My first call from a collection agency

Send them $132 in Crappy Tire money. That'll show the fuckers.

 

According to urban legend, legal tender in South American whorehouses.

 

JR, you wouldn't believe how the American system charges, mostly because it usually goes to insurance. If you don't have any insurance, it seems, they send a completely different kind of bill, with a lot fewer zeros.

I fell ill in San Francisco a couple of years ago, while on a baseball road trip, and ended up spending 10 days in the hospital with a 107 fever. Almost bit the big one.

They ran a ton of tests, couldn't figure out what kind of bacteria was causing it, gave me morphine and all kinds of good stuff, but never cut me open.

Bill? Not unadjacent to 80 large.

$2700 a day for the room. Bills coming at me from eight different places. Like X dollars for the scan, then $350 from some other entity to READ the scan, then another bill from someone to file the scan. On and on and on.

I went over the itemized list I did get, and found they billed me for a ton of crap they never even did or gave, and lopped $5K off right there.

When you get a hospital bill for $2700 per room per day, and Medicare actually only pays for $350 a day, and they you have to coordinate the rest with Blue Cross (which I fortunately had), and your paper's HR idiot is calling you in the hospital, doing absolutely nothing to help you, but helpfully passing along the information that you'll "still get your paycheque this week (I guess missing one would have put her in distress; not the case for me), it's a full-time job.

Took me a long time to sort it out; I got a lot of phone calls. But my credit in the U.S. was sterling after having lived there, and I checked it afterwards, and it was still just as good.

I did get similarly harassed by some guy - I swear, his name was Bond, Tom Bond (except he sounded like he was calling from India) collecting for a car-rental company, over some damage to a car three years after the fact.

At the time, I had done everything I could to get in touch with them to take care of it. And hit a stone wall every time. Nobody called me back; nobody sent me a bill. After three years, Amex's statute of limitations had expired on paying it.

I basically told this clown to f..k himself. The calls stopped. My credit remains unblemished.

 

You're just starting trouble again, aren't you?

 

Jones, I have a friend who deals with collection agencies that hassle employees (he works for a bank). Years ago, when a friend would get a call from an anal collector, my buddy calls the anal freak and tells him to stop harrassing friend or he will take them to the better business bureau. I am not kidding, it actually works and the collection agency stops calling. In one case, they sent a complementary letter saying that we will work with you and want to help you. Very rare this happens...

If you want, I can see if my friend can work wonders in your case.... ;D

 

Jones,

Know some folks who worked in the biz and dealing with one years ago on a apartment contract, this is how they operate.

They try to muscle you to scare you into paying and then threaten with the credit deal. He's probably gonna clear $60 on the thing, so it's not worth a lot of his effort.

I argued with the guy then told him to screw off. Five years later when I went to buy my first house I did have to end up paying the $250 or whatever. But it's not like it grew through penalties or interest.

I would check with your insurance company and then ignore it. The $132 isn't worth the hassle.

Oh, and you can tell them to stop calling and they are supposed to stop.

 

Only if you-know-who shows up.

 

I was sympathetic to your cause, and more than willing to give advice, since I live next door to a woman who runs a collection agency and I was going to call her and tell her the story. But since you took the occasion to do what some Canadians do best -- bash the U.S. -- I guess the best advice would be to tell you to go f-yourself.

Hope they get the $132 out your orifices.

 

I'm with hondo on this. We've put up with you whiny, chiseling, non-medical-bill-paying canadians long enough.

We're marching across the border with our hmo lawyers and collections agents at our backs. We'll wade through your taser-wielding mounties and come for every last Uncle-Sam-bad-mouthing one of you.

 

Captain America Strikes Back.

 

Watch out, Jones is back to punching people these days.

 

That's OK. We've got expense accounts and appendixes.