So, I paid off my car a week ago Friday. Month after miserable month, for 6 miserable years, I toiled away at craphole jobs just to pay off the stupid thing. For someone who worked as a waitress through nursing school with two little tykes, I'm proud to say that only recently (over the past year) as I was making more money than ever, did I make truly late payments.
But do you think they care how hard I worked to make the other 48 payments, or how nearly impossible it was to come up with money then??? NO!! I regularly got phone calls, sometimes more than one a day, and letters that I didn't once open. Near the end, since March, actually, they started calling me about 5 times a day. I figured it was cause I was, since Christmas, at least a month behind on my payments.
Finally, 2 weeks ago, I answered the phone. Apparently there is such thing as a "maturity date", and apparently that had happened in March. So, I used up a whole paycheck, and paid off the stupid thing. (EXTRA interest and all, which totals over $8,000.)
YEEHAW! Now I can start working on my credit card and my student loan.
So, here I am, a week and 3 days after the official last payment, which I wired, and no title. So for fun, I decided to start calling them twice a day until I received the damn thing. I started this morning.
"Huntington National Bank, can I help you?"
"You sure can, I made my final payment on my car last Friday, and I have yet to receive my title."
She proceeded to look up my account.
"It states we mailed out the title Wednesday the 19th..."
"Well, I don't have it yet, and was wondering how you could get it to me. You can overnight it, or..."
"Wait, it shows here you are not the main maker on the loan."
(NOTE: I bought the car with the kids' dad. He, being the thinker he is, wanted HIS name on something, since the apartment was always in mine, and I used that to my every advantage. So he got the loan in his name. And I, the title.)
"Yes, I know, but I get the title."
"We must have mailed the title to him, since he is the main maker..."
Umm...
"Wait, no, I am the title holder, or I was supposed to be. Whatever I signed at the car place, they made me title holder of the car, and him the maker."
"It doesn't work like that. The title goes to the person on the loan."
"Well, I know that makes sense, but you gotta understand, I duped him, I've had the car since 2001 and I've made all the payments." Which kinda makes it sound like I got duped, if you've ever seen the car.
Even the cops gave me the car after I got my restraining order, so I must have showed them something! (Is my trailer park showing? Sorry about that.) I started scrambling through all my files. I had to have some kind of proof, but it's just been so LONG!
"Well, let me look and see who we made the title out to when we sent it."
I was going to have to get a lawyer, and prove all my payments and the car probably wouldn't even last that long......this was turning out badly.
After 14 hours of waiting on hold ("Jesus Christ Superstar" is playing on hold. Elevator style.), having 3 strokes and twenty seven anxiety attacks, she came back to the phone.
"Ms. B*******? It shows here that the title is made out to..................................................................................you. Apparently you were right, the title is in your name, and the loan in his."
Well, no shit.
"And the title should arrive within 7-10 BUISNESS days."
Damnit! That's like 3 months in snail mail years.
Foiled again.
So I guess I'm gonna have to stick with screwing with telemarketers. They just don't have the backbone they used to. They say "thank you", give me a 1-800 number and hang up. Cowards.
Update (8/7):
As an update, if anyone really cares, I still haven't received my title. As of Saturday it will be a month. (Completely taking all the fun away from paying the damn thing off.)
I called again today, stating this very fact. The person who answered, who, btw, sounded like she was 16 (are 16 year olds allowed to be telemarketers? I would think the people in charge of banning young people to work at certain jobs would put telemarketing up there on the list near stripping. For the same reasons they're not supposed to watch R rated movies.) Anyways, the kid looked up my account and said that it showed there that the title was sent out on the 27th of July. I then told her the last person told me they sent it on the 19th. That's when it got silly.
Apparently, the title was not actually sent to ME on the 19th like they said. It was sent to the clerk of courts to take their names off the lein. After that, they mailed it back to Huntington, and when they got it back from them, they mailed it to ME on the 27th. So she said, it had NOT been 8-10 business days since they mailed it to me. I said, "So when I called on the 24th, and you said you mailed it to ME (after I WIRED you the money on the 12th), you actually meant you mailed it to someone else on the 19th, that it would take THEM 8-10 business days to recieve, then THEY would mail it back whenever they were finished with whatever they were doing with it, and within 8-10 business days later, you'd receive it back, mail it whenever you felt the need to ME, and then I'd receive it THEN after 8-10 business days. So in all actuality, it could be the change of the next millenium before I really get it from you." Her answer, "We mailed it out on the 27th. You will receive it within 8-10 business days."
They LIED to me!! Bastards! I knew it all along, I knew I didn't like them. And this whole time I thought it was because they were bugging me for money every month. But no! It's because they're conniving sneaky liars who are mad cause they're finished fucking with me on a monthly basis, so they reached for the only thing they could do to turn the knife one more time! But now I have PROOF!
The deadline has moved back to this Wednesday through Friday. This is not actually as fun as I thought it would be. Because if it's not there, which it won't be, all they'll do when I call, is mail it out again. And then here we go again. Poo.
Update (9/5):
When I called them 8/7 I confirmed my address (they had it wrong, AGAIN, and after a year, still haven't gotten it into their computers that I moved). Last week I called them, cause I (go figure) still had not recieved it. I demanded that they overnight it. After typing in his computer, he let me know that when they said they sent it on the 27th of July, he actually meant they sent it to my OLD address (even after I confirmed my NEW one.) Naturally, I flipped out, and he, in turn flipped out too, and swore he was at that moment putting in an order for a duplicate title to be overnighted. Friday (9/1) I got a letter (dated 8/25) that said the title is unavailable. According to the BMV, their lein on my car has been discharged. Because of that, Huntington is unable to acquire a duplicate title. They actually enclosed a title application that I have to fill out and SNAILmail to the Franklin County Clerk of Courts. I have to have it notarized, also. Oh, and the best part?? It's going to cost me $5 to do so.
So today, I called and had an epileptic fit at the first person I could find. The best she could give me? She's going to send me a check (filled out to the Franklin County Clerk of Courts, of course) for $5. Because their name is now out of it, they are unable to do anthing. I reminded her of the friendly customer service rule, though, when you make someone happy, they tell one person. When you make someone unhappy, they tell ten. And in this case, 340.
