READ!

Apparently, reading is beyond the scope of expected activity in this area. We have a sign, you see, next to the front door, which very clearly lists our hours. The ansaphone also lists hours if people bother to listen.
And yet, this morning, I get to work at 5 til 8, and there is a truck parked RIGHT IN FRONT of the hours sign, (we open at 8:30, it says). Guy gets out of the truck, walks over to me as I'm gathering my stuff, and asks when we open!

Yearly PeTA rant

It's that time again, folks. This year's begging/self-aggrandizing from PeTA:

Last year, PETA provided more than 400 sturdy doghouses, thanks to generous "Angel for Animals" sponsors. With many more dogs in urgent need and temperatures dropping fast, we want to top that number this year, and I hope that we can count on your support. There are so many ways that you can help, including the following:

* Your "Angel for Animals" sponsorship gift of $265 can provide a doghouse to one needy dog.

* Your "Angel for Animals" sponsorship gift of $530 can provide doghouses to two neglected dogs.

* Your "Angel for Animals" sponsorship gift of $1,325 can provide doghouses to five lonely outdoor dogs.

So I called down to the local feed store, and looked on Amazon. It seems I can get a small dogloo for less than $80, or a large one for about $90. So for $265, shouldn't they be able to supply 3 small or 2 large dog houses? Why only 1? and it GETS WORSE as the amount gets bigger! For $1,325, I could buy FOURTEEN large dogloos. FOURTEEN! Why can their esteemed volunteers only acquire and distribute five?
So unless I totally fail at math, PeTA received over $100,000 through this drive last year. And managed to use half again my entire yearly salary to get a mere 400 dog houses. And they're PROUD of it. What is WRONG with these people?

Moral of the story: Don't send them your money. Buy three doghouses with it instead, and take them to the food pantry or local humane society to give them to the needy. They are equally as tax-deductible that way, and you've helped out three times as many dogs, and not funded the psycho bullshit that PeTA pulls.

http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/114239.html
http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/69570.html

Bank of fucking-America-over

Shoot me please. Or burn the house down so I can write it off on the insurance and not deal with this ANY MORE because I'm pretty sure that would be LESS hassle than dealing with the fuckheads in mortgage. Really.

*sigh*

Okay, you all recall the end of Octember, when I went in and straightened out the f-ups with my October payment, and made the check-by-phone payment to cover the mortgage payment that had be mistakenly refunded? Yeah. I distinctly recall doing so.

And then I get this lovely and oh-so-very-informative notice:

Dear Customer:

Your check in the amount of ... was returned to us by your financial institution for the following reason: refer to maker.

*Your loan remains due for the 10/01/08 installment.

*The amount due is

You may be assessed a late charge if an installment is not received before the late charge assessment date. Depending on your loan product, interest may continue to accrue until replacement funds are received.

Okay, motherfucker. Point the first: What in all the holy lands does "refer to maker" even mean? If you're going to give me a reason, GIVE ME A FUCKING REASON. Point the second: this notice was not dated until 2 weeks AFTER the "late charge assessment date" so how by Bloody England am I supposed to deal with it before then?

So Monday last week, I called the local bank and left a message for the manager who dealt with this last time.

Yesterday, I attempted to go to the bank to deal with it in person, and discovered that it was a bank holiday. Bastards. I was working.

Today, I called again. Was told by the woman who answered that it didn't have to be a manager who dealt with this, it'd be fine to just come in and ask whoever. RIIIGHT. So I left work early to come in a bit before lunch, so that the manager can't escape for lunch break (yes, I'm being bitchy. I think it's justified) because there's no way in Hell I'm believing this doesn't need to be taken to the manager.

And sure enough, I go up to the nice lady at the counter (that's not sarcasm--she really is a very nice lady), she looks up my account, confirms that I do still show owing for October and November, so this wasn't just a belated notice/miss-in-passing stupidity, and tells me I need (gasp, surprise!) to talk to the manager.

Flag the manager down - whee, no lunch for either of us!

He calls the mortgage people. Woman informs us that they are apparently having "system difficulties" and cannot access accounts. Oh, that's a GREAT confidence builder there. If I had any doubts at all about whether this was a reliable source to hold my mortgage that clinches it. 2 words for you: redundant systems. You handle millions of dollars of other people's money, and you can't access the accounts today? Fuck me sideways? Why SURE!

So now I'm supposed to go back to the bank after work, and the financial/mortgage gurus back East are supposedly going to call us back and figure this shit out. We'll see if that actually happens, or if we'll be calling them and getting the damn after-hours message.

http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/158765.html
http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/157063.html
http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/150350.html
http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/110469.html
http://draggonlaady.livejournal.com/111025.html

Continued BoA fuckery

Left work early to get to the bank before they closed, so as to avoid keeping manager there terribly late.
He calls the back-East folk. We chat about nothing important for almost 10 minutes waiting for someone to actually answer.

And the story is thus:
Despite the fact that my mortgage has had automatic withdrawl from the same account for three yeas, despite the fact that the name on the mortgage and checking account is the same, despite the fact that we confirmed the account number when we spoke to them in October about this bullshit, they tried to take the payment out of a non-existent account. This, of course, caused the payment to fail.
Since the month passed with no payment (never you mind that they didn't TELL ME THAT until the last day of the month), they sent notice to the credit bureau that I don't pay my mortgage payments promptly.
And apparently, if one payment is late, that causes your automatic draft payment set up to go fizzle, so they ALSO have not taken out November's payment yet. Again, I have not received any notice to that effect, I only know about it because manager asked while we were there. So now I'm TWO months behind.
So manager man makes a fairly subtle but decidedly snide comment about screwing up the account number, and tells backEast to take both payments out of checking, effective a month ago (you fucker) and apparently I can expect a form to fill out to send to the credit bureau to fix the new black mark on my credit history.
Unfortunately, because this was all processed after hours for backEast, it doesn't count until tomorrow, so I can't actually get the automatic payment set back up until FRIDAY, when my account is current again. So I'll have to take time off work again on Friday to do that.
Wish I could bill the bastards for all the time I'm spending trying to figure out their fuck-ups.