Storytime,
So, I had this company that I owed money to when I moved from Colorado to Oregon. I did not know I owed this company money. I thought I had paid all my bills when and before I left. After being here for a few months I got a bill for over $1000.00 I probably looked like one of those cartoon characters with my eyes bugging out of my head! I was shocked. Visions of my credit score dropping so low I couldn't reach it etc... So, I took my own advice and did not ignore the debt! I called the guy...he was always pretty workable in the past and I figured what do I have to lose?...nothing. Upon my first phone call to him I told him that I thought I had paid off all my debts in Colorado and that I had not received a bill from them in over a year. He understood and informed me that this particular bill had been getting returned to them. I do wonder how they finally got my new address though. Hmmm???
Anyway, I asked him for an accounting of my account to show exactly what they had on record. This bought me a little more time. You see he gave me some information too...he let me know that his former secretary who was responsible for taking care of these bills had been fired. He let slip a few reasons which pointed to misappropriation of funds and overall doing a bad job of linking accounts to payments. This gave me a little wiggle room, in other words I was not completely at fault here!!! He also explained that the company was coming up on the time where they send overdue accounts to collections. OUCH!! Everything in my financial being yelled NO!!!! But I digress; so after reviewing the accounting of record that he had sent to me I noticed that first and foremost was a monthly finance charge to the tune of $172.00 total to date! So, I put that figure together, wrote it down on my notes to bring up at our next phone conversation. Then as I went through the bill I also noticed that there were two months worth of bills that I had record of being paid that they did not. Unfortunately for me I belonged to a bank that did not send you copies of your checks. The only proof I had that it had been paid was my constant habit of keeping my paid bills together monthly and writing down on the face of each bill how much was paid and when it was paid. Not to mention the fact that the stub was missing from the bill, which led me to believe I had paid that portion. The end result was that a bill that started out as over $1000.00 was now argued down to $648.00. A much more manageable number than the previous one. We came to an agreement that I would pay $50.00 a month. For him that meant it would be paid off in a years time and for me that meant I was keeping my word.
Lastly, I feel I need to mention here before I forget that there are some habits that seem to be helping me greatly. The aforementioned habit of writing things on my bills as I pay them and keeping them together monthly, but also making a quarterly budget! By following my budget I managed to pay off four small bills that had been haunting me. I sent some of them $5.00 a month! Bottom line is they got paid! I actually got a letter from one of those companies when the bill was down to $8.40 saying they were from a collection agency and the client had hired them. I had record of the bill being paid! I called the collection agency and they confirmed that the company called it in paid! Then I followed up with the company and found out that some but not all of them had the payment on record! We got it straightened out...the point is this...do the follow up! If you think a bill is paid in full...call them and find out! I didn't do that with the previous companies but I will add this to my list of good financial habits to get into!
I hope this story helps someone along the way to speak up, and follow through for their own financial good!
TTFN
LadyAlamo
No comments:
Post a Comment