My first call from a collection agency

So, tonight, watching a little TV with the wife, phone rings. It's a Mr. Ross looking for "Chris-toffee" Jones "with important business to discuss on behalf of Grant & Weber." I'm like, is that the barbeque company? No, turns out. It's a collection agency.

Now, let me say (with all modesty): the financial wolves are not howling at my door. Apart from my mortgage, I have no debt. I don't even carry a credit card balance. I would say, again in all modesty, that I have a sterling credit rating. Which means I'm a little surprised to hear from Mr. Ross, and I tell him so.

Here's the story, as he tells it. Some of you might remember that I had my gall bladder out in Los Angeles at the lovely and talented Cedar Sinai. The bill for the operation was $48,000. My insurance company negotiated the hospital down and paid out something like $20,000, I was told, case closed.

Not quite. I guess someone in pathology -- I'm not even quite sure what that is -- didn't like the settlement, and is now coming after me for the difference between what he billed and what my insurance company paid. That difference? $132. Because my surgery was a year ago, that bill has been sent to collections. This is the first I've heard of it.

Apparently, I have ten days to pay, or I "don't even want to know the repercussions." I was like, Dude, first of all, you don't even have my name right. Second, I'm in Canada. What can you do to me from California? And third, I shouldn't have to pay this -- it has nothing to do with me, except that it was my gall bladder that this douchebag pathologized.

And Mr. Ross says, "That's not my problem. How are you going to pay this?"

I says, "I'm not."

He says, "You've left me no choice then."

We circle around for a while and then he says, "You're wasting my time," and hangs up.

Now, my first instinct is to fly to California, wait outside Grant & Weber, find Mr. Ross, and use a baseball bat to put him in Cedar Sinai, so he can deal with this dick pathologist firsthand.

Another part of me is wondering, What can this guy really do? Are credit ratings continent- or worldwide? If I want to live in the U.S. at some point, will this keep me from getting an apartment or a mortgage? Will one $132 bill destroy a life of good credit? I mean, should I pay this thing? Or was I right to call him a, and I quote, "greaseball fuck."

I'll call my insurance company in the morning, but in the meantime, I'll take whatever advice I can get.

All I can think right now is, You guys live in a fucked-up country.

 

Deadbeat.

 

Get caller ID and don't answer any calls from 800 or "unknown caller."

That cuts down on me answering about five calls a day.








I'd love to have sterling credit. Sadly, I don't and never will.

 

i can't answer this, but that's funny as shit

 

Pay it in loonies.

 

Tell him you'll pay him in poutine or weed. His choice.

 

No way. It'd cost him more, unless he schleps to a currency exchange. Do you normally carry dollars, Jonesy?

 

Better yet, send him $1.32 and see what he does.

 

Call your insurance company, have them handle it. That's why you pay premiums.

Otherwise, it won't hurt you that much.

 

Fuck that noise.

Mustardwife and I dealt with something very similar -- except it was for a hospitilization close to ten years ago. Agency finally tracked us down, I suppose, and kept wanting to know when we were going to pay.

She kept trying to reason with them, get receipts detailing exactly what the charge was for, you know -- the type of stuff someone who actually gives a shit about the situation would do.

Finally, once she got fed up with the runaround, I explained to the agency that they could keep wasting their time and mine, or could just come to the conclusion that there's not one single chance in hell they're getting the first penny from us. They seem to have figured it out. Our credit has suffered none, whatsoever.

And, like you, our credit is pretty fucking sterling ... and the bill was for a hundred and something dollars.

 

Or go the Rusty Wallace route and pay in pennies

 

If any of you think I'd hand over either my poutine or my weed, you don't know me very well. They'll have to pry my fries, gravy, Quebecois cheese curds, and roach from my cold dead hands.

Doc, we have so much change up here, the men carry purses.

And Inky, definitely I'll call my insurer. I just don't trust them to act in ten days, so I'm scoping out the what ifs.

Morally, I really don't want to pay this myself, with any currency.

mustardbased, my man.