Nobody's Fault, I loose

CSAW · Mar 28, 2003

Nobody\'s Fault, I loose

Got a call from my sister in law who works at the bank we use. She by chance found out that my wife's pay check was coming back unpaid. Luckily I had not written any checks against it.

We knew it was coming back but did not know why, so my wife called the payroll department at the hospital where she works and they assured her that the check was good. Got the check back a couple days later and it was marked by the hospitals bank "account not found". Personally I think they pushed some wrong numbers or someone just wanted to go home. I have had the same account for 20ish years. My bank is a major bank so that should not have been too hard to find either.

Called my bank and they have no idea what this means. The hospital says the check was good and I believe it was. My wife calls the hospitals bank and they say it was my banks fault.

The hospital issued a new check which cashed no problem. I told my wife to make a copy of the "bad" check before she turned it in for the new one but she did not, but thats another story. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Anyways We are out $4.00 for a returned item. We did absolutely nothing wrong. I think I could get to the bottom of this with a 40 mile round trip or a bunch of long distance phone calls and a bunch of my time.

Nobody's fault but I have to pay. I guess the banks just need a way of getting some more of my money. I feel better now, not really. Thanks for listening to my whining.

thcri · Mar 28, 2003

Re: Nobody\'s Fault, I loose

CSaw,

It is a shame. Yes it is only $4.00 but it is more the point. Big bank, big Hospital and for you to fight it would be a maze. Sometimes it just makes you want to do something dishonest but then you wouldn't be any better than them. I was in a similar incident a long time ago.

I canceled a credit card once. But someone had the number from a transaction a year prior. This company just decided to bill me for some more stuff without my knowledge. Credit card told me to fly a kite, there is no such thing as canceling a credit card, once issued it remains with you for life, the only way you can cancel a credit card is to report it STOLEN. Anyway long story short, I had to hire an attorney to get it all straightened out at my expense.

murph

shado · Mar 29, 2003

Re: Nobody\'s Fault, I loose

Can't cancel a CREDIT CARD!?!? Unless it's reported stolen? Really? I never heard of that one. I had some trouble with a zealous spender (won't mention names, never can tell when she might--Whoops) and went to each of the places that issued the cards, informed them to close the accounts, which was done by the issuers with some reluctance. But as final proof, what happens when a new credit card is issued after the old one has expired, does the old number still 'stick with you' since no one can charge to the old number after the credit company invalidates the old number when issuing a new card?
J.W.

thcri · Mar 29, 2003

Re: Nobody\'s Fault, I loose

JW,

That is exactly what we were told. My wife also informed me that it was two years after we told the credit card company to cancel the card, (we have the cancelation in writing to them) that an insurance company used it to pay a premium that we also canceled two years prior. We had used that credit card to pay a premium two years prior and even after canceling both insurance and the credit card we got a $275.00 bill two years later. That is when we were told you can't cancel a credit card. Our attorney told us that when you don't want to use a credit card anymore your best bet is to report it stolen. That was the only way to get rid of it. Now this was 6 years ago and I don't know if things changed or not but all I can say is I lost on the deal.

murph

Egon · Mar 29, 2003

Re: Nobody\'s Fault, I loose

Can't cancell a credit card?? Something does not add up or make sense here.

Egon

Golfgar4 · Mar 29, 2003

Re: Nobody\'s Fault, I loose

Sorry to hear of your problems. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif I think most of us have similar experiences, so we can relate. Mine involved a department store that kept billing us for a charge they said we made AFTER we had been gone from the area for over 2 years! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif It was only for $176.00, but they were getting nasty about it. I had all the canceled checks and the information that proved we had completely closed out our accounts. I finally contacted our local Chamber of Commerce, who assisted us in getting cleared up. What they discovered was that this store did this with accounts that had been closed for awhile, because they found out that most people wouldn't fight them for the small amounts they were being billed for. People wouldn't want to get into a big hassle and would pay the bogus bill just to end it all!

Sorry to ramble on. What I really wanted to say was, with all due respect, I don't agree with your thread title Nobody's Fault, I loose . Somebody screwed up, and it wasn't you. granted, you'll probably never find out who it was or exactly what happened, but nevertheless, someone did screw up. So it wasn't"Nobody's Fault". Unfortunately, even though it was only $4.00, you still are paying for it just from the fact that you're still thinking about it (and we're not exactly helping you to forget it, are we? /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif), you'll question both the hospital and the bank for a long time to come, and you'll be worried that future checks will be a problem also.

I hope you can get some kind of resolution from whoever screwed up on this deal, just so you know that it won't happen again.

Good luck! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

CSAW · Mar 30, 2003

Re: Nobody\'s Fault, I loose

Thanks Golfgar, Should have titled it "Big company's mistake little guy pays for it". Anyway thanks for the post.

thcri · Mar 30, 2003

Re: Nobody\'s Fault, I loose

Egon,

I guess that is what I thought. I was told by the credit card company that once a number is used that number stays with you. Even though you cancel it the number is still there to be used. This insurance company two years after I canceled my card was allowed to charge against my card even after the experiation date was over. I had to hire an attorney to get this mess all cleared up. The attorney cost me more than the actual charge on the credit card. Low and behold I don't let my wife or myself apply for any credit cards now other than the two that we have. Again this was over six years ago and maybe things have changed.

murph

BigDave · Mar 30, 2003

Re: Nobody\'s Fault, I loose

You can always go after the company that placed the charge.

I had a 1yr contract with local gym that was set to expire. My wife & I went down to tell them we didn't want to renew. They stated that our contract said that he had to give them two months to terminate our membership and it was too late for the current billing cycle, so it would actually cost us three more months. So I went home and re-read the one year contract, and if we were to terminate early we needed to give them two months warning, basically as a penalty. The contract stated after one year we would be allowed to renew on a monthly basis. The salesman said tough cookies, we would have to pay the three additional months. His boss said we would have to pay the three months. The regional manager said we would have to pay the three months. At that point, I pointed out on the contract that they were authorized to charge $xx for 12 months. I asked the regional manager if they ever heard of credit card fraud? He quickly changed his tone and said they would reverse the additional month that they already billed me and no more money would be required of us.

It may depend on the card, but I thought you could contest any charge for not being valid and have it removed.

frank_f15 · Mar 31, 2003

Re: Nobody\'s Fault, I loose

i hate when that kind of stuff happens, a few years ago i sent in my carpayment, the next mo. i got a notice that i only paid $32.89 so i was behind $200 . what happened was the person entering the info only put in the last 4 digits, took me 3 moths and numerous calls to get it straightened out. i made them send me a letter appoligizing for mistake and send me a credit report showing that i was not late with payment. was a lot of BS but i won;t pay if i don't owe, will spend more to prove a point. but the darn banks and credit card co;s rely on people not fighting . /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif