6G Celicas Forums

I've got bills.


Everyone's got bills.


What makes me special enough to make a thread about my bills? I'll tell you.

For the last - oh, good year and 8 months I've worked for a local School District. It's been good, minus the whole "Get paid once a month" thing that school districts do. As of April 11th I no longer worked at the school district. On the 14th I started my new job which gets paid on the 5th and the 20th.

The 31st rolled around, and I got a check in the mail from the school district. What should have been 160 hours was only 80. They "forgot" to pay me the rest, but they'll get it sorted out in 7-10 business days.

Today is the 5th. Today is payday, and should be a glorious day... and it was, until about lunchtime....

At lunch I called T-mobile - my cell phone carrier. I made my monthly payment over the phone. I paid off last month, and also went ahead and paid for this month - Hey, why not? I got paid today, might as well stay on top of things, right? So the guy reads me off my payment of $166.24 for two months service. Great.

After work today I head down to my bank to deposit my paycheck. I go to the drive-through teller service and tell them I'd like to deposit my check, minus the amount for my car payment. The woman leaves and comes back a few minutes later and the conversation goes like this:

"Ummmm.... Mr. Dirth, have you had a busy weekend?"
"No..... why?"
"Well, I can't give you any cash back because you're overdrafted about $1100."

At this point I went pale.

"........Mr. Dirth?"
"Yeah"
"You should probably come in and take a look at this."


So I round the corner, park, and walk inside. I get up to the counter and the teller flips around her screen and says, "Did you make a LARGE cell phone payment?"

"Well yeah, sorta - $166.24"

"Oh well that's your problem. They charged you $1662.47."

Great. So they understand and all, and they give me my money for my car payment. I go and pay that.

Afterwards I call T-mobile and flip out on them, telling them that I've got bills to pay, and how I can't pay them now, blah blah blah. They say they already processed the payment, and it'll take them 2-3 business days to issue the refund. Until then they'll pay for any overdrafts they might cause while I'm in the negative.


BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Rent is due today. I've got to cut a check to my landlord today... the only thing is that my account is overdrawn thanks to T-mobile, and if I write a check it's going to bounce. I don't think this once marvelous day could get any worse.



I think I'm going to go die now.

..... Is anyone still reading?

This post has been edited by 95CelicaST: May 5, 2008 - 7:08 PM

that's a a huge @$$ mistake for them not to handle it better. did you pay with your debt card? the should be able to refund the money instantly.
it's amazing how one little number can cause so much problem.

if it's any consolation to you i found out the motor on my truck is all but shot. the shop quoted me 2200. i just bought the truck last week and the guy won't return my calls.

Tell the story to you lanlord. Im sure he wont mind waiting 2-3days to deposit.

i pay my cell phone online. never had to run into human errors. that sucks. what if you wrote a check to your landlord post dated a few days later? they won't understand your situation?

if you complain enough to tmobile, they might waive one month's base payment or give you some other type of compensation. i sure you could stir some trouble at their offices. just ask for their manager. you should not have to suffer for their error.

I called T-mobile, but the payment had already been processed at my bank, and the person's supervisor had left for the day, so they couldn't authorize the refund, but I called back and told them to escalate the process, and that I was incredibly pissed. They said they'll toss in a month of free service for me.

I called my landlord and got ahold of his wife. She has nothing to do with his business, so she said she'll have him call me... and I haven't gotten a call yet.

well all in all it does not sound horrible, if the check bounces and your landlord thorws a fee at ya just pass it on down to t-mobile, most cases unless your landlord is really on top of things they dont deposit the check right away anyway, 2-3 days wile total bs since they messed up big time on your payment it probably would not be a long enough time for the check to go though anyway but best to be safe I guess.

sounds like a pretty $hitty situation but also sounds like there fixing it resonalbly well. also a free month of services seems like a fair triade as long as they do get things figured out.

keep your head up.

Have you ever thought of telling your Landlord the issue and maybe postdating the check?

Definitely keep your head up... it's totally a crappy place to be, but it in not unfixable and will likely be resolved by the end of the week. KEEP CALLING T-MOBILE. Be kind but firm, say please but tell them what you want, don't *ask* for what you want. Tell them what you need done and that it needs to be done immediately. Be the squeaky wheel and don't wait to hear back from them. Be sure to let them know just how EXTREMELY careless and unprofessional they have been and that (if you're in a contract) as soon as your contract is up you will be switching carriers. For that matter, tell them if they don't handle it immediately, you'd rather break your contract and switch to - say it - VERIZON (they hate that) than be subject to their wreckless and careless handling of YOUR hard-earned money.

Meanwhile, yes, call your landlord, offer to provide a printout of your bank statement showing the error, and ask him if he is willing to deposit the check late. If he wants to charge you a late fee, be gracious and understanding, and INSIST to T-Mobile that they cover the late fee as well as any overdrafts.

Good luck - it'll work out, just keep your head up and try not to freak out too bad. You're gonna be okay.

I called my landlord again today and let him know what was going on. I told him to swing by at 4:00 today (he lives a block away) and I'll give him a printout of the problem. He said there is a $25 late fee for not paying on time, but he understands the situation- albeit so absurd it must be true.

When I get home I'll call T-mobile and nag some more



checked my online banking. My paycheck went in, so instead of being $-1676 I'm now up to $-500. So far a $36.50 overdraft charge has accrued.

Ask the landlord to please print you out a statement for the late fee, you'll want to fax that along with your bank statement w/the overdraft charges to T-Mobile so they can take care of all of it.

Side note: what blows me away is that the bank is still charging you the damn overdrafts. I know they'll do that, it's not their fault T-Mobile screwed up your account. But when you bring it to their attention immediately, you'd think they'd be more accommodating or something. I cannot express enough how very much I HATE corporate banking for this exact reason. $36.50 a pop adds up FAST. It's just incredulous. Damn banks. Damn T-Mobile. Damn late rent fee. Damn them all.

It's still gonna be okay though. Be diligent but polite. It'll happen for ya.

PS: I love your avitar. I think it's absolutely brilliant and I wish I had thought of it. It SO cracks me up! I might steal that idea for another board or something. It's just too excellent!

This post has been edited by GriffGirl: May 6, 2008 - 11:46 AM

I got to the bank as quickly as possible, but it had already hit my account, and the branch couldn't do anything about it at that point but reject the charge, but yeah - overdrafted me... and I've still got to go buy groceries today, so that will be another one T-mobile picks up.


I thought the Avatar was a stroke of genius. It makes me laugh most of the time I see it.

TOTAL stroke of genius.

Careful about the groceries - if you're going to write a check, the grocery store will also charge you THEIR fee for the returned check. T-Mobile may argue that one.

If I were you I'd see if I could borrow fifty bucks to get you through the end of the week until this gets cleared up, and just use cash. You don't want to dig yourself into a hole just out of spite to T-Mobile.

thats fcuked up!!

I'd take a statement and show the land lord, and cut him a check, but ask him not to cash it this week, just incase. Then as long as he's laughing as hard as i am, he should be understanding...

Damn T-Mobile... I've had to deal with quite a bit of crap from them myself... but what can you do?

I'd just use my debit card, and let it charge me the overdraft.

Brotha's gotta eat.

Just so you know, I hate life right now as well. But your problem seems fixable, mine is almost psychological in a way I cannot help. I did some research and have a lot of things to weigh out. I sure hope things get better for you sooner than you hoped to wait them out for.

you can definitely get that back.

So they issued the refund back to my bank, but it won't be there for 3-6 business days, meaning Friday at the earliest and next Teusday at the latest.

It's that mid-Washington vortex acting up again. From News Of The Weird:
Women Certainly Are Different From Men: Sara Tucholsky, all 5-foot-2 of her, marshaled her strength for her first-ever fence-clearing home run in April, which would have given her Western Oregon University softball team the lead against favored Central Washington, except that she tore a ligament rounding first base. Since she was unable to move, by rule she (actually, a pinch-runner) would have had to remain at first base instead of circling the bases, but two Central Washington players picked Tucholsky up and carried her around the bases to allow her to get credit for the home run. "You deserve it," one opponent said. "You hit it over the fence." Kindness hurt; Central Washington lost, 4-2, and was eliminated from the playoffs. [Star Tribune (Minneapolis)-AP, 5-1-08]

Now if the Washington players had acted normally and competitively, as the world is expected to be, then the vortex wouldn't have sucked your extra digit into that T-Mobile account.

But then, we expect that from the Evergreen state.

lesson of the story is:

have multiple accounts. I always pay bills with my credit card account and have my checking account to pay for anything that might come up.

No i think lesson is:

Do not pay over the phone!
well i do that also, but i havent had any problems.

but its weird how the transaction processed almost immediately. all the transactions i do, take up to 3 days to appear on my account