I mean, I did name my blog Daily Complaints and today’s aggravation is a real humdinger!

All day I have been suffering a feeling that I can only describe as “helpless rage” because, I am angry. Really really angry!  But I feel completely stuck in this holding pattern of “just wait” and it’s almost crippling.

This all started when I got my auto insurance renewal.  My live-in boyfriend and I have 4 cars between us, sparing all the backstory, I’m obligated to pay for the suburban [that I never wanted, but I shant digress!] The suburban that sits in the driveway clubbed and booted, only stretching it’s air filter on vacation’esque trips, or if we’re carpooling a stack of bodies to some holiday event or other.  In the three years I’ve owned it I have put a whopping total of 10K miles on it – and most of that was a single camping trip the length of the state.   

I open the insurance renewal to find that the premium has jumped $600!  Yea, no.  I’m not paying that.  I called the company and told them that the car has only gained 10K miles in 3 years, I work from home and seldom drive it, ending with a request for a review of options that might reduce the premium.  The guy was an ass.  A grumpy, snappy, miserable pos – and that’s what I said about him before I found that I could in fact level up my ability to be pissed off.  After a tweak here or there he reduced it by a whole $200.  Hardly worth the phone call, but I sent a message to beforementioned boyfriend that it was done and paid.  That’s how I remember the date that I processed payment, I have that text reference from May 10^th.

On May 16^th I got an email from my bank that read as follows: Payments sent to your insurance are typically sent electronically but this payment was sent as a check. Please make sure you have the money in your account to cover the payment.

I don’t know how normal people pay bills, I get paid once a month and once a month I sit on the bank bill pay app and I enter each payment with the date payment is due.  This way, I can’t forget, I can’t get distracted, but should some emergency arise – I still have a chance to reduce funds going out.  I know other people really use that due date to make ends meet, never paying anyone early and sometimes sneaking payments in late.  While I did experience a rush of blood to my internal panic station, I have the funds, it won’t be a problem.

But, as if I’d manifested the chaos myself, it is now a problem.  The check never arrived and my insurance was cancelled.  Today I went into the bank.  I printed a copy of the insurance showing “CANCELLED” with all the premium detail and due date.  I printed a copy of the email from the bank saying they were mailing the check.  I handed them to the teller and asked her to “fix this” She smirked and started to talk down to me, having been so irresponsible that I’d paid my bills late, but I cut her off and told her to READ the email I received from the bank.

She read it.  She re-read it.  I saw the confusion furrow her brow.  She then asked if I’d wait a moment while she ran it over to a suit and asked him to read it.  She came back and asked for my account information and my driver’s license.  She scurried back to the suit. Their faces barely visible over the computer screen, I stood there for 15 minutes while they whispered back and forth.  The teller returned and asked if I could wait longer while she phoned the bill pay department. 

So here we have a teller, the first face of customer service and she has absolutely no idea the polices of her employer, I’ll bet she banks somewhere else.  She practically skips back to the window and says “OK! So when you use bill pay there are three options..”  I held my hand up and said “NO! there are no options or excuses that include you paying my insurance late.”  All the joy left her face and, barely above a whisper, she said “there is nothing I can do” I managed to hold back the swears to this point and I replied “Oh but there is, you can close my account right now!”

Her jaw dropped, “But the check is still out there, if you close your account the check won’t clear”

They pulled the funds from my account, they wrote a check, but if I close my account, they will bounce that check?  This doesn’t really math out.

I tell her that her second option is to put a stop payment on the check and process the payment electronically, as I had originally scheduled.

She tells me if they put a stop payment on the check I have to pay for it.

My voice is getting shrill, that piercing tone of anger that no woman has any real control of and I say “You mean to tell me that you made this mistake, YOU are entirely responsible, but I must continue to waste MY time to try and fix it, but you are going to shoot down every possible solution?!”

She whispers again “There is nothing I can do”

I told her I will be back to close my account, making sure to release just one loud “BULLSHIT” on my way out the door.  Wish I’d been wearing stompy shoes.

An hour later the bank manager called me to get the details, he was pretty rude considering; but since he called I did ask him to get me the pay off balance for my loan as I will be closing all my accounts.  Probably not weird that he never called back.

If you’re wondering how I’m going to fix this, well I do have ‘someone’ looking over me because for the first time in the thirty years I’ve been with this insurance company I called and I got a person that was so happy, the rays of joy beamed through the phone. I said “I think it must be my lucky day, I’m stuck in the pits of this twilight zone style nightmare, and it sounds like I just met the exit!”  This guy was really amazing, changed some settings, did a little clicky click, took my credit card and charged me for one month.  “One month will reinstate your policy, keeping you covered in the event of an accident.  When we get that check, we will deposit it then credit back the over payment, easy peasy!” 

So now, we wait.  As soon as that check is cleared, like a running back headed for the – uhm – goal thingy..  I’m gonna trample everything that tries to get in my way!  I gotta get out of this bank because, who has time to babysit what they thought were payments made and done!

Fuck BMO!