "collection agency" on the internet and found out they had received an "F" from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). I told her this information and told her to call her attorney. She sent them a copy of the letter and we're still waiting to hear back from them.
Since that day, my parents have begun to receive a slew of fraudulent letters. A few days ago my father was sent a $1900 check because he had been chosen to be a secret shopper. Sensing something dodgy, I decided to look this company up on the BBB as well. No listing. I looked for a webpage about them. Nothing. I put directions to the address on their letterhead into mapquest and the address doesn't exist. I told my father that and told him he should report this letter to someone, such as the BBB. I told him he should ask them what to do with the check and he said he didn't have time to worry about it and he would just throw it away. When I asked him if he had applied to be a secret shopper (the letter thanked him for his application), he said no, he hadn't applied for anything. He had no idea where they had found his name.
We're getting phone calls now from a lot of anonymous, private, or "unknown name, unknown numbers" who call ten times a day and who claim to be collecting debts my mother has never heard of. She wants me to just get a different phone number (the number is in my name), but that's not going to stop this. Now, I'm not going to pretend I don't have a few debts (not as many as I once did - I paid off all of my credit cards but one and now I'm working on some medical bills and that credit card). But I can't make my mother see that when we begin getting letters from fraudulent companies, running from it isn't a viable option (it's never a viable option). She needs to report these phone numbers and these letters to someone - such as her attorney.
Sometimes it's hard to know what to do. The one credit card I still have a debt to gave me a pretty bad run around and outright lied to me. The worst part was I would get phone calls from two completely separate companies about the same account. When I would say, "You just called me yesterday and I've already made my payment," the caller would say, "We didn't call you yesterday." When I would argue or when I would offer the phone number that had called me the previous day they would just say it wasn't their problem. I would ask if it showed that I had made a payment and they would say "Yes, but we don't know anything about a phone call." I would read the phone number to them and they would claim they had never heard of that phone number. I began to distrust this company. One month when I had gone over the limit I called them to ask how much I would need to pay to get my account under the limit and not have to make another payment until the next month. They gave me an amount. I asked, again, if that was the amount I needed to get under the limit and not have to make another payment until the next month and was told, oh, no you'll have to make another payment after this one because you'll just go over the limit again. I became so angry they sent me to a supervisor, who told me they had closed my account the month before. When I spoke to a third person, they told me they had actually closed my account in April - even though I hadn't missed a payment. I had been over the limit for two months (even though every month I would pay more than the minimum payment). They closed my account even though I was always paying more than the minimum. When I called them out on this they told me they can actually close my account for any purpose without warning. Which is certainly what they did to me, because they closed my account in April and I wasn't aware of it until July.
Anyway, I feel overwhelmed because I'm trying really hard to pay my legitimate debts. I can't pay them all at once, so I'm working on each one as much as I can. It means I do have to ignore some while I work on others. I hate admitting that. Right now, I'm focusing on the medical bills mainly because they're fairly small and I think I can get them out of the way quickly. I worry about what others think about me. I know a majority of Americans have some kind of debt and I know I'm not alone, but when you talk to collection agencies they tend to treat you like you're the scum of the Earth because you owe money and can't just pay it all at once. I had one tell me that if I had a job I had the money to pay the debt. When I disputed that idea, reminding her that a part-time job isn't much money, she said paying this debt (the medical bill) should be my first priority, and that it was just as important as rent or food. I laughed out loud and said, no, it isn't. I'm sorry, but it just isn't. I offered to pay $10 a month just so I could be paying something and she said that wasn't acceptable. I told her that was all I had and she asked me if that meant I was refusing to pay this debt, and I had no option but to say, "If that's the way you want to look at it."
Now that a lot of my other debt has gone away, I can focus on paying more than $10 a month to that medical bill. My biggest worry right now is how to weed out the legit companies from the fraudulent ones. I now have two companies, yet again, calling me about the credit card from the extremely long paragraph earlier in this post. I have to wonder if I'll be paying that debt twice. Neither company has sent me a letter (and under the Fair Debt Collections Act they are required to do so). They just call, ten times a day, and I've started to ignore them because I don't know who to talk to. I've gone through a consolidation company once, so I've begun looking into another one, this time one that will sit down to counselling sessions and actually help me. I feel frustrated and also like some kind of failure or some kind of rat hiding in some kind of sewer. Am I a horrible person because I'm trying to do what I can with what I have? I know I created this problem. I try to convince myself that at least I'm doing something to fix it.
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