Switching from Verizon to Spectrum, Part 3

 After the mess with Amazon was finished, I got back in touch with Spectrum. 

I come to find out the right wording is that they do not allow 'short codes'. Yet, a few people now I have spoken to said they could get those short codes no problem and Spectrum even uses short codes themselves?! 

I went thru the chat on a Saturday on the off chance they might be able to help answer that question, if there was any way they could allow the short code?

So took a while as the chat module is for home services not mobile. The lady said I would have to go to the mobile section on the site and blah blah. I cut her off and asked if she could just transfer me from that chat to there? She was like oh yes, I can do that! 

I get this guy and he said yes, that was true, no short codes. Not all of them, just some of them. I asked him then about possibly rearranging the free line that was part of the deal and he said he wasn't sure. So I realized I would have to call them on Monday but yes, he did say it would be better to call Spectrum first then call Verizon about the big phone device bill.

That's exactly what I did. Spectrum was first in line. But before I called them, I tried once more to get Amazon notification and guess what? IT WORKED! So now I don't need to transfer my line back to Verizon, thank the Gods! And I got super lucky when I called Spectrum as I got ahold of a great guy from Maine! Awesome! He was brilliant and we talked over different options and ideas I had as to how to sort this mess out. 

He said I could not move the account to my daughter because she doesn't have an internet service with them only a phone line and she is the free line. And if I were to change anything then I would lose the special deal we had when we signed up which was get one line for $29.99 and the 2nd line is free for a year. Plus, he said my internet with them was giving us a $10 discount and when we move, our phone service would go up to $39.99 then. Good to know!

But my son's account with them would not go up the $10 when he moves back and we can all keep our phone services with Spectrum but just at the new place, they are not there yet with internet.

 

Next stop was Verizon to call. They were a nightmare. 

 It took me 6 people before I finally reached a Financial supervisor. The other people I talked to kept trying to set up a promise to pay for payments on the two phone bills. The total of the bill is $1,900. They told me at first I could only make 2 payments (still ouch!) and then I had another lady tell me I could do 3 then another told me I could do 5. I had one lady a few weeks ago set up a promise to pay but it was not for the phone devices, it's for the phone service itself!

Once I realized what they were doing, I had to stop them there as the 2nd lady who tried to set this up, got an error message that she couldn't because the accounts are closed. So after that I had to teach the next few ladies that no, they can't set me up with a promise to pay because that does not work with closed accounts, only active ones and it's for the service not the device. 

When I finally got to the supervisor, she was more forthright and clear but she was also saying that I could only do two payments and each one had to be 15 days apart. But she said I could wait til the 18th when the bill is due to set up the first payment to be due on March 5th and then the 2nd on the 20th. Whereas the lady or two before her said I had to make the first payment on the 14th of Feb and even if I wait and called back later my first payment would still be due on the 14th. Say what?

So they really don't know what they are saying or doing there in the financial dept at Verizon. It was horrible. 

I told the supervisor I would call back then when it was closer to the due date and figure something out then. I didn't try harder or at all by then as I was fed up with the run around and they obviously have no clue.

Even making payments, they would be charging me a $10 service fee and a $5 late fee. The supervisor was even trying to threaten me that they could always take this bill to collections at any time. She backed off when I informed her the bill wasn't due until the 18th of February tho', so I have until then anyway! 

 My solution is to put them off for now as the bill isn't due yet and then as soon we move and that is all done, get an American Airlines cc and just use it to pay off the bill for the phone devices and then I would earn frequent flyer points for that whole thing. Makes better sense yes? Pay it off from there on my own.

Bottom line---lesson here are:

If you are making monthly payments with a phone service provider, do not change your provider until you have paid off the phone because they will send you a bill for the total balance left, due all at once!

Verizon is expensive compared to Spectrum and their financial dept is a mess.

Suggestions for Verizon and any other phone service company, is to be sure and tell the person when they go to switch to a new phone service provider that if they have not paid off their phone device then don't switch or make sure you are ready to pay it off.

Also, the phone device payments SHOULD be able to be transferable. But since they are not, then for example, Verizon could have been creative about this. They could have done all sorts of things when someone is willing to pay them too!

Set up payment plans, charge interest, charge a set up fee for the payments, make it so that there is an autopay for it too. That way, they could feel more assured to get the account paid.

I even was going to go ahead and set up another line with them just so that I could go back to payments but they informed me that nope, I would have to pay off the balance before they would set me up with another line. That is stupid. They lost out on money that way.  

Switching from Spectrum - Verizon: Part 2---Amazon Fun!

Amazon has been doing this two step verification to sign in using both your email and your phone. I added my phone but each time they tried to send me the text to my phone, I got nothing. I tried multiple things and yet nothing. 

So I went to the chat on Spectrum and got sent over to the mobile tech chat and a guy there told me that Spectrum blocks short texts. I was like what? Oh damn! Well that explained things but it opened up a whole other issue now.

I called Amazon about an order I had made in November for some apple cider where the one bottle came broken and I had emailed about it but didn't see a reply until now.What a nightmare! The first person I got on the phone kept trying to verify my account by sending me a code to my phone. I laughed and said no, you won't be able to do that because I am not getting those. She then tells me she can't help me if they can't verify my account then, sorry. I was like can I talk to a supervisor then? She tells me that a supervisor will not be able to help me at all because they will have the same trouble as her in not being able to verify my account. I laughed and I said I didn't care, I wanted to talk to one anyway. She said ok hold please. I am on hold for a few minutes only for her to come back and say for me to call back in 5-10 mins and they would be able to help me then. Asked me if that was ok? I said no, it isn't. She assured me that her supervisor would be able to resolve this problem etc etc. I knew it was a mistake to hang up at that point. But I did.

Next call, I get a guy and I immediately ask for a supervisor. He ignores me and tries the verification text bit on the phone and I tell him, no, you can't do that, it won't help. He keeps interrupting me and trying to tell me he can't help blah blah blah unless he can verify, blah blah, I explain what the last lady told me and he then tells me I could go on the site and ask for them to call me and then I wouldn't need to go thru the verification process. I told him it's not on the site, I can't find it. He goes silent. I think he hung up on me and he finally comes back on and tries to explain again and as I am saying I thought I lost him, then he goes silent again. I had a feeling he was just pushing his mute button not wanting to hear me. I finally hang up on him when he goes silent for the 4th time. Yup, I am persistent.

So then, I call again. I get this nice lady named Queenie and I immediately ask for a supervisor, she politely asks if I could give her a chance to help me and I am short at this point and frustrated to no end and I cut her off and say no, you can't, the other two couldn't, I need a supervisor. They told me to call back to ask for one as everyone keeps wanting to verify me via my phone and no one is listening that my phone service won't let me. 

She listens to me and then asks me what my original question was. I told her about the broken bottle of apple cider and how I just saw the reply now and I have the order number etc. She says she has to verify my account but what she can do is call me back. So asked for my phone number and I gave it to her and we hung up and she called me right back! Then she looked up the order and in no time, bingo-bammo it was done! Refund issued! YAY!

 Love Amazon!!

www.amazon.com

Now that the Amazon issue was resolved, I know I still need to be able to get those texts should I need to log in again with Amazon or if I have an issue. I decided to call Spectrum back to find out if there was any way they could flip a switch or maybe pay for a more premium service or something to allow those short texts to go thru?

 

 To be continued...

 

 

Switching to Spectrum from Verizon---Part 1

 Strap in for this one!

I've had Verizon for years on end. They've always been pretty good to me, although it was a bit expensive. Seeing the great deal that Spectrum had and got my son moved over to them for his own account and how little he was paying versus what I was paying on Verizon with my daughter and my line, I decided to switch her and I over to Spectrum.

For me having an Iphone13, it was easy peasy to do with the eSim and not having to use an actual physical sim card. Brilliant! To move me over and activate my phone was pretty simple.

My daughter with her Samsung, not so much. She needed to use the physical sim card. So it came in the mail and when we went to try to get her moved over, her phone became a brick! Oh noooo!

Well after hours of pulling my hair out with the customer service people, we got her phone activated.

And then the fun began.

I kept getting emails saying I was paying for a line that I was not using or wasn't activated? I checked on line logging into their site and it said my line was activated but hers wasn't?

So I thought to avoid the frustrating phone call, I would chat online with one of their representatives instead. Oh joy. Not.

The person I got didn't even read what my issue was, they just did c&p job with a script. By now, I should warn you that I've lost most of my patience with this kind of thing after years n years of having to deal with people who will not go off from a script. You have to think outside the box and these people even get discombobulated when I simply ask them how they are doing! Usually, I am nice about it. This time, I am calling them out for it. The person insisted they did type it. But didn't matter anyway because telling me their policy of having to wait 24 hours for an activation had nada to do with my problem not to mention it had been over a week! So I told them they needed to READ what the person writes is their problem instead of this c&p'ing business. They were like oh sorry. I repeated what the issue was that I was getting these emails and texts about the line not being activated so they said, ignore it. LMAO!

Of course these notifications continued so I had to call them up and I actually got a really good lady who looked into it and said yup, it was activated already and she would fix it so I didn't get the notifications anymore and it would reflect the right info on the site then. 

Great! I thought it was all solved. Nope!

I found out that since I was making monthly payments with Verizon for the phones and now have since moved those lines to Spectrum, thus closing the account, that Verizon would be billing me for the balance still unpaid for those phones! I tried to call them to see about a payment plan and each person I talked to seemed to be confused as to what I was wanting to do as they tried to set me up with a payment plan for a phone service bill that I would not be getting anymore. 

Took me a few times of reaching the right person who told me this was all too soon and that I had to wait for the final bill to come in and then call the financial dept to see what they could do.

 

But the issues didn't end there...

The Home Depot/Breakwater & Design Fiasco

Where do I begin?

First I think I should say all the employees of the Waterville Home Depot are awesome. The manager and assistant manager? No. The regional manager? No. They seemed nice but in the end, they just blew us off. 

 

Breakwater & Design workers are all amazing and so nice! The owners? No. Rude and overcharge and don't give a crap about their customers.

 

It was a horrid ordeal we went through with these two.

When you are new to the whole remodeling side of things, it really does pay to talk to your local tradesmen. They can give you more honest pricing and steer you in the direction of local supplies.

 

Home Depot's materials, we did not feel were overly priced on the whole. Our biggest issue however was with the labor charges and that when contracting out the work, which all companies like this will do, Home Depot in Waterville only goes to one contractor who can then charge whatever they wish to and that is what you are stuck with unless you are able to do the job yourself or know local people to do so for cheaper.

 

Thus began the whole money pit freefall trip we began.

 

Perhaps this is partly a case of buyer regret, or simply naivete or just plain stupid and not knowing what the real pricing should be and also realizing we had a lot of other options in front of us. But after Breakwater & Design had begun, the workers they sent up were great. Very personable and nice, quick to show you things they may encounter etc. They were the ones who were hired to redo my bathroom on the 2nd floor. I'll include some before and after pics later on. It wasn't a hard build, no mosaics, no special patterning nor gold fixtures or anything. Pretty straight forward. No walls rebuilt, only one new one, a half kneewall put in. I was to pick out everything through Home Depot. The problem is that I was designing the bathroom in a nautical theme and they did not have a mirror that reflected that nor light fixtures so off I went to the internet and had to find them and pay for them on my own.

Now the glass doors and half wall were suppose to be on the design and project for this bathroom but it was left off without telling us that. So when the time came for that, I was informed it was 'extra' and I would have to pay more for it as well as taking even longer. I wasn't happy.

This is just one issue amongst 9 pages worth of crap we had to deal with. I'll spare you all of those sordid details.

 

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I want to say that if you ever make the mistake of doing anything like this, you make sure you go over that project paperwork with a fine tooth comb and make sure every little nit noid thing is detailed out, explained what the scope of work and materials were to be and the costs. All in writing, not verbal. Don't let them generalize squat.

 

What I didn't know was that I would have to pay for my own plumber and electrician.

This company was then rude to both of them over the phone and I was very angry over this as they were not their employees. But yet they were trying to demand for my tradesman to be on site when they wanted them, at their beck and call, and when they could not understand what my seasoned and vastly experienced men were doing or how things work with the plumbing for example, they were rude and cut them off. I was not pleased.

 

Another note was that this company not only ordered some materials in bulk large quantities instead of smaller ones, they instructed their workers to pick up the leftover unused portions and wanted them to bring it back to their garage for their own use!! Instead of that material and product, over $1600 worth, to be returned to Home Depot so my account could be credited. This was not cool and I felt was theft and fraud and all sorts of illegal maneuvering. Thankfully my Mr Fix-it had overheard this and warned me so I went out and inventoried the whole thing on an excel spreadsheet and called Home Depot, had them come up and get it and sign for it to be sure that it would be taken off my account.

 

As the glass portions of my bathroom were kept off the scope of their work they were going to do, I had to call the local glass company, American Glass in Skowhegan, and get them to come over and install a glass door and half wall for me. Which they did in less than a week in comparison to Breakwater and Design saying it would take a month or more and cost a lot more on top of that.

 

Plus, this company kept changing my design without my consent. It was a complete nightmare.

 

Now the workers, as much as I enjoyed talking with them, were not so perfect either but I felt they did the best they could with what they were given to work with and with no help, oftentimes it was just one person doing a job that should have been 2 weeks tops, but took over 8 weeks and didn't get done until I stepped in with the glass company. For as much as I paid, the solutions their workers came up with was the best they could do for the whole mess of the crappy designers/owners of Breakwater and Design had done. They had chosen the expensive as crap cabinets that did not match up nor fit with the sink measurements at all for one! It is just bad. The baseboard trim isn't angled right as they didn't replace the walls like they were going to or had stated on the scope of work they were going to. So it didn't match up. The issues went on and on.

Then of course as the new stain was to be put on the trim, it wouldn't match the door so they said I would need a new door, more money. They ordered the wrong size, delay. The sink ordered by them came in, wrong size, another delay and even then still didn't match up to the cabinets so the solution was jacked.

 

I got charged for everything without any work beginning including interest all the while product sat in my garage for weeks.

 

This is just some of what happened with them. Has this shown you how important your local tradesmen are yet?

 

Now Home Depot itself is not innocent either. After this fiasco was over as we were stuck and had a contract with those bozos, we took pictures and went to the manager of the Home Depot Waterville location, arranged for a meeting with him and the regional manager of this area's Home Depots. We sat in the back offices for 2 hours and I went over my 9 pages of crap and we showed pics to them too of the before and afters and the costs. Their mouths hung open and they were shocked. The bathroom was nothing special. They started to back pedal a bit by saying oh well they would of course not be able to give us the cheapest prices (WHY NOT?) and of course we'd find it cheaper with local guys. But they did say they would look into it and let us know. You could tell they were shocked at everything and felt bad. They were nice enough to talk to, but it resolved nothing.

 

For you see, the whole situation was very confusing as we made the mistake of having them do two projects at once. Therein started the whole mess.

Plus, Home Depot's computer system went down and they lost my entire account and orders as it got locked up and it all got recreated from scratch. Now I don't know how or what was on it and if it was done right or that is where the labor got doubled or what? I don't know. It was hard to tell. So much went back to Home Depot and I wasn't sure what was credited or not like the color of the paint was wrong and had to be swapped out. There was never a record for that. Never a record for anything being changed if Breakwater & Design or Home Depot did it, but if I wanted something else, I had to pay extra or submit paperwork. Even so much as to stagger the tile slightly, they almost wanted to charge me an extra $250 for that. Talk about nickel and diming me. Finally relented to do it for free when I complained, but if I had not, they would have charged me an extra $250. Whoop-di-do in the whole scheme of this mess!

 

That was just the bathroom issues!

 

For the flooring for the hallway and bedrooms, we had picked out that nice porcelain tile that looks like hardwood floors. They were holding it in their warehouse waiting for their other 3rd party installer to give me a date. But no date. They wouldn't give us a date. Said we were on a list, and they'd call when they had freed a date. My whole project was on hold due to this only to be told finally by the Breakwater & Design people that they didn't need to wait for the floors to be done, they could go ahead and start their project with the bathroom. DOH! That was weeks of waiting for nothing! I finally told Home Depot to deliver the materials for the floor (they were charging me for it for weeks and I didn't even have possession of it!!) So they deliver it and thankfully my Mr Fix-it offers to install my floors for me and gave me a price. So as I decided to go with him and I would fire Home Depot's third party installer. I called them and Home Depot to give them a chance first. I told them I needed to know by Friday what the date of install would be and if I did not have a date by that day, I would be going with someone else to install it. No word. Nothing until Monday comes along and I had already told my Mr Fix-it he could have the job and the 3rd party calls me to announce they had a date! They were going to come in September at the start of the month and then leave and come back at the end to finish. They were going to charge me $16,000 to just install it. I said nope, too late. I have hired someone else to do the job. They were like but no, we have a date set now for you, I told the lady too late. I told you and Home Depot that I needed it by Friday. I was not kidding. I have hired someone else to do the job. My Mr Fix-it did it for less than $3,000. I saved almost $14,000!! And he did a great job with it too and helped to level the one room and made sure all the angles were done correctly and pointed things out to me as he came upon them. He was amazing!

 

Yet the bathroom issues continued. It was so bad.

 

Finally, in Sept after having a meeting with the managers and a month nearly of silence, I receive a check for $2,000. We were overcharged labor by about $12,000. But this was our pat on the head or hush money I felt. When I emailed the manager to ask what that was for? I got no answer. Not from him nor from the regional manager. Silence. Crickets. I was being ignored.

 

That was it as far as they were concerned. It didn't matter one bit their 3rd party installer had done this to us. They just simply didn't give a damn. Nevermind that we had been loyal customers for years with Home Depot. Who were we? Just a small little customer in the grand scheme of things. We have 46 acres with big plans and thought Home Depot would be a big part of it but nope, not after this whole mess. I refused flatly to step foot into that Home Depot again. Nor any Home Depot if I could help it.

 

No, we would travel the extra 20 mins and go to Lowes. Which we did. Spent money and opened an account, got a whole house generator and other large items, easily worth over $11,000 that we would have spent with Home Depot. Now we also decided to look locally and make inquiries to see if we could get the lumber from closer to home and other things at the hardware stores in the nearest town.

 

Finally, I wrote an email to the CEO of Home Depot and told him what my horrid experiences had been with the Home Depot here in Waterville and their 3rd party installer Breakwater & Design. They sent me another $4k that I didn't expect to get back. I didn't expect anything at all but the lady who had called me was very apologetic and kind. She told me that she had printed out my email and read it out loud to the CEO of Home Depot. They couldn't believe it and so authorized the $4k being sent to me. The amount wasn't enough however but it was a nice gesture at the very least for all that we had gone through with them. It showed us that the upper management did care what one of their customers had gone through. It showed us they too felt it was wrong and it redeemed Home Depot to a degree in my eyes.

 

 We learned that if you want any materials, you either get it locally and if you don't do it yourself, you hire local tradesmen or if you have to get the item from Home Depot, then either you or a local person needs to install it. Don't let them hire out a 3rd party to do so. Save yourself some misery and money instead. AND! If you do want something from Home Depot, you order it yourself online, don't let them do it for you in the store. That's another nightmare.

Needless to say, Home Depot's reputation up here in the north west woods of Maine is not so good. And of course my tradesmen carried the tale to all they knew and so on and so on. It may not make much of a difference to Home Depot, they are a huge company. But I can say at least that their CEO does care. You bet your bippie he does. I thank him whole heartedly for having taken the time to hear of my experiences and trying to do the right thing by us. He and the lady who had contacted me as well as the dept employees are the only saving grace of this whole mess.

 

 

Verizon Store & New Phone Saga

So my son thought he would pick up a cheap phone at Walmart and take it to a Verizon store near us in Maine and have his old Texas number transferred to it.

When he got there, they told him that the phone he bought was a special kind of phone that he could not do that with. That he would have to wait 30 days and then pay a $30-40 fee and then they would get his old number on it.

 

I wasn't there with him as he went in with his dad.

 

He waited his 30 days without using either phone and then saved his money up and went back in there only for them to tell him that he no longer has that old Texas line and he had given it up. So he was stuck with the new Maine number that he didn't even get to pick out.

 

None of this sounded right to me and I questioned it with my son and his dad and they assured me that was what they were told. I was irritated at this cause it just made no sense as my daughter had purchased an older model phone from Amazon and we were able to just call Verizon on the phone and they were able to get her old Texas number put on it.

 

Meanwhile, after paying the fee they told him he had to pay, he was still getting wrong calls on his old Texas line and phone.

 

I get the Verizon bill in and instead of it being the typical amount as it was last month, I see it is $40 more! and I am paying for both of his lines AND for some reason they upped the data package without any permission to do so!

 

DOH!

 

So I took the chance to not get a "Sheila" (For those of you who know of the commercial reference of "Sheila" is) and called afterhours.

 

I am sure I have stated in old blog posts that whenever you need anything accomplished or fixed with a phone company, you never call afterhours or on the weekends as chances are, you will get a "Sheila" who won't know what they are doing and/or won't help you cause it deviates from their script and they are not used to dealing with problems that are outside the box.

 

I got lucky however and got an incredibly awesome guy who patiently listened to the story as to what had happened as best to my knowledge as I explained it all and then he looked into it and was like oohhhh yeaaa! Ummmm no...

 

So He ended up removing $20 off the bat for a line we should not be charged for and deleted the old line. We chose to keep the Maine number and then he gave us another $20 off as well for a whole month of us not having used it and whatnot. Plus, he also lowered the data plan as we were up to 32 G and we only use like .7

 

Yes...point seven. Not even a whole gig. The reason why is because my daughter has an older phone with no data which she prefers and my son and I live out in the boonies and in a white out area so our signal is very bad and we rarely use the cell phones as it is unless we go off the property. So yea, it was so ridiculous and why the Verizon people at that store did that, is beyond me.

 

Needless to say, that particular store, in Waterville is on my bad list and my son can't go in there or any other store without me at this point. I have a feeling they were shafting him and taking advantage of him. Either they lied, or the person who was helping him didn't know what they were doing, although he went in twice and saw two different people each time. Sadly, he paid a $30 activation fee that we know he won't get back as he should not have had to pay that as he was just moving his old line to the new phone and not adding a new line to the account. It's a hard lesson for him. But yea, I am not happy with that whole mess to say the least.

 

Thankfully the guy in customer service on the phone with me tonight was awesome and got it all sorted out for us. But it goes to show you that you have to really watch your bills like a hawk. When you see a change in the price, make sure you investigate as to why and if you can't find it, don't hesitate to call. So long as you don't get a "Sheila", you should be fine and they will walk you thru the bill and what is going on.
I have done this too when my TDS cable/landline phone bill had gone up for some reason and it did not explain it well on the bill. So I called and got it straightened out and in fact got a better deal.

 

It also goes to show that you can't always believe the sales people in the stores either. They are not always right or know what they are doing or saying. You have to be up on this type of information and how to do it, otherwise, you'll get taken advantage of or shafted. Sadly enough.

 

 

 

 

Wasps n Bats in the Belfry...er Attic Crawl Space

As I was having my master electrician and his assistant come over to the house to install some ceiling fans and other electrical items, they were going to go up through the attic crawl space. Now this entry point is just 12 x 12 and so the assistant was going to cut the entrance wider so he could get up there. Before he did, he had the forethought to peek up there to see what he was going to cut first. I was at the ladder as this space is inside a closet in one of the rooms upstairs.

Then I heard him say, "Uh oh".
I replied, "Uh oh, what?"

He came down a step and looked at me and said, "You have bees up here. You have 40-50 beams going across and there is a nest about the size of my fist at every junction, some places, two."
Then we heard a squeak! He looked back up and said, "And you have bats."

Holy crap!

He called for the master electrician to come over and have a look and he poked his head up there and sniffed and could smell bat guano and said, "Yes, bats." He started to say he did not want..and I quickly finished his sentence and told him, "No, no, I don't want you up there either dealing with that. I'll have to get rid of those first so let's hold off on these ceiling fans for now."

I called the pest company I had previously signed with and they sent someone out to look. They also referred me to the wildlife side of their company and arranged for someone to come out to see about the bats. When the pest guy arrived, he looked and he saw two bats looking at him from behind one of the nests. He told me I probably have close to 100 nests of wasps or hornets up there.

So here goes the quandary, a conundrum for sure!
The pest/bee guy couldn't spray because of the bats. Bats are endangered and you don't want to kill them anyway as just one bat will eat a 1,000 mosquitos in one night! You just don't want bats in your attic crawl space as the guano and all is very bad for your health.
The bat guy didn't want to go up there into the attic crawl space and deal with the bees. These were not honey bee nests as again, you wouldn't want to kill those as we need the honey bee to survive on Earth. But they are hornet or wasps nests. I believe paper wasps. The good news is that some of those hives may not be active as they won't re-inhabit an old nest. Interesting there. The bad news, is that you can't tell if it is an active one or not.

Just to make things interesting, we need the 12 x 12 space widened in order for anyone to get up there.

The bee guy said when you go to make the hole wider, you have to hope you don't get too many bees mad at you at the same time. LMAO!

My thought to resolve this was for them to work together and to utilize bee keeper suits!

So talking to the bat guy, they gave me a quote. Very expensive ($1,100 over the phone to start with they said) for them to remove the bat and seal up the entry points so that it allows the bats to leave as they will each night to forage for food, but they can't get back in. It is a mesh they caulk in place and they can do it from the outside and not have to go up there. Then, he said they could cut the hole larger too on that day but that was another cost and after figuring things out, it was going to be $2,100 as I have such a large roof and it's two story and then another $6200 for them to remove all the soiled insulation and clean up the mess in there plus put back other insulation (better stuff too than what I had and that was one of those things I needed to have done that was on my checklist from the home inspection), a whopping total of $8,300! I was able to get a bit of a military discount and they were able to let me make payments, thankfully.

Now yes, I could have had Joe-Smoe do this for a helluva lot cheaper, but somethings I just needed to have done by professionals and this is one of them. They are giving me a 2 year warranty as well instead of 1 and I didn't want to worry about them being bitten or stung either.

So this is what they will do:
1) Bat people descend upon my house, stuffing mesh and caulking it into place all around the roof where there are crevices. They will also cut the hole bigger too for the entry point and we'll close it back it up with a board or piece of dry wall.
2) About a week later, the pest guy will return and get up into the attic and take care of the bees and remove the nests.
3) About 2 weeks after that, the bat people return and clean up the soiled insulation and the area up there and they will then blow new insulation in there.

Now something I will want is to see about having the holes filled and sealed up and then vent holes made in the sides of the house and proper ventilation/screening so that the bees can't return nor the bats.
Plus, I will want the entry point made to seal and framed out nice.

To answer a few questions I received from friends:

Didn't you have the house inspected?
Yes, I did have the house inspected and he did take a picture of the attic crawl space but it was only of the insulation to show I needed to have more put in there. He did not cast his camera upwards, otherwise, if he had, he would have seen the bee nests and possibly seen the bats or their guano on the insulation. This was mostly because  he could not get up there  as the opening is just 12 x 12, so when they opened up the hole, he just stuck his camera up there.

What happens to the bats afterwards?
I did buy a bat box/house kit and will put it together and then we are going to get a board and attach this to a tree, far away from the house that gets the morning sun. I also bought an attractant spray but the bat guy told me to wait to put this up until they go to do the clean up as they could rub some bat guano on it to let other bats know that bats had been there. Otherwise if I just put this up now, I've just put up a bee home as the bees will quickly take that over.

Someone asked me wouldn't the bats eat the bees?
Yes, if they happen upon some wasps or bees, the bats might eat them. However, what is happening here is what I like to call the "Ladyhawke syndrome". For anyone who has watched that movie, you'll get right away what I am talking about. If you haven't seen it, do so, it's awesome!
You see, during the day, bees/wasps are active but bats are sleeping.
At night, the bees/wasps are sleeping and the bats are active.

One other note is that bats are migratory so they will leave when it starts to get too cold. But I can't wait til then as all the damage they could be doing up there, just with the guano alone is a health hazard.
Bats also have their babies in the summer. So I have to hope there are no babies up there as the babies can't fly. I'd have to wait longer I believe to get them out.

Not a good situation.
The bat guys will be here next week to start this process so as I learn more, I'll share! :)

As I say on my Halloween blog...

~*Bugs n Hisses*~

GP
/|\

Looking for the Right House ---A Look at Delaware and brief glance to PA

We needed a quick place to land temporarily in Delaware as I wanted to spend some time with my uncle as well as be a bit closer to Maine than Texas was for my daughter.

So we chose the AFB here in Delaware, Dover AFB as they were renting to retirees due to the downsizing of the military and not having enough active duty to fill the homes. The rent was cheaper than what we were paying in Texas for our house payment. I was able to get a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath and 1 car garage on the corner towards the back of the housing area. I loved the location as it had a big yard that I could fill with my cemetery during Halloween.

Before even signing the rental agreement, I made sure they were going to be ok with what I was going to do not only out on the lawn, but also inside the garage for Halloween. They were excited to see this and eagerly welcomed us! I was so happy! Even more to not have to trim or mow the lawn nor weed the garden. WOW!

Luckily, our neighbors over the course of 2 years have been nice and quiet. Last year we had the big haunt for the 2nd time and it was even more fantastic than the first year.

Housing office was very friendly and accepting as well. As we signed the lease however for another year, our 2nd, we had been told at first that if we were to buy a house and had a year lease, they would be willing to work with us. But going in to sign for the 1 year, it was a completely different story, so sad, too bad. :( That was not good.

Having a tree in the yard and noticing that it had issues of something feasting on it, I went to the housing office to talk to them about it. They indicated they had the same issue with trees in the back of their building and the lawn maintenance didn't do anything about it, just let the trees die and then just planted new ones. I found this so incredibly sad that I was determined to help my tree. So I got some soaking liquid and spray and tried to save my tree. So far, it has not died. I will do the same again for it here soon and when the leaves come out.

We got told about the trash cans again. When you could put them down at the road for trash day and by what time you had to bring them in. This was not convenient at all and we just continued to do the same as we had before as it was close enough to the time at the very least the same days.

Last  year during October when I had just finished putting up the entire cemetery fence, the housing office told me I would have to take it down due to the bad storm coming our way. I was like nooooo cause it took us so long and we had secured it quite well having learned from the high winds in Texas. They still said they were about to send out an email about taking down anything outside. But the email I got said to secure or remove and luckily the hurricane did not come near enough to us. It would have been such a pain to have to remove that fencing tho' I would have if the storm had come this way.

Then came the inspections. It started out as annual inspections, checking your fire extinguisher, the smoke alarms and radon I believe it is. That's fine. Then they wrote us a letter to say they were going to do quarterly ones instead of annual. The letters of notice for this were papers taped to the garage door which we ended up missing a lot of those.
This was a pain and very intrusive to where they said they could enter the apt with just giving us notice and whether we liked it or not basically. This really bothered me. 48 hour notice for this was a piece of paper taped to my garage?

So now, I am at the point where my 1 year lease is up again. Last year the rent price dropped if we agreed to another year lease or it would go up if we did month to month so we signed another year as we were not quite ready to move yet as we had not yet found property in PA that we wanted.  By then, we were changing our mind for PA and looking to Maine.

This year, we got a nice letter saying how much they enjoyed us here in the base housing community but to sign a new 1 year lease, our rent would be increasing by $250. That was on the letter that was attached. In the email, it was stated it was to be even higher of an increase and yet even more if we wanted a month to month or a 7-9 month. This made no sense to us.

I wrote the housing office and got no reply as to the discrepancy in prices and then called only to leave a message and they are to call me back, which did not happen yet. :(

The pest issues here as far as ants were bad the first year. Their reply was to have someone come out only when needed. My answer was to have someone come out quarterly like the service I had in Texas. But as we didn't want to go that route, we got some ant bait ourselves and applied it around the house and have not had any ants since then.

I am getting tiny little roach like kinda bugs they are the size of the head of a pin however so not sure what they are exactly.

Of course spiders too now and then.

The other issue they have here is mold. So I am very vigilant about running the fan in the bathroom for a long while after a shower.

Inside the place, they had put laminate floors and this shag kind of dark rust carpet for the stairs and upstairs. They left the old cheapo tile linoleum stuff in the dining room and stuff in the kitchen. It is not nice tho' they thought it was all so pretty in the fake hardwood floors but laminate scratches super easy just moving furniture or a box around even. It's bad. Of course the carpets having cats is never a good idea.

The other issue I have about this place is the a/c unit. Several times it has frozen up on us. It has taken maintenance a while to fix it and yet still no one has given us a booklet on how to use the complex a/c and heating control panel. So we are forever toying with that to get the temperature just right. There is only one intake in the house, in the dining room and no filter on it. No filter on any of the outputs either. There is only one filter, locked up outside that we do not have the key for that sits in front of the unit itself. We have to ask maintenance to come out and change it if we want it done else they say they change it every quarter but when we moved in, it had not been changed since March and he thought it looked just fine and so never changed it. I finally broke down and got a very nice expensive filter for them to put in there instead of the cheapo ones they always use.

We keep sneezing in this house and my cats began to have asthma attacks. We believe it is allergies here in Delaware as well as the poor a/c unit here in the apt itself. Dust is horrible.

It has been nice however to hear TAPS play each night at 10 pm and then to hear reveille play in the morning at 7 am and retreat played at 5 pm. Going back to our days in the military brings a proud smile.

Also nice to have a gate guard to know we are secure but the bad thing is that any visitors or guests you have to go and sign them in at the visitor center with their driver's license and registration with them there as well. It's a huge task just for a visiting relative. :( More of a hassle.

Nice to be near the base for appts or going to the commissary or base exchange however, they charge a surcharge that goes to the military whereas there is no sales tax in Delaware so it's cheaper in Walmarts downtown.

And although Delaware has no state sales tax, they do have personal income tax and I was told that the food here is a bit more expensive to make up for that fact of not having a sales tax. Property taxes are also cheap here I've been told.
Every state will get you one way or the other however.

I didn't want to live here due to all the tourists and yes, humidity and it's crowded and it was the woods and mountains that beckon to me.

I had come here to be able to be closer to PA and take my time to look there for land and/or a home to move to. But the problem with PA is that it is becoming one big sand mound septic system. That's ashame. Plus it's expensive and you don't get much for your money in PA. It was hard to let go of PA and look to another state as I am from Pennsylvania. But I will not do that to the land, rip it up and drop a bunch of crap sand and muck onto it. I applaud the EPA in not wanting the waste to hit the water table, but their solution is not good for the land itself, you kill the land, the trees..the soil...no. Absolutely not!

We had gone to a Log and Timber show in PA as we had wanted a log home built for us if we found the right land. This was huge and a great education if you are looking for a log home, you will learn a lot! I will probably make a blog post about that later on. But if you get a chance to go, do so if you are thinking of getting a log home. Lots of vendors there and classes and you will get a lot of information on it. Just be sure you don't sign up for anything or else you will be bugged to death via phone all the time saying you won some trip or other and just have to sit thru their presentation and blah blah blah.

Unfortunately, it scared us away from it. Not only financially but how involved and how long it would take for us to move. The longer we've been here in DE, the more antsy we became to move.
After looking in two areas in PA and finding out about the septic systems, on top of my daughter having a car accident last year, that did it.


So I began to look to Maine....

Looking for the Right Home ---A Look Back at Texas

Now, I already had gone over about the place we had in Texas where we made the mistake of buying into a community with a Home Owner's Association. You can read about that experience here:

http://weirdnwonderfulnwackytips.blogspot.com/2013/05/on-buying-new-home-community-or-not.html

Having lived all over the world with being in the Air Force, gave us a lot of insight into different types of homes.

To look back at the Texas home, it was nice and big! It was a lovely home, a bit too big for our needs but it was really grand to be able to have a house built for you and with everything inside it that YOU pick out, down to the grout color even in the tiled floors! Can't beat that!

The mistakes here were:

A)Getting wall to wall carpet. Bad mistake when you have cats.

B)Choosing to live in a community with a home owners association that got to dictate to you how many pets and what types you could have, when you could have your trash cans out and how quick you had to be to get them in. When you could have your holiday decorations out and how quick you had to be to take them down. To keep your trees trimmed like truffula trees in Dr. Seuss' story The Lorax. Just on and on it went to the list of things you had to do, not of least was the dues you paid which were expensive like over $300 semi-annually. YIKES! Making you buy passes for your guests if they wanted to go to the community pool. Or that you had to keep up this wooden fence including painting it by a certain time or you'd be fined. Had to ask permission as to working on your garden or any major changes to it. If you didn't weed, you could be fined. The list just goes on and on really.

C)Even choosing Texas to begin with as it is so hot and humid that we were miserable in the summer time.

Now all that said, I love Texas, I do. I love many people who are Texans that live there. But although I spent 8 years there, I am not a Texan. My hero died at the Alamo, and I love and adore San Antonio but yea, I am a northern girl who enjoys the cooler weather and all four seasons and does not like humidity at all.

Texas however was fun. I got my own personal home haunt going that got bigger and bigger there each year. Met a lot of great people.

We had hail, so that the roof was pitted slightly but not enough to where I had to replace it although we sure did get bothered by a lot of roofing companies trying to tell you it needed it just after one hail storm.

We had two a/c units, one for downstairs and one for upstairs. This could have been expensive.

When we went to sell the place, unfortunately the people who were to buy it, lived in our community. They had an inspector come in and try to tell us we had to replace the roof and found this itty bitty scratch and this other one and all this little nitnoid things. It was as if they wanted us to fix it all so that they could move into a perfectly new house?! DOH! It was 8 years old, it was going to have dings here or there. We didn't even have little kids nor dogs in there but yea, the cats but they were fixed and declawed although that did not stop them from having accidents on the carpet. That was the bad thing.

So looking back, I would not ever buy into a community again. Not with a home owner's association and not to where you had neighbors so close to you like that. My neighbors were very nice however, so I got lucky.

I also didn't have any problems with anything being stolen, so again, I got lucky.

It was hard to be there for that many years when you've been in the military and used to moving every 4 years. 8 years was a long time.

We quickly did move however to take our daughter up to Maine and we landed in Delaware on an Air Force Base....

Looking for the Right New Home --Mobile homes

I thought I would blog about the experiences as I have them with buying a new home.

 

A look back however at some of the homes I've bought in the past.

 

We had purchased land before in Vermont, 11.4 acres and had a double wide put on it along with a detached 2 car garage.

 

We had decided to put the double wide atop the first hill on the property, about 1000 feet up. We had gone to one of those mobile sales parks where you can look inside all of them and pick out what you like and then go and order it. These are filled with all sorts of very creative ideas and I so enjoyed looking through all the different homes.

 

We found the land in the north western part of Vermont and went about getting it developed. It was scary at one point because they had to dig fairly deep to get the water for the well. The bad thing was for our neighbor, whose water pressure had dropped significantly because our well was up higher.

 

Warning there, if you buy a piece of land and it is lower than someone else, that may very well interfere with your own water pressure.

 

Also we had made the mistake of buying this in Vermont in the winter time and with a delivery date in Feb-March. This was at the height of the mud-season as the snow began to thaw and so it was very difficult to get the double wide up there, half by half as there were deep ruts in the mud on the drive that was cut.

 

Next mistake was in getting the double wide to begin with. Although aesthetically, it was gorgeous, structurally it was a nightmare. Cracker Jack walls were so thin! It was not put together well at all. Nothing solid about it and it was not long before we had leaks and mice. The leaks through the casement of the windows was so bad, I had gotten my son's marble-works toy and devised a set up for the water that was dripping so badly to be diverted down to the floor in a couple pots. This was from the ice backing up under the shingles and creating a dam. What would happen is that the sun would melt the snow, then at night it would freeze, becoming ice. More snow, or when it melted a bit more, it hit the dam and began to seep up under the shingles and then find its way through the window frames. This happened the very first winter. The mice came in as well looking to get warm, following the plumbing pipes and gnawing holes in the cardboard Cracker Jack walls. We had just gotten a kitten but he was only wanting to swat the mice to make them squeak and not kill them.

 

The one good thing was to have heating electrical tape that kept the pipes warm from freezing. This, however did not help the next owners that bought this place after us when Vermont had its coldest and most snowiest winters of all and the pipes froze and burst. 

 

But huge mistake was to have a double wide in Vermont at all for there is no pitch to the roof. So the 2 1/2 feet of wet snow remained on the roof and I was up there with either a shovel or paying someone with a snowblower to get it off due to the weight of the snow. This was a disaster waiting to happen.

The other bad thing was the long drive. It was not paved. Mistake. It was all mud and just a bit of rock but not enough. So when it snowed, there was pretty much no way we were going to get the car up the drive. So we would have to park at the bottom, walk up to the garage and get the sleds and bring them down and take out all the perishable grocery items and load the sleds up and drag them back up to the house.
The good thing about this was the ride back down and one that my kids loved to sled down the hill from the doorstep, 1000 feet down at top speed to catch the bus. They'd leave their sleds there in the morning and in the afternoon bring them back up. Bad thing was to make sure you didn't hit the spot that was mushy from the septic or the liquid manure that the farmer would deposit on the field there that we owned. We had let him do so as he was hay-baling that field to feed his cows and it saved us from having to mow it.

 

Luckily, we were able to sell the place, albeit at a loss and got out of there.

 

Even the shower rod ripped right out of the wall and anything heavy I tried to hang just fell down as there was nothing to secure it, not even anchors worked! It was all hollow.

 

Inside, it was gorgeous. Beautiful ivy wall paper in the kitchen and handwriting of poetry wall paper in the master bath and there was also a sky light over the garden tub. I kept waiting for that to leak but it didn't. The shower stall was very skinny. We had a faux stone fireplace that was just gorgeous in the living room, but I say faux for I couldn't believe it was real although it felt that way. The fireplace itself worked, wood burning. That was about it however. Had a laundry room very small but that was it. Pretty colors but that's all it was, dressing up a cardboard box with pretty paper. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths.

 

Now granted, it was quick, cheap and easy so we could land quickly after we retired from the Air Force, but it was a huge mistake. We should have gone with a log cabin kit instead. It would have been more durable.

 

The garage was sound, it was very nice. Tons of room and they even gave us extra power which was awesome, tho' at the time I wasn't utilizing it.

 

So if you want one of these mobile homes, double wides, it's best to keep them in the south where there is not a lot snow. And be sure you get them built more solid than what we did.

 

This was a big mistake and one I will not ever repeat.

Bank of America Saga, Part 3---The Payoff!

The day finally came that I knew I would be able to finally pay off the line of credit I had with Bank of America. Now to clarify, this was NOT a credit card consolidation loan, it was a line of credit. So it's something that you can't just charge or use at all. It is very different.

So I took my checkbook with me and went down to my local branch and sat to wait my turn to talk to someone to close down the account. They offered me to go away and run errands or something as they informed me it would be about an hour wait. I declined and said I would wait as I had no intentions of ever stepping foot into another Bank of America again.

So I waited, more like 30 minutes tops, and I was met with a friendly lady there and taken into her office. I informed her that I wished to pay off my line of credit and handed her my recent statement with my account number on it. She inquired if I was on the account as an authorized user, I said yes I believe I was. She called then to ask what the final payoff amount would be.

Here's where it gets stupid. Surprise, surprise!

The credit people on the phone gave her an 'approximate' amount for payoff. More than what the balance was. She told me it might be more as interest accrued on the account and it would depend on when they received and processed the check. I told her I was ready right now to write her a check for the full amount. Surprised, she said ok and took the check for the amount stated to her on the phone. It was received and processed right away as she went off to the teller and then returned with a receipt for me. I asked then to close the account so she did that as well and yet said I would have to have my husband call to be sure just in case, which I was planning on doing. I would receive another statement in the mail and if it had a dollar or two on it, she said I could call and have it waived as I had made the payoff then.
She was most pleasant, no problems and I left.

I thought this was really bad that they could not give me a pay off amount right then and there, the exact amount and I paid it on the spot and yet tell me I might have to pay them more? Ok whatever....it's dumb.


So I wait and my husband calls them and yes, sure enough we overpaid and they show a $14 or so credit, but it's a zero balance as to what we owe and yes the account is closed.

I then receive a letter in the mail stating we had an overpayment, zero balance and that yes, the account was closed.

So I called back up to ask for the overpayment to be returned to me. They said no, they could not do that, by check, but they would be happy to put it into my checking account. I said I don't have a checking account with Bank of America, but they said they could send it to my bank, Bank of Texas then if I had the routing number, etc, so I gave that to them and they said that it would show up in 2-3 business days. It did. Excellent!

They said I would receive one more statement and that would be it

HA!

 I then receive a statement in the mail showing I owe them $13 and some odd cents!! Bloody hell! If we overpaid them by $14 and yet the interest that came in was $13, that was just stupid!
So I called them, ready to fight about it because by now, I am irritated! But! I manage to get a really nice lady on the phone who I explained what happened and she happily said she would wave that amount and she told me that it was because we closed the account before the day they post the interest, so after pay off, they posted the interest that would have been due on the next day or so afterwards. I quickly shut up tho' when she said she would zero out my balance and waive that interest. She also said the account is closed and I would receive one more statement that would show the zero balance. I have not received it yet.

This was really, really stupid but I believe now it's OVER! I will await that last statement however and then file it away.


What a saga eh?

I will say tho' that everyone at the local branch, were very nice, the employees at Bank of America. I have no issue with them, only the institution itself and whoever it was that thought to change their credit terms like that, thinking that it was ok to do that to their loyal customers. It was so very wrong.
Most people may not realize how much it hurts you when they do that, but it does. I'll talk more on that later about all those credit card consolidation loan offers too and how bad it is to do that.

I am just glad this appears to be over now and I no longer owe anything to Bank of America. I will not ever do business with them either if I can help it.



Oh and a huge P.S. about the check fraud?
Walmart didn't clear the debt, but sold it so some scammers who contacted me 2 years after the fact, trying to scare me into giving them my bank info and telling me that I had to pay it and give them the bank account information. I laughed at them and told them no, they were dumb enough to buy a bad/non-existent debt from Walmart, it was THEIR responsibility to clear it up, I already had done all I was suppose to. Walmart was notified, my bank was notified, the police were notified and the credit bureau was notified. They wanted my bank info and I promptly told him that I don't have any account with that bank any longer. I told him he could go do the research or go back to Walmart about the issue and to not call me again about it or I would sue him for harassment. I later looked them up on the net and yup, sure enough it was a scam.

Later, I'll be pulling a credit report to be sure everything looks good. My numbers were excellent last I looked and I am sure now, they are even better. :)

Bank of America Saga, Part 2---Mishandling Funds

Everything was going ok for a few more years until it came out that the owner of Bank of America screwed up and mishandled his finances, (our money) and was in big trouble. So much so, he went looking to our government for a handout. So our government bailed them out of their financial mess.

I couldn't believe it! This bank I had trusted for so long, couldn't handle their money? Oh that so does not garner much trust anymore.

But it didn't just stop there with all that was in the media about it. Oh no, the powers that be at Bank of America thought to let their woes and mistakes, filter down. It wasn't enough for the government to bail them out, they wanted to pass this on to their customers. So they contacted me to tell me they were going to change their interest rate that had been guaranteed at 8.5%, to 26.99%! And they were going to change my Visa card interest rate as well! Why? Because they felt they could. Who knows? Or, my theory is that they realized they had loaned out boat loads of money and some of those people were not able to afford to pay it back! So they were in trouble, the bank that is aside from the people. So Bank of America thought to pass on that hardship to me! When I had been not only on time for so many years, but I was paying them a lot more than what I was suppose to pay! And I had several accounts with them! But oh no...I was so not doing this! So I fought them.
I got a notice in the mail about how they were going to change the rate due to the current economic problems and how the economy was so bad, blah blah....all of that really equaled they were going to go back on their promise and word when we struck the deal. I called and said no.
I told them that no, they could not do that as I had a written agreement saying it would always be 8.5% so long as I was not late and I had not been late in all these years and had paid them more than the minimum!! They relented and left me alone. I actually won against a bank, something so unheard of!

I was so angry they would do that to me or attempt it. All good will thoughts were quickly flushed down the drain with this bank who I had been doing business with for over a decade I believe!
It was horrid.

If that wasn't enough, they decided all on their own to lower my line of credit by 13k! This would hurt my credit scores. I was so upset and called them to get it changed back but they flat out refused and stated about how they based their decision on my payment history with them (which was total bs) then said it was because of my other card balances (which were less and less all the time as I was paying them off one by one), another bs line. I wrote to my Senator about it, but of course, that did nothing.

This is the letter I wrote in reply to Bank of America from the one I had received about lowering my line of credit without my permission as well as touching on the other issues I had with them:


Dear Mr. Lewis,

I am writing to you concerning the letter sent to me and dated 04/21/09 by your Louis A. Green of the Consumer Finance Dept of Bank of America.

This letter informs me that you will be lowering my credit line to $40,000.00 from where it was previously of $53,000.00. Mr. Green states that it was a result of my recent payment history with you and that I have high balances on existing revolving credit lines.

I received this letter while I was in Delaware, taking care of my uncle who was in the hospital for colon cancer. My husband informed me of this letter. I returned to Texas and promptly called on Monday, the 1-888 number on the letter to talk with someone about reconsidering this decision. The woman I spoke to was quite rude and absolutely refused to even look into my account and flat out refused to change this decision.

Now I don't even use this line of credit so it makes no sense why you would do that and now, by doing this, you are hurting my credit scores and for no other earthly real reason than you having overextended YOURSELF in purchasing Merrill Lynch and Country Wide. How fair is that? When will the U.S. Government or someone else, cut YOUR credit line then because you are too far in debt?!? I am paying my bills, Mr. Lewis and on time and more than the minimum and not begging the U.S. Government to bail me out. What's the difference?

I called again Tuesday morning and asked to speak to Mr. Green directly and I was informed that no one knows who Mr. Green is and that there is no Mr. Green and that that name was just put on there as any old name. He is a fictitious person. So that calls to mind of how legal this letter and action truly is if the person is not even a real person? I was also informed that the reasons stated on the letter as to why the lowering of my credit line are incorrect and apologies were made however I was told that my credit line was being lowered to bring it up to speed with other financial institutions. I informed him that I have not had any other financial institutions do this to me however so I don't see why you would be? He then asked to speak to my husband in order to do a review or have my husband call him to authorize me as a user although I do have a general power of attorney over my husband. I called my husband who is currently out of state and he called to authorize me.

So I called back again to request a review be made to my account. Then I was informed that no, I could not ask for the review and in fact my husband would have to request it himself even tho' I am now an authorized user. Apologies were made to me for the run-around.

I gave my husband the information and he called to request a review. The return of the credit was denied and reason stated was that we owe too much on our other cards, despite us owing alot less than ever and making more money than ever!! He was told it was "due to the economy being so bad and that that was then and this is now." He was also told that all the other banking and credit card agencies were doing the same thing. This is just unacceptable and a load of crap to be frank. All pure lies. Not every bank is doing this, not every credit card agency is doing this. For example, since my phone calls to your bank, I have contacted two banks that are more than happy to take my business at more favorable terms than your bank has. Furthermore, unlike your bank in needing to beg the federal government for bailouts while feeding Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the U.S. Treasury a pack of lies, these banks were and are prudent lenders who are financially stable and have not accepted penny one from the government nor do they need to. We, the people, are not mushrooms, Mr. Lewis, we will not be kept in the dark and fed a line of horse manure.

Now, I currently make more money than I have last year and I have consistently been paying on this particular credit line $1,000.00 per month which is beyond the $734.00 minimum and I have not once ever been late. I started out with this line of credit for $53,000, using $51,000 and I now owe just over $39k. I have not ever used this line of credit nor do I intend upon doing so as it is a line of credit and not a credit card so I have no ability to even use it if I wanted to. Everyone at your banking facility has stated that I have EXCELLENT payment history with you for this account.

As for the rest of my revolving credit cards, I have not once, been late on any of them plus, I in fact, owe less than I have before.

Mr. Lewis, I find this very unfair and unjust of your financial institution to do this to one of your faithful and loyal and paying customers of over 6 years. I currently have two checking accounts, one line of credit and one Visa card with your financial institution. I will be receiving a commission check of over $5,000.00 this week and I was going to go down to my local branch and open up a savings account with your bank.

I have now, changed my decision and I will no longer be doing banking with your institution. I will be taking my business elsewhere to another bank that will treat me fairly. Granted, I am but one voice, in reality, I represent 4 voices directly of my immediate family, my husband, son, and daughter; but know that I will be telling every friend and family member as well as anyone else I may meet as well as all my political representatives to no longer do business with Bank of America and sharing my story with them. As CEO, I am sure you and the others of the board, do not care about me nor is this a personal attack, but your willy nilly decisions without any notice or due cause to alter my financial status and do harm to my credit scores for absolutely no reason or fault of my own, IS personal to me and I take great offense to the betrayal of the trust in the financial relationship we had established over the past 6 years.

This is but the tip of the iceberg over the past year and frankly, the last straw of unfair and unjust business practices of Bank of America.

Not only the above but last year, your employees advised me NOT to file a police report on a theft of one of my checks out of my mailbox. It was paying a utility bill but the thief copied my routing number and acct number and made his own checks with my information and used one in Walmart for over $1,000.00. Bank of America would NOT stop the pending action although I had quickly informed them of the theft. Not to mention holding my money captive for 3 months and told to just ignore the overdraft charges that would incur due to this. I cringed to watch this and worried over my credit rating. I found that whole situation highly unsafe that I could not stop payment on a check before it cleared on my own account and on top of that being told to NOT file a police report or get the police involved? Luckily, being the daughter of a police dispatcher of over 30 years, I knew better and so I filed that report with law enforcement and followed up with Walmart security who were able to capture the thief on video as they stopped him from utilizing another check with my routing and acct numbers on it at their jewelry counter.

Your on-line banking is also going down the tubes as it has recently on two separate occurrences, not reflected cashed checks paid to my credit cards on my on-line statement, although upon contacting the credit card companies, they inform me that they did receive the payments on time, no problem. In the meantime, I quickly sent them another payment when it did not show up on my on-line banking statement, that I watch very closely, just to be sure.

On top of all of that, I had also received a notice in the mail recently that you would be upping my interest rate on the Visa card from 11% to 24.99%. The reason? Is due to the economy I was informed. That is also very unfair. I was given a chance to say no to this, however I could no longer use the card at all or if I did, I would have to pay the 24.99% interest on it. To more than double it?! Unacceptable. I of course, declined and I have no problem with not ever using that card as I had no intentions of using it. In fact, I will be sure and transfer that balance to another banking institution that is NOT doing what you are. So that line of 'bringing things up to speed with other financial institutions' and that 'all the other banks are doing this', is a pure load of horse manure! You can bet that I will be cutting this card and closing the account sooner than I had planned before receiving that letter. And the new card? Is offering me a higher line of credit than your Visa and with a much lower percentage rate. So much for that lie your employees are telling the people.
You can bet that as soon as possible, I will be transferring my Bank of America Visa card's balance over to another card as soon as I receive my new one with another banking agency that was already approved.

Your bank Sir, has gone downhill rapidly. I used to tout Bank of America as being one of the best banks I have ever done business with. That, is no more. Your reputation has quickly plummeted to the worst.

I will also be removing my two checking accounts from Bank of America which will remove my two direct deposits and I will not be opening up any other accounts with you. When I receive my $5,000.00 commission check, I will be going to another bank to deposit it in a brand new savings account and I will be opening up my checking accounts with them instead. That will leave my line of credit with you and as soon as I am able, I will be removing that as well. No longer will you able to utilize my money to overextend yourself and penalize me for being more financially capable and a better credit risk than your bank has proven to be.

The money you are to receive from the Federal Government is suppose to help you loosen the credit standards for the people but that is NOT what is happening. You are instead, customer wide, hurting everyone's credit rating by upsetting the balance of the credit utilization ratio with the credit bureaus by lowering their limits without just cause nor without any notice or warning. This is unacceptable.
If I were using that line of credit and had been late, that would be one thing, but I have not, not ONE time been late or unable to make a payment and I've paid more than minimum nearly every single time, check it out! I do not believe that is right if you offer me a line of credit at a certain amount, you shouldn't be able to change your mind mid-stream nor all of a sudden increase an interest rate on my Visa card without any reason or fault of my own but solely because you overextended yourself. That's not very fair of a deal. This was meant to help me, not to hold me up to a punching bag for you to take a shot at simply cause you are having a bad day or because you can't handle your finances properly. I should not have to be penalized for your mistakes, nor will I be any longer.

My apologies if this is all news to you as to what your employees are saying and doing to try to get the capital together for your bank. I have never written my U.S. representatives before, but you can bet your bippie that I am now. I am but one of thousands of voices Mr. Lewis that have had enough abuse and betrayal of trust with Bank of America.

My mattress is looking better and better all the time.

A copy of this letter will be sent to every one of my U.S. representatives from their secure homepages to make sure they know what is really happening with your bank and what your bank is doing to the common man.

Frustrated and angry,


And then I signed it with my name.

Bank of Texas offered to take over my line of credit, but I thanked them and said no, I would finish it out because I knew I didn't have much longer and I would pay Bank of America off.

I then heard that Bank of America was going to charge their customers a fee for every time they used their own debit card and I was ever so glad I no longer had a checking account with them.

I couldn't wait to pay them off! I worked diligently to do so....and then, the day came....

Bank of America Saga, Part 1--Stolen Check

Now, I really hate to post negative things. I really do. But this has been in the works for years about this particular bank. It's a very long story but it needs telling, if anything, to get it off my shoulders.

Bank of America, many years ago, back when I lived in Vegas, I got an account with them. Bank of "America", how can you go wrong? Right? WRONG!
At the time however, they were great! I can't complain about them at all.

Like many Americans, I got credit cards. Now my dad always fussed at me about it. He never had a single credit card all of his life. He hated the credit cards and he thought debit cards were stupid. Why you would want to stand in line to get your money when you can just go right into the bank with a check and write out what you want and they would give you the money right out of your account. He thought the cards were a dangerous thing, and a very bad idea. It was cash over the barrel or you got "payments on time" or you just didn't get it. He hated that I had credit cards and knew it was far too easy to get into trouble with them. How right he was! Because sure enough, I did, like many others, I got into debt and ended up with way too many cards with too high of an interest rate. Part of the downfall was yes, me being stupid and living beyond my means. Plus, my son's medical bills and things happening with the car like the a/c going out in my car while living in FL and well, you can't survive too well down there without it. And on top of all of that, I had to take a 13k loss on my home and the only way I could pay the bank that much was credit card cash withdrawals. Oh now that's such a bad move and let me tell you, it is nasty for the interest you are charged is outrageous!

So I was in a big mess by the time I got to Vegas.
But, Bank of America was there for me. I thank them for this. They came out with this special 50k line of credit, no questions asked, yadda yadda type of deal. Guaranteed interest of 8.5% for the life of the loan, etc etc and when I saw this, I knew I could get rid of all of my high interest credit cards!
So I signed up. They charged me 1k or so for processing...ahem....the start of it all....
but I didn't care a whole lot at the time (silly me!) because all I saw was all that interest I was not going to have to pay the other cards. But the whole deal was, I had to make my payments and I could not be late, not one time or else the interest rate would jack up to 26.99 or 29.99%. Holy crap right?
So I made SURE that I would never be late and I had the money withdrawn automatically each month and in fact, I paid them more than I needed to. My payments were 734 a month so I paid 1k a month. Yup, that's nasty, but I had a lot of credit cards (see 13k in debt from the loss of the house alone). But I made sure I would never ever be late. And for a few years, everything went well, everyone was happy...

Until....

I moved to Texas, continued with my payments and then, someone stole a check out of my mailbox,  (an automatic felony for tampering with the mail) and they stole my routing number and account number off the check and duplicated a few blank checks and went down to a Walmart in White Settlement, TX (on the other side of Ft Worth from me) and this dude thought to buy himself a shiny new computer. Then he made a mistake and went over to the jewelry counter 5 minutes later and tried to buy himself some expensive jewelry.
Walmart denied his check. THANK YOU WALMART!

I thought I had blogged of this before, but don't see the post, so I'll explain now what happened and later, I'll make a blog post of what to do should you find your identity is stolen or a check or something like that. And I'll keep this short without pulling my file to go into too many details about this situation...

I had been saving some money in my checking account to pay Home Depot for the gutters they were installing on my house. I looked into the bank account online as I tend to do now and then and all of a sudden I saw my money was gone! I realized what had happened and saw pending this huge check for Walmart written just the day before!
Now, what flags this even more is that whenever I have gone to Walmart, I never ever use a check. I just don't carry checks with me, they are used only for bills. I always use my debit card at Walmart.

I knew if this check cleared my account, my other checks that were out, were going to bounce sky high! So I went to my bank to stop payment on that check that was still pending. To stop it in its tracks. Bank of America would not do that. They told me I had to let it clear. I was upset. They told me not to worry that any overdraft fees would all be returned to me eventually but I couldn't close the account out, I had to let it happen.

OK, I felt this was WRONG. They should have been able to reject the payment as it was PENDING. It would be different if it had cleared but if it's still pending, then I felt they could have disapproved it, denied it or whatever and stopped it, but nope.

So then, the lady I spoke to at the bank told me I shouldn't bother to file a police report. HUH?!
Yea....NOT!
Both of my parents were dispatchers for the police and so I knew that was wrong. Whether they catch the guy or not, I still had to file a report! It's wrong what happened and they need to know about it.
Well, I thought I could go locally to the police but no, they sent me to the police dept that the Walmart in question was under their jurisdiction. Well that took getting out my Sherlock Holmes hat to figure out what Walmart it was as the number listed on my online statement was to a Walmart that no longer existed! DOH!
I finally figured it out however and notified Walmart and they pulled the video tape and reviewed it with me on the phone and said yup, they could see the guy, described him to me and what he bought even! They made a copy of the video and told me to let the police detective know they had it if they wanted to come by and pick it up!! WOW! Good for Walmart again!

Bank of America did notify their upper management as to what was going on and put a hold on the account after the check cleared.

I contacted the Credit Bureau and reported the whole thing and then went down to White Settlement police dept and filed the report with the detective there.
I created a whole file of this entire mess. (smart move!) I documented everything!

The detective advised me to never ever mail your bills in a mailbox at your door. Putting the flag up is like a red flag to the criminals that you have checks in there too. Also to not ever mail your bills in any of the blue mailboxes as they too could be broken into. The only place safe is if we go into a post office and either slip the mail into the wall slot for outgoing mail or hand it directly to the teller.

It took me 3 months to get my money back. For 3 months my money was held hostage but it all finally got sorted out and yes, Bank of America returned to me all overdraft fees. Walmart returned the money seeing that yes, I had not ever used a check with them and telling me because I used a Debit card all the time, that was what saved me. Tho' later I found out they blackballed my account with them?? Such crap!

But the moment all my checks cleared however, I closed the checking account with Bank of America.

I closed ALL my accounts with Bank of America, except for the line of credit that I could not close out at the time. At one point they tried to make me keep a checking account because I had a line of credit but then they changed their stance and let it be.

I went straight over to Bank of Texas who were all too happy to have my account. So I just continued to pay Bank of America by either transfer or check.

And everything went well for a while......


Until....

Best Buy Craziness---Update!

After receiving the 2nd email warning me that Best Buy would cancel my order if they did not hear from me, I didn't call them, only replied with an email, knowing of course that no one was really going to respond to it, but I knew I was to wait a couple days.

Today, I didn't hear anything at all so something made me want to call them to check it out. It is during the week after all and I wondered what kind of response I'd get and/or if everything had worked itself out with the MasterCard or if my order had been cancelled.

After a few spins around the transfer conga line, I ended up with a lady who was obviously from the U.S. I explained to her what had happened and what Best Buy did with my MasterCard and also what the Best Buy rep on Monday had told me. She knew exactly what I was talking about as it had happened to her too before! DOH! Oh man!
But she said she would call the MasterCard company and get the funds released and take care of everything if I could just wait on hold for 3-5 mins. I said sure no problem. She had the phone number for the card even and everything! IMPRESSIVE!

So I waited. She came back at one point to apologize for the wait, it wasn't that long tho'! :) And she said she realized I had a Reward Zone MC rather than Capital One so it took her longer but she said it would be a minute or two more and then put me back on hold. And good to her word, she returned in a minute or so and told me everything was taken care of!! :)
She said that she had the whole thing reversed with the MasterCard (I believe she meant the charges) and she said if my card had denied Best Buy one more time, the order would have been cancelled so while she had him on the phone, she made sure first that there was sufficient funds and it was all clear, the guy told her yes, and then she went ahead and quickly charged my card for the iPad then right away. It went thru no problem and so now my order is on it's way as scheduled and it will arrive at the store on Saturday, June 1st!! YAY!!

I was ecstatic that she was able to get everything all taken care of!! How wonderful! I thanked her profusely!

And thank the Gods that I got HER on the phone and she is from the U.S. Not to knock other countries or cultures or whatnot but it has been my most unfortunate experience that whenever I have someone other than from the US try to handle my accounts or money or orders, it always gets screwed up. I find that if I want or need someone to help me with my US money, I need a US person to take care of it!

AND! I have to always remember to never ever call for things like this on the weekend. Only during the week as my chances of being bounced to a different country's call center is less during the week.

Man...all of that bs when it could have been taken care of on Monday! DOH!

And all of that when I should not have ordered it to be sent to a store local when it was in stock at another one not too far away!

Lessons learned!

She had also stated in agreement with me that other companies do not do this and that Best Buy was to put a hold on the funds but not charge the card til it was shipped. It was just wacky what happened tho'! I am glad it's over nearly and on Saturday, I'll have my iPad!! YAY!

Whew! What an ordeal!

Best Buy Craziness

Normally, I enjoy shopping at Best Buy. They have a nice store, people are friendly, quick to ask you if you need help and very polite and knowledgeable. Online store is ok and everything is fine.

Until recently.

I have a Best Buy MasterCard hooked to my Best Buy Rewards Zone account so that when you make a purchase, you earn points. Much like Staples with their business and personal account to where you order things and you earn Staple dollars to spend in their store. Very nice!

So, I wanted to order an iPad and the assorted accessories so I decided to pay down that money on the Best Buy Master Card and then use it to purchase everything. I sent in the money on the 21st, it posted to the MasterCard and I called to confirm and then I went online and placed my order that was already saved in my cart. I chose for everything to arrive at the local store for me to pick up and they would send me an email to let me know when it was ready to be picked up. It said that the accessories were all in stock but the iPad itself would not arrive at the store until 1 June or after. That was fine, I didn't mind.
So I received the email later that day that my items were there ready to be picked up, except for the iPad of course. I didn't go in on Friday, but instead, chose to go in there on Saturday. Of course, Saturday morning, I get a reminder email to go pick up the items or they would restock them although I had until June 1st to get them. So I picked them up, no problem, except I had to ask to see the items they quickly put into the bag before I signed them. No big deal, she showed me and that was that, paid for with my card that I had to bring in with me.

Next thing I know, I get this email this morning:


Action required, billing problem encountered

Order Number: XXX
            
Hello Wanda,

We're sorry, but one or more of the payment methods used for your order has failed to process. We need to hear from you before we are able to process your order any further.

Please call us at 1-888-BEST BUY (1-888-237-8289) to help us complete your order. If possible, please have your order number handy. If we don't hear from you, and are unsuccessful in processing your billing information, your order will be canceled.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Lisa Smith
Vice President
Best Buy Customer Care



So I was like uh oh...so although today is Memorial Day and a holiday, I called right away because I didn't want anything to go wrong with my order of the iPad. Mistake to have done this on a weekend/holiday but hey, I want to be sure nothing is wrong!

After being transferred around, I finally get someone. He verifies who I am, and then says we should do a 3 way call with Best Buy MasterCard and asks me for the customer service number. I thought this was a bit sad he didn't have it, but eh, no big deal, I went and got my card and gave him the 1-800 number and he told me he would call them and I would input my information to them and then he would be back online to talk with them with me as well and we can find out what is going on. Ok sounded good so far!

This nice lady gets on the phone and I explain to her who I am, she verifies who I am and then the Best Buy rep interrupts and jumps in and she is surprised and asks who is this? I can tell she is a bit annoyed right off too as I am trying to talk with her and yet he interrupted a couple times. So anyway, I explain to her the email and then he interrupts to explain what they did.

Here's where I get annoyed.

It seems that Best Buy charged my card for the iPad at the time of my order. (Ok that's cool and fine)
But since it was not going to come in with the other items, they went and sent a credit back to the MasterCard for the iPad amount on Friday.
(I KNEW when I purchased it online that it would be delayed in shipping to the store for pick up as they said so on the site and gave me a date as to when it would arrive)

THEN! Best Buy decided to recharge my card, I guess Saturday or Sunday or Today? for the iPad amount and they weren't able to do so on my credit card because it showed there was not enough funds and he tells me that my account was showing as "delinquent"?!?!
Not likely as they just received the money and it posted and it was several hundred dollars! DOH!

So now I was told they would have to wait to charge the card back again until the credit that they sent to the MasterCard went thru and posted in a few more business days!?!

Oh man...I had to interrupt at this point and told them, Sorry, but this is stupid. That is a stupid practice and why in the world would you do that? Charge it, credit it and then recharge again?! That was dumb!

The rep tried to tell me that "every business does this" and I stopped him and said, No, they do not. Don't even try to hand me that, because I order a lot of things online and in fact, you are the only company that has ever done that!

So I go back to the lady to find out how long of a wait and I ask him if it would delay my order or would it just get cancelled then and I'll have to reorder it now? I told him this was just stupid and so now my order is delayed and being held?
He again tries to tell me that 'all businesses do things this way" and I again stopped him and told him, no, they don't. Don't try to tell me that when I know that is wrong! No other company does this so stop telling me otherwise.

I did tell them both, sorry, I am not taking this out on you both and I know it's not your fault but that's just plain stupid.

I asked him so what happens from here? (not wanting him to go on about this and argue with me or try to convince me) He said the system would just automatically try to recharge the card again. I said ok, so I just wait then? He said yes.

I thanked the lady for her help and said bye and they both hung up.

What kills me too is that email. They are threatening to cancel the order if they don't hear from me? And yet they were the ones who caused the issue to begin with?! DOH! Real nice!
I wrote back a reply to the email, explaining what happened and that I am very dissatisfied with Best Buy right now.

And you know? I could have had everything set up to be picked up at the Grapevine store and picked up my iPad on Saturday as they have the one I wanted in stock instead of wanting it to be sent to a more local store.

So this blog's first warning:

Warning:
Do not order something online from Best Buy to be delivered to a store that does not have the item in stock at that store.

Answer:
Choose another store that does have the item in stock.

Consequence:
Otherwise they will screw around with your credit card!


Very poor business practice. The reason I know this is not how other companies do business is that I order many things online. Most companies will not charge your card until the item ships when you order it online. That's only fair. You have to have the amount available on your card, which I did, and then they will charge the card as it becomes available and ships.

Best Buy would do well to take note and change their current practice to that.

It is ashame as I have ordered quite a lot from them but now, I may not do so in the future.