My first call from a collection agency

That happened to me with the current mobile number I have. I was getting calls for about a year from different creditors. A number I had before that was better though. I'm pretty sure by the kind of calls I was getting that the previous owner had been a drug dealer. That was odd.

 

I've changed my number within the last six months and keep getting calls from this guy yelling at me in Spanish.

 

I have an HMO, my primary care physician issues a referral to a surgeon to do some very minor out-patient surgery. Surgeon sets is all up. I go in, have the minor surgery, go home.
Later, I keep getting a bill from somebody I never heard of. So I call and it turns out it's the anaesthesiologist. I say, "So. I'm an HMO patient and it's all covered by insurance." They say that Joe Blow, who just happened to be the anaesthesiologist on duty that day, isn't under the HMO plan. I say a bunch of things like, how the hell am I supposed to know who is and who isn't when I'm being wheeled into the operating room? It's his tough luck. Nobody said anything about this.
After getting this bill each month for about 5 months, I finally tell the business office, "Look, just ask the guy if we will accept what the HMO pays. Save us all a bunch of trouble." So they do that and the guy says OK, simple as that.

 

I appreciate all the fight-the-power sentiment. But I was in sorta similar shoes, way back in 2001. Let me just say, if it doesn't come down on your side: pay the $132. Sometimes, fighting the man is worth it. Sometimes, it's six years later and you wish you would've just paid the fucking $132 because you've still got another year left of having those fucking idiots come back to fucking fuck with you.

 

About fifteen years ago a great uncle of mine passed away. I wasn't sure if I would be able to get out of working to attend the funeral. I was able to but didn't know which funeral home the ceremony was taking place at. Not that big a deal as the town only had two funeral homes. So the former Bad Gal Zero and I are on our way out the door when the phone rings. I answer thinking perhaps it's my parents calling to see if we're coming to the funeral. It's someone from Dillards calling to see when we're going to pay our bill [it had been due a couple of days earlier]. I told the person I was on my way out the door and would call them back later. She said that she would just report that I was refusing to pay the bill. I explained that we were on our way out the door to attend a funeral and the bitch says in this ultra sarcastic tone "Well boo hoo hoo. I'm soooooooooo sorry." I slammed the phone down and left.
A couple of days late Dillards calls again and first thing I do is ask the name of the person I'm speaking to. "Well Karen, for the duration of this call I will refer to you as C*** Ass Bitch!" She said that she'd rather I didn't but I didn't listen. I think I called her C.A.B. about 15-20 times while I was on the phone with her.
I told a buddy of mine about it and he told his bandmates and CAB became this inside joke insult.
I still refuse to shop at Dillards to this very day.

 

I've never dealt with a collections agency, but I did answer a knock at the door in our garage one night years ago to find a very large, wife-beater-wearing repo guy standing there telling me he was taking my vehicle (a 1993 Toyota Camry with 200K-plus miles).

Which was an interesting development since A) I paid cash for the vehicle years earlier and B) it was purchased at an auto auction in Orlando, Fla.

The guy and his sidekick already had the vehicle hooked up to their tow truck. IN MY DRIVEWAY. Took me about 15 seconds to race inside and get my hands on the car title.

Turns out, the mother of the previous owner of our home had forged her son's name as co-signer of a loan for a new 2002 white Isuzu Trooper, then defaulted on the loan. But how the hell anyone confuses an Isuzu Trooper with a blue 9-year-old Camry still baffles me. Had we not been home I'm sure they would have just taken the car.

Mrs. PD still laughs about the string of profanities and threats I was yelling at the two doofuses as they unhooked the Camry. We'd only been in the house a few months, so I'm sure the neighbors who were outside that evening had to be wondering what the hell was going on ...

 

Had one of those thugs call me once. It was about 15 years ago --maybe longer--and we were doing a small bathroom reno..you know, new tub, floor, ceiling, lights. That kinda thing. It wasn't expensive--well, at least compared to now but I think we were spending around $5,000--maybe more, I can't remember exactly but it doesn't matter. So, we've got this contractor in our house--he was recommended by a neighbour--btw, even if Jesus Christ recommends a contractor, get references from others as well. Anyway, the guy took about a week to do the bathroom and had a few things left before he finished up so I gave him his last cheque--minus the usual 10% of course because that's what you do with contractors and told him he'd get the rest when he came back. Well, he didn't even though I called a couple of times and left messages with his secretary so I just figured he wasn't. But he wasn't getting his last $500.00 anyway. Then about six months later, out of the blue, this knuckledragger from the collection agency called, doing their usual bluster and bullshit routine. I more or less told him, "Good luck. I've got it all in writing. Your client hasn't finished his work. Now go away". And he did and I never heard back from the clowns again. And it wasn't a big deal. Some door trim and quarter round on the floor which I ended up doing myself. Guy could have done it all in a couple of hours. BTW, contractors are like auto mechanics. Once you find one, never let him go. There are more incompetent and crooked contractors around than auto guys. Particularly the guys who knock on your door with the "We were in your neighbourhood" line.

 

Jonesy, may dad works at Cedars Sinai, and he works in pathology ... but I swear it wasn't him who called Trust me, amigo, you would've known.