No One Wants My $800
After thinking it over some more, and the urging of a few commenters on Tuesday, I decided to find someone to talk to regarding the $800 left in my car repair. I spent a good amount of time yesterday scouring the website of the bank that the line of credit for the car repair is through, and finally found a number I could call.
I couldn’t believe what happened when I called. I only got an automated system, but after entering our account number and the last four digits of my spouse’s social security number, the computer told me our balance. Which was not $800.00. It was, in fact, $0.00.
Um… huh? Well, that explains why I have received no statement from them - they didn’t have anything to send me a statement about. So then I started to get a weird panicky feeling that somehow, my spouse had paid the $800 with one of our credit cards by mistake. I knew he had in fact split the payment and that only the ~$2800 that was supposed to be paid by our debit card was paid that way, because I keep good tabs on all charges in and out of that account. But the credit cards, since they’ve been $0.00, I don’t really pay attention to.
Luckily, we only have three credit cards, and I have them all set up for online access. So within about 5 minutes, I knew that none of the three had had an $800 charge on them and they all were still at $0.00. That was nice, but… who did we owe $800 to?
I dug out our receipt for the repairs. Yes, a purchase that big, I keep the receipt for a long time. Stapled to the invoice was the receipt for our debit card payment, and with that was a receipt for the line of credit, which said to refer to the bank issuing it for the specifics of payment. So I’m back to square one. Saturn thinks the bank paid for it. The bank thinks we owe nothing. And I am sitting here thinking…
Yes, for a minute or two I considered just calling this a stroke of wonderous luck and leaving everything as is. But honestly, that would drive me nutty for maybe the rest of my life.
So I called the Saturn dealership and explained my dilemma. We still haven’t paid for $800 of our $3600 repair, and we would like to, but no one thinks we owe them money. The woman I talked to sounded very confused, but she knew who to transfer me to, which is really all that matters. Unfortunately, by this time, the woman in service I needed to talk to had left for the day, so I left her a voicemail explaining that frankly, I would like to give someone $800 and be done with this repair, please tell me who to give it to.
Hopefully she calls back today. In a perfect world, I could just pay the Saturn dealership directly today, say thanks, and cross it off my list.
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February 14th, 2008 at 6:00 am
That’s interesting.
See if your bank is listed on this site: http://gethuman.com/
It gives you the secret codes to get through the punch-a-button maze to reach a person. If the bank isn’t listed, try punching 0 about five times in a row, fast. Sometimes that will break through.
Wouldn’t it be nice if this turned into a little windfall?
If it looks like both outfits claim you don’t owe the $800, maybe you should try to get them to say so in writing by issuing you dated statements, and then check that amount off your list. Yay!
February 14th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Wouldn’t it be lovely not to have to pay it at all?
Banks and finance companies are notorious for taking weeks to set up new loans and accounts. When I was selling loans I’d always tell people that sometimes the company might not “book” the loan before their first payment was due, but that the payment was still due on the due date. So I gave them the telephone number and address for the bank, and told them if they had not received the payment book a week before their payment was a due to call and get their loan number and the correct address to send the payment.
Why? Whether they got the book or not the payment was still due on the due date, and they could accrue additional interest for it being late, even if the bank waived the late fee.
Yes indeedy.
So, perhaps they are in the process of booking your loan and though they may have linked your name to the account number they haven’t completely set things up yet.
All in all still a PITA, but perhaps an explanation.
I hope they call you back today!
February 14th, 2008 at 8:14 am
I am the same way as you are, I could never just assume without calling to find out why the amount wasn’t billed. I know some people who weren’t getting billed for their electricity and didn’t bother to find out why and one year later the electrical company found their mistake and back billed them for the entire year at once. I hope it does turn out to be a windfall and Funny About Money’s suggestion to have someone give you that in writing is an excellent idea.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Wow, Saturn messed everything up possible. I hope they actually got the repair right. :/
February 14th, 2008 at 8:39 am
On the bright side, maybe nobody will want it. But I think you’re doing the right thing by calling around. It would not be cool to end up with this again in 6 months and have the bank perhaps looking for interest.
If it’s that time of year, can you use annualcreditreport.com to check your credit report? They might see if someone has an open balance on you too.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I had something similar happen once - after giving birth to my first child, I kept waiting and waiting for the hospital bill. I had set aside something like $3,000 to cover my end of things (insurance would pay the rest). I waited a decent amount of time - and no bill arrived. I really wanted to get this monkey off my back, so called the hospital billing department in frustration. Imagine my surprise when they said I didn’t owe ANYTHING . My new insurance (it changed towards the end of my pregnancy) covered the entire stay.
What a relief!
Hope you get a good answer - maybe somehow you DON’T owe it?!
February 14th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I would wait a few more days before giving the dealership money. I find frequently when you get a deal “no payment for X days” that they will not “bill” you until the X days is over. You’ll get a statement saying ZERO due, up until the last cycle and then it will show the money is due.
I recommend getting through to a human and see what happens. I would be very hesitant to give the money to the dealership at this point, unless you can prove the line of credit was closed.
February 14th, 2008 at 10:04 am
I have, as of right now, talked to humans both related to the line of credit and at the Saturn dealership. The story is, well… interesting. I shall share it all in its entirety in a post because it is long and complex. But the short answer is - if I’d never called, we’d never have owed anyone anything it seems, because no one knows what anyone else is doing. lol
But we did call, and my spouse is on his way to the dealership right now to pay the balance of our bill, and the line of credit is done without us ever using it. Heh heh. Does that mean I can count this as never having been “debt”?
February 14th, 2008 at 10:08 am
@dogatemyfinances - well, my car seems to work… lol.
It does have a 12 month warranty so i just hope it doesn’t die on month 13
February 14th, 2008 at 10:25 am
I would call around, sometimes those charges show up at very inconvenient times - just when you assume that you don’t owe anything. . .
February 14th, 2008 at 10:54 am
If you have a receipt from Saturn, they are paid. You need to get a person at the bank to explain it.
Good luck.
Scott
February 14th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Way to build suspense.
I’m looking forward to reading hearing the rest of the story.
February 14th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Good you took care of it — otherwise eventually they might’ve figured it out and you’d have been chased down by a collector.
You know, you’re probably not the only one this has happened to. There might be others who opened a line of credit to pay off their Saturn repair bill only to never get a bill from the bank–and they got away with it–probably until now. I bet someone at the bank is gonna investigate what is going on and crack down on those who didn’t call to check about their bill.
February 14th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Serious Suspense! I have been checking all day for an update post- glad I got board in this (very boring) class and decided to read the comments!
I think considering it is V-Day and all- that we can say you did not use credit! More like an old fashion trust system that you would pay when you could! Yeah!
February 14th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Full and detailed story puleez!! We’re all waiting with baited breath now . . .