Rant #3,190: Backfire

I had an interesting, frustrating experience yesterday afternoon—

And it proved once again that for some reason, there is a haze above me that continues to linger, and even when I do everything the right way, it seems to come out wrong.

As regular readers of this Rant know, my previous car died in June after nine years and more than 98,000 miles of service.

It was a great car, one that I purchased new after my previous car was destroyed in a horrible accident when a teenager went through a Stop sign and T-boned my car.

Anyway, when my latest car just gave out, I needed transportation quickly, so I settled for a three-year-old used car that had about 22,000 miles on it, and although it has taken me several weeks to get used to it, I am fairly satisfied that I made the right decision to get a used car, because quite frankly, with the interest rate where it is, getting a new car would have been difficult for me financially.

Even the used car is pricey, but not as bad as a new car is.

My payments are spread out over 72 months on this used car, and I made my first payment online, something I generally do not like to do.

I like making payments by writing out checks, because I feel that I am more in control of my pocketbook when I do it this way … and yes, I guess I am a bit old fashioned, too.

So the first payment was made online, and then I received the bill in the mail for the second payment, and I paid that one by writing a check and sending it out on August 1, or weeks before it was actually due.

We received our mail late yesterday, and lo and behold, there was a bill in there from the company which handles my car account—the same bill that I had paid at the beginning of the month.

I called the company, and the recording said that I was in arrears because I had not paid my bill on time.

I finally spoke to someone there and to make a long story short, even though I had sent out payment on the first of the month, as of August 14 they had not received my payment, so my account went into collections.

I argued this point with an associate and then I demanded to speak to a manager, and the sad truth is that they “sort of” put my account into collections because of non-payment—they never received my check in the regular mail.

(“Sort of” is my term … they call it a “Semi-Miranda” or something like that … it means that if I don’t pay up ASAP, my account will fully go into collections.)

I still had time to get out of the “sort of” collections. but I had to make payment right then and there, after I checked with my bank which also said that the check I sent out was never cashed.

I had to put a stop on that check—which they should have charged me for but as of this moment, they haven’t—and then pay the bill ASAP either online or over the phone.

I called the lender back, explaining the situation to them once again, and to make a long story short, I ended up paying the bill over the phone, with a more than $3 surcharge added to the payment.

Yes, I could set up auto-pay, so I don’t have to even think about the bill being paid; I could simply manually pay online each month, but I prefer to pay my bills the old fashioned way by check--

But I guess in this world, that is a prohibitive way of doing things, as was proven by my latest escapade, where the U.S. Postal Service completely failed me.

Let me see what I do when I get the next bill, #3 in the series, which should be coming in about two weeks or so.

But all of this just adds to the agita I already have with everything swirling around me like it is—and again, even when I do things right, these things seem to turn out wrong.

I cannot explain this phenomenon,, but I am under that cloud now, and I simply don’t know how to rectify it.

Any suggestions?