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robotech_masterWell, this week I received a letter that mildly startled me...something from the hospital, saying that they were going to sic a collection agency on me. This was news to me, since as far as I knew, the debt consolidation agency I was using was taking care of it. So I called the hospital to find out what was up.
They told me that they didn't work with debt consolidation agencies. And they told me that they had on record me talking to them several months ago in regard to payment arrangements, that when I said I was going to go to such an agency, they said they would "continue their normal collection procedures" and I said I understood this. The thing is, what I understood this to mean is that they were going to keep billing me until the agency got in touch with them. They certainly didn't come right out and say they didn't work with those agencies, which would have saved us both a lot of time and trouble; in fact, my probably-faulty memory suggests that they approved of me doing such a thing. What's more, I didn't get any indication from the consolidation agency that the hospital had turned them down—after having sent in two months' worth of payment, including $50 in consolidation-agency fees—until I called them that morning to find out why I'd gotten the letter.
So, I'll be cancelling the program and trying to make other payment arrangements with the hospital; the only reason I didn't make such arrangements to begin with was that they led me to believe the lowest-cost repayment offer they offered was still on the order of $200 a month, which I couldn't afford...but when I talked to the hospital, they said they could send me a financial evaluation form to fill out to determine if I could make some sort of lower-cost arrangement. Grumble.
In slightly better news, I finally got around to doing my state taxes this year. I'd not done them earlier (at the same time as my Federal) because I couldn't find the state module for the tax software I was using, and I had never gotten much back from the state in the past anyway. (Last year, they owed me $8, which wasn't worth paying $13 to e-file...so I intended to print it out and send it in, but didn't get around to doing that until, well, this weekend. Good thing there's no penalty for filing late if you're due a refund.) To my surprise, this year I get back $231 (less the e-filing fee) from Missouri. That will certainly come in handy.
The other day, I got a card with a little "1 year" pin on it, rewarding me for my year of service with the phone company. It's a nice enough little geegaw, but the card made me wax wry: it was one of those form letter things, and the last paragraph mentioned as how they hoped to share many more anniversaries of employment with me. Yeah, right. Must not be hoping too hard, or they wouldn't have laid me off. My supervisor, who has 12 years of service, was able to top that, though—for his anniversary, he received a mousepad with "It wouldn't be the same without you!" on it.
Got the inkjet printer I bought in Kansas City set up and working with my Windows machine. It sure does print nicely. I did some address labels today, to rescue myself from the drudgery of scrawling my name and address on any mail I should happen to send. Also got some iron-on transfers and t-shirts from Kmart to play with...and went down to the local Kinko's to get an image transferred onto a T-shirt—the cover artwork from John Ringo's recent novel There Will Be Dragons. I got it put on as large as they would do it—11"x17"—and it looks great. I plan to wear it to ConQuest next month.
That's about all from here for now.
They told me that they didn't work with debt consolidation agencies. And they told me that they had on record me talking to them several months ago in regard to payment arrangements, that when I said I was going to go to such an agency, they said they would "continue their normal collection procedures" and I said I understood this. The thing is, what I understood this to mean is that they were going to keep billing me until the agency got in touch with them. They certainly didn't come right out and say they didn't work with those agencies, which would have saved us both a lot of time and trouble; in fact, my probably-faulty memory suggests that they approved of me doing such a thing. What's more, I didn't get any indication from the consolidation agency that the hospital had turned them down—after having sent in two months' worth of payment, including $50 in consolidation-agency fees—until I called them that morning to find out why I'd gotten the letter.
So, I'll be cancelling the program and trying to make other payment arrangements with the hospital; the only reason I didn't make such arrangements to begin with was that they led me to believe the lowest-cost repayment offer they offered was still on the order of $200 a month, which I couldn't afford...but when I talked to the hospital, they said they could send me a financial evaluation form to fill out to determine if I could make some sort of lower-cost arrangement. Grumble.
In slightly better news, I finally got around to doing my state taxes this year. I'd not done them earlier (at the same time as my Federal) because I couldn't find the state module for the tax software I was using, and I had never gotten much back from the state in the past anyway. (Last year, they owed me $8, which wasn't worth paying $13 to e-file...so I intended to print it out and send it in, but didn't get around to doing that until, well, this weekend. Good thing there's no penalty for filing late if you're due a refund.) To my surprise, this year I get back $231 (less the e-filing fee) from Missouri. That will certainly come in handy.
The other day, I got a card with a little "1 year" pin on it, rewarding me for my year of service with the phone company. It's a nice enough little geegaw, but the card made me wax wry: it was one of those form letter things, and the last paragraph mentioned as how they hoped to share many more anniversaries of employment with me. Yeah, right. Must not be hoping too hard, or they wouldn't have laid me off. My supervisor, who has 12 years of service, was able to top that, though—for his anniversary, he received a mousepad with "It wouldn't be the same without you!" on it.
Got the inkjet printer I bought in Kansas City set up and working with my Windows machine. It sure does print nicely. I did some address labels today, to rescue myself from the drudgery of scrawling my name and address on any mail I should happen to send. Also got some iron-on transfers and t-shirts from Kmart to play with...and went down to the local Kinko's to get an image transferred onto a T-shirt—the cover artwork from John Ringo's recent novel There Will Be Dragons. I got it put on as large as they would do it—11"x17"—and it looks great. I plan to wear it to ConQuest next month.
That's about all from here for now.
