Avalon Landing: November 2005

Monday, November 28, 2005

Hope everyone had a great holiday! As usual, we had to go to two family gatherings: DH's family and my family. It was exhausting.

We spent most of the day at my parents' house. While there, my dad gave me a phone number regarding "something." Someone had called there looking for me. I figured that it was a telemarketer. However, I put the slip of paper in my pocket and decided to ignore it for awhile. Unfortunately, the paper weighed as much as a ton of bricks--I called the number on Saturday morning, and was promptly informed that a loan payment I had mailed on Nov. 2 had not reached their office yet. The payment obviously got lost in the mail--which is ridiculous, considering the office and myself are located in the same state. I told them to give it another week. They said they would put a note about waiting a few more days in my file. UGH!!!

Yeah, great way to spend the rest of the holiday weekend.

This is the third time I've had problems with the post office delivering things.

First, an insurance payment was sent to a completely different city, but also to an insurance company. The company sent back my payment, saying I needed to make out a new check to them. I called them, asking what was up. Instead of checking to verify my account and stuff, they told me to send a new check. I sent the new check; they sent it back saying they had no record of our account on file. Meanwhile, I got a notice from our correct insurance company saying they were going to cut off our coverage if we didn't send in a payment. I WAS FURIOUS! I had mistakenly assumed that our insurance co. had gotten bought out by the other insurance company.

Second, I bought something off Ebay. I went to the bank, got a cashier's check, and promptly mailed it using one of those priority envelopes. However, it was not an overnight envelope. The address I needed to send it to was in North Carolina. Unfortunately, I mailed it the Saturday before Labor Day, and it was right as Hurricane Katrina hit. I was told that the envelope should arrive by Tuesday or Wednesday.

A week went by. I heard nothing. I figured my item was on its way to me. In the middle of the second week, I get an angry email from the seller, saying she hasn't received my payment. After many emails back and forth, and waiting another few days, she still didn't receive it. She didn't believe that I was telling her the truth, which pissed me off. I thought she was trying to scam me by making me send her twice the amount. However, I ended up sending her the money via Paypal, and then she was going to package up my stuff. In her mail on that last day before mailing the package to me, she gets my envelope--finally. She repackages the item with the unopened cashier's check and I get the package a few days later. I redeposited the cashier's check in the bank.

The third problem was sending a payment to my cable company. Again, the company is in the same state I am in. It took over a month for the payment to get to the company. When I got the following month's bill and saw that the payment I had sent hadn't been applied, I wondered what was up, but I figured it would get there eventually. And that is what happened. The cable company wasn't rabid about collecting on the "missed" payment.

I would set up electronic withdrawals with these companies, but I can't always guarantee that I will have money in the bank when they make the withdrawals.

I hate the post office.