When the Left Hand and the Right Hand Can’t Even Find Each Other
The car repair payment drama I discussed this morning is all sorted out, and the balance due on the repair has been paid. I learned a interesting lesson about bureaucracy today, and in fact, if I had just kept quiet and never talked to anyone, chances are I never would have had to pay the balance of the repair. But, no matter how much Saturn irks me, that wouldn’t have been a nice thing to do. The rundown of what happened behind the scenes in establishing the $800 bill is as follows:
- My spouse fills out paperwork to open line of credit with the bank through the dealer.
- Paperwork is faxed by the dealer to the bank and accepted. Line of credit is opened.
- We use line of credit to pay $800 of our bill. Dealer writes us a receipt.
- Dealer faxes information to bank to charge line of credit with $800.
- Bank says paperwork is filled out incorrectly, *claims* to fax paperwork back to dealer. This is where things get fuzzy, because:
- Dealer files paperwork as paid, *claims* to have never received fax from bank to resubmit paperwork and assumes the bank will pay the charge.
So at this point, the dealer “thinks” they have been/will be paid, and the bank cannot complete the charge to our account, because the paperwork is incorrect. That all happened within a day or so of the repair in January, and it has sat like that until now.
So, this morning, I talked to both the dealership and the bank. The bank says that until the dealership files the correct paperwork, no charge exists. The dealership and I had a pow-wow, and we decided to cut out the middle man and just pay the dealership directly. The dealer called the bank and told them no charge would be reissued to them, and my spouse drove over to the dealer and paid them the $800 with our debit card. My spouse will be calling the bank to close the line of credit when he gets home from work tonight, or on his lunch break tomorrow if the office is closed already (I actually am not even on the account, so I can’t close it).
So, maybe I can not even count this as debt altogether since it kind of never was one? Well, that’s just semantics anyway, but it amuses me to think about. All that really matters is that it is paid, we will soon be rid of the line of credit we never even wanted, and now, we move forward.
Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing…
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February 14th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Man, that is crazy. I can’t believe they messed up like that. Good thing you followed up on it and paid what you owed. I don’t know if you believe in karma or not but it is always good to do the right thing.
February 14th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
You’re honesty will be rewarded. Congratulations on staying focused and paying down that debt right away!
February 14th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Whoever knew that a car repair payment could be so suspenseful! I’ve been following this story for weeks!
When you first said it looked like you didn’t owe anybody any money, I thought Saturn had done the right thing. Guess not. I believe in karma too. I do admit, in this situation, I would have been sorely tempted. But you did the right thing.
One unrelated question: why are you now planning on working on the SL rather than the car? Just curious, because the car loan is so much smaller.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I forgot to say, congratulations! Bet you’ll be getting a windfall soon (karma and all that).
February 14th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
@ debtheaven - because the student loan interest rate is much higher. 9% vs 4% on the car loan.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
That’s great. It’d be nice to hope it all went away, but that’s not really honest and it’d be likely to bite you back again.
February 15th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Nice job doing the right thing. Those are the crazy things that show up on your credit report five years later as painfully delinquent.
I remember the surprised voices when I called the phone company for four months straight about a credit that appeared on my bill that did not belong to me - it looked like a misapplied payment that someone else was missing! - they acted like I should just be grateful and move on with my life. For four months I carefully paid what I owed and left the credit. They refused to take it off my account. They thought I was such a weird-o.
Anyhow, kudos for being on top of your finances!
February 15th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Somebody at the Saturn dealership probably would have caught it eventually. Probably some accountant a month or two from now.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Maybe I’m a bad person for this, but I would have probably not paid it until I got a bill for it. I had to get some furniture replaced, and since then the line of credit it was on (no interest, no payments for x months) has been lower than it was before the mess eventhough it should have been the same or slightly higher.
I admit that I did not make any effort to fix it. If they realize, good for them, if not, the replacement caused our family a lot of hassle so I see that as my reward.
February 15th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Good to hear that you got it taken care of. Just leaving it alone would probably have gotten caught eventually and the stress of the issue over that time would have not been worth it.
February 15th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Good for you, being honest when dishonest would have been so easy.
If Saturn had really been classy, they would have given you an honesty discount on the amount - perhaps 10% for pointing out the problem, or at least some sort of benefit like free oil changes for a year. Might not be too late to ask about that when you call to follow up and confirm that everything’s in order….