Reasons I don't like thinking about financial things

[fgnord]

If you give billing people your wrong address by mistake, it can cause problems. Especially if you're like me, and you don't really pay attention to such things - you just pay each bill as it comes in. I always would have thought that if the bills were constantly being returned by the mailman to the sender, they would try calling me by phone or

Comments

[robini]

I suppose maybe people actively TRY to avoid bills by putting the wrong address sometimes, and the places themselves are tired of dealing with it

[fgnord]

Lame. I didn't know blockbuster had that kind of power. Guess I'll have to be more careful with my rentals in the future.

As for the address, it definitely was my fault: I was must have been partially brain dead because I gave them my old street+new city address. In that sense I am responsible. On the other hand, they definitely had my phone number - they gave it to the collection person after all - so if someone had just taken a couple of minutes to call me up instead of assuming I was a crook, they would have been paid faster, they wouldn't have had to waste $ on the collection company, my credit rating would be intact, and we'd all have avoided a lot of hassle.

[serpent_star]

Unfortunately, even if you don't get a bill you're still responsible for paying every month, which is really shitty for the consumer, in my opinion. If it's their fault you didn't get your bills, there may be more of a chance you can work something out with them, but if they've already turned it over to collections that seems less likely. One would think that, like everyone else in this country, companies collecting payments have a responsibility to mitigate their damages by attempting to notify the customer if a payment is missed or inaccurate (you wouldn't lend hundreds of dollars to someone, not ask them to repay you, then sick a collection agency on them or take them to court). They may have a lot of mistakes in their accounting and/or database but aren't aware of them or are not encouraged by the higher-ups to correct them. (And yes, it is unfortunate that they are not held to the same standards of numerical accuracy that consumers are.) But if you ever *don't* receive a bill one month, you should call them and see what happened

[fgnord]

No problem with the rant: I give into the temptation myself quite often. Yeah, this is a health insurance issue rather than a credit card one, so it's just a one time payment. Honestly, this is small on the scale of the mistakes and deceit I've had to deal with from the health insurance industry

[serpent_star]

That's terrible. Yeah, privatized insurance so far is both incompetent and greedy. I had the worst time EVER getting any coverage at all, and now I pay over $200 per month. There comes a point where you reach the end of your rope and you've got to keep calling them on everything that doesn't make sense.