The phone rings....
Oggy (with mouth full of Spaghetti): Yep?
Recovery Agent (pleasant female): Good evening, Mr. Bleacher?
Oggy: I hope so, cause I'm wearing his dirty boxer shorts...
R.A.: I'd like to talk to you about your Citizens Bank Checking Account.
Oggy: What account? I have no money in there.
R.A: Be advised that this call may be recorded...
Oggy: Well, that makes two of us.
R.A.: Right now we're showing a negative balance of $111.97. When would you like to make a payment?
Oggy: Last I checked I had a negative balance of $2.09.
R.A. There have been service charges due to a negative balance.
Oggy: You charged me $109 to borrow $2?
R.A. You stopped payment on a $200 check.
Oggy: OF COURSE I STOPPED PAYMENT. YOU WERE GOING TO TAKE HALF OF IT AS PREDATORY FEES FOR THE ORIGINAL TWO DOLLARS!*
R.A. So when would you...
Oggy: I WILL NEVER PAY THOSE FINES OFF. I WILL NEVER EVER PAY YOU.
R.A. You should be advised that this will be forwarded to our claims department...
Oggy: You bastards misled me, you lied, you changed my contract, you signed me up for the overdraft account bullshit...
R.A. You were advised to opt out of th....
Oggy: IF YOU KNEW EVEN A FRACTION OF THE SHIT I WAS GOING THROUGH LAST YEAR YOU WOULD KNOW THAT OPTING OUT OF YOUR BULLSHIT OVERDRAFT PROTECTION WAS THE LAST FUCKING THING ON MY MIND. I SLAVE ALL DAY LONG IN A CZECHOSLOVAKIAN MOPED FACTORY AND THIS IS THE THANKS I GET? Really?
R.A: As of today we are showing a negative balance of...
Oggy: I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME. I EVEN WROTE IT DOWN ON MY CALENDAR WITH ARROWS AND UNDERLINES SAYING "NEVER PAY THIS"
R.A. Mr. Bleacher....
Oggy: It really vexes me that this is how we should meet. It vexes and irks and perplexes and hurts and causes me great anguish. You have a nice voice. It's pleasing. I almost want to pay you so you will show me some affection because I am lonely and sad. I see why they hired you. But they are vultures. If you...
R.A." Mr...Bleacher...
Oggy: IF YOU TURN YOUR BACK THEY WILL STAB YOU WITH CROOKED KNIVES. They charged me $110 because I overdrew $2.09. Now they are actually costing me a dime every minute I spend talking to you and your robot computers THAT NEVER STOP CALLING ME. You aren't safe.
R.A. I am going to make a note that you will be checking your records and calling us back this week.
Oggy: You can write a sonnet worthy of Shakespeare on my file and I will never pay you more than the original $2.09. I did not want the overdraft option but you forced it on me. That was your first mistake. I realize I should have opted out of it but inconveniently I WAS FLAT FUCKING BROKE SHITTING MY ASS OUT ON A BEACH AND CRYING FOR MY MOTHER at the time. SO. I neglected the minutia of my banking duties. And then when I went to buy some food you covered TWO DOLLARS AND NINE CENTS FOR ME. I want to thank you for doing that so I will send you YOUR TWO DOLLARS AND NINE CENTS. I might even make it an even $2.10 so I don't have to mail pennies. BUT AS FOR THE ONE HUNDRED AND NINE DOLLARS YOU CHARGED ME AS PENALTY...THAT WAS YOUR SECOND MISTAKE...SO YOUR CEO IS SIMPLY GOING TO HAVE TO SKIP A SHRIMP COCKTAIL AT THE NEXT QUARTERLY MEETING. SO what's your address?
R.A: Mr. Bleacher, I want to confirm we have your address correct...
Oggy: Fine, I live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave....Washington D.C. Are you getting that? I want to make sure all your collection bills arrive safely... It's P.e.n.n...
R.A. Ok. We'll call again later this week.
Oggy: Great...you're the first girl I've talked to in a while WHOM I TRUST WILL CALL ME BACK.
 |
| I always learned to take good accounting notes |
I'm really vexed by this....I wish I had recorded that conversation...at one point she said, "When you stopped payment on that check it started the snowball effect..."
And I said, "No, I think your assessment of the facts is erroneously in your favor...the snowball started when you negated my contract THAT I SHOOK HANDS ON IN LACONIA, NEW HAMPSHIRE. I HAD THAT MAN'S SOLEMN WORD. But y'all added an overdraft protection clause and I specifically made sure I didn't have that clause in my original contract because I can not check my balance daily while living in a van and I'd prefer to simply have the card declined than go further into debt. I already have a credit card, so why would I use my debit card as a credit card at an additional $56 a purchase?"
It was priceless...and the lesson is to opt out of the overdraft protection plan and to simply change banks when they turn into predatory vultures by secretly adding the overdraft plan back to your account. See? They charged me a fine because I didn´t pay off another fine, which was a fine for failing to opt out of the overdraft plan. So they fined a fine.
*To explain it all: I unknowingly overdrew $2.09 on an ATM grocery bill. That was going to cost me $35 to pay off that $2 and I was prepared to do that and sent them a $200 check to renew my balance, but since I didn't catch it for a week (since I was working and also ignorant of the "overdraft protection clause" they secretly added to my contract) they also charged me $7 x 8 days = $56 more dollars for a total of $91. I realized all this when my $200 check to them was in the mail so I stopped payment on it since they would've taken the $2.09, plus the overdraft charge of $91. Instead of paying the $37.09 I thought I was being charged I was about to lose $100...but by paying my bank $35 I was going to save $70 and send Citizens Bank that a message. That cancelled check added an additional $20 onto my fines....and I paid $35 to my other bank and then Citizens started a ridiculous service charge of $17 a day for simply not paying the original $91, of which only $2.09 was my responsibility. What's really crazy is that the amount of hours that went into trying to collect that $2.09 was so outrageous because all the collection agents saw was this "$111.00 negative balance. They figured I had over drafted $111.00 and wanted the full payment, but their math was wrong by $109 as that is the amount of fines they added, but when I tried to explain that to them they treated me like dirt. What would you do?
| 01/30/2013 | Overdraft Chargeoff | $111.97 | 
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| Memo: DDA CREDIT | |||||||||
| 01/16/2013 | Service Charge | $9.99 |
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| 12/17/2012 | Service Charge | $9.99 |
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| 12/17/2012 | Service Charge | $6.99 |
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| Memo: SUSTAINED OD | |||||||||
| 12/14/2012 | Service Charge | $6.99 |
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| Memo: SUSTAINED OD | |||||||||
| 12/13/2012 | Service Charge | $6.99 |
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| Memo: SUSTAINED OD | |||||||||
| 12/12/2012 | Service Charge | $6.99 |
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| Memo: SUSTAINED OD | |||||||||
| 12/11/2012 | Service Charge | $6.99 |
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| Memo: SUSTAINED OD | |||||||||
| 12/10/2012 | Service Charge | $6.99 |
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| Memo: SUSTAINED OD | |||||||||
| 12/07/2012 | Service Charge | $6.99 |
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| Memo: SUSTAINED OD | |||||||||
| 12/06/2012 | Service Charge | $6.99 |
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| Memo: SUSTAINED OD | |||||||||
| 12/05/2012 | Service Charge | $6.99 |
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| Memo: SUSTAINED OD | |||||||||
| 12/04/2012 | Service Charge | $6.99 |
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| Memo: SUSTAINED OD | |||||||||
| 11/29/2012 | Deposited Check Returned | $200.00 |
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| Memo: DDA DEBIT | |||||||||
| 11/29/2012 | Deposited Check Returned Fee | $20.00 |
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| 11/26/2012 | Deposit | $200.00 | |||||||
