April 19, 2011

Take Another Little Piece of My Money. . . NOT

Lately I feel like the world has been aligned against me. It’s one ridiculous thing after another. First, it was my sister’s wedding and wedding gown debacle. That wasn’t really my own personal issue, but I took it personally. It has since been completely resolved and my Mom has received a check refunding the entire cost of the gown and alterations.

Then it was a ridiculous medical bill. Thankfully, my husband takes great pride in solving our medical bill dilemmas. I swear he once fought a baby ultrasound charge that didn’t get resolved officially until our daughter was like three. We’re nothing if not persistent.

After my insurance denied the use of alloderm in my leg (because they only approve it for breast surgery), we had to pay, out of pocket and up front on the day of the surgery, over $900 for a small piece of donor tissue for my leg. (I don’t understand why he couldn’t have just billed it like it was going in my boob. Lord knows if my insurance company had taken one look at my chest they would have approved that.) We thought the charges were finished, but that $900 some dollars didn’t include the surgeon’s fees to actually “place” the alloderm in my leg. The insurance paid for the screw removal, but they refused to pay for that, despite the fact that otherwise I would have spent my life kneeling on bone. My surgeon sent us a bill for $1800 last week. That’s his fee just for that small portion of the surgery. We felt like we had been punched in the gut.

You have to understand that for the past three years, we have been paying my medical bills for three surgeries, many MRI’s and bone scans, and months of physical therapy. It is not cheap. It has been a huge burden on our family. Mr. BBM called our insurance company. He asked them, if they had approved the charge, how much they would have actually paid the surgeon. The amount was $267.

$1800. . . $267. Not fair.

So, he called their office and asked to negotiate. Their first offer was pathetic. It was a $400 reduction, not enough. Their second offer was a lot better. . . $400. I dropped the check off last week and my medical bills (until I give birth, of course), are now paid for in full.

There was a collective sigh of relief through the BBM household.

Then I checked my business checking account for my Miche Bag business (I sell them and ship and they make fabulous Mother’s Day presents-just saying). A service I had refused had been charged to my account anyway. Despite the fact that I verbally and via email said I did not want to use their PCI compliance provider (you don’t have to understand PCI compliance-just know that it’s all BS and another way to skewer small business and if I ever see Barnie Frank and his posse, I will tell them so), nor did I want the $129 fee taken from my account.

They took it anyway.

I called them and had a fit. They eventually relented and told me they would refund the money. It didn’t happen when they said it would happen or nearly fast enough so I disputed the charge through my bank. My merchant company then notified me that they would be refusing to refund the money since I had disputed it. That makes a whole heck of a lot of sense.

So today I canceled my merchant account with them. And while I was in the process of doing so, the guy happened to mention, very quietly and quickly, a $295 early termination fee. Uh-uh, I don’t think so.

I told him to rewind a bit. I told him that I signed no such contract, that in fact my quote said, “no contract, no early termination fees and no commitment.” Otherwise, I wouldn’t have signed.” He talked back to me the way my 10-year old does sometimes, and I shut him down. “I’m emailing you the copy of my quote now. Do you have it?”

“Uh, yes, I’m going to need to put you on hold and review this,” he said.

“Yeah, you do that,” I told him, and then sat here swearing like a sailor while he blasted craptastic music in my ear. It took about two minutes for him to come back.

“So, we’re going to cancel your account and we will not be charging you a cancellation fee, as per your quote and contract,” he said.

I told him I needed an email with that in writing before I signed anything. I also told him I’d be needing my $129 refund. He confirmed that it was already processing.

If I wasn’t smart, if I didn’t have documentation and major will power to deal with these losers, I’d be out $424, which is roughly the commission I made on my last party. Many people do not like confrontation. I don’t either really. I just happen to be pretty good at it when I have to be. Can you imagine the number of merchants who get totally screwed over by these people on a daily basis because they just don’t want to fight? This world is full of people willing to take advantage of you and rip you off. Raising smart and respectful kids is not enough these days. You need to raise them to be savvy and intuitive and persistent too. Without the necessary skills, it is easy to see why so many people get duped, ripped off and flat-out taken advantage of. . .

I’m glad I’m not one of them.