Keriosity

So we are in the process of buying a house. Yay for us. I would be more excited if this process was even slightly more pleasant than ripping out my own toenails.

While scrutinizing your Credit Report, especially for the first time ever which is what we are doing, you come to realize a horrifying truth: You have enemies. You have powerful enemies and many of them are financial institutions with no sense of humor.

You also begin to have the sinking feeling that everything you have ever done in life or ever will do in the future, ends up on this report. It’s quite shocking to have this little trip down memory lane when there are points attached.

Remember that time in 6th grade when you borrowed 50-cents from Jenny and were late paying her back? Well, Jenny held a grudge and reported you to Experian. And the 50-cents that you told her you’d give her on Tuesday at lunch but didn’t until Wednesday at recess is preventing you from getting a mortgage 20 years later.

The Almighty Credit Score quickly becomes the valuation of your self-esteem, especially if there are inaccuracies or little glitches that you try to fix. You lose faith in mankind’s ability to be compassionate and forgiving, and you lose faith in yourself and your ability to control your own financial life.

I had to call American Express in regards to my own account. It seemed that, although I removed my husband’s name from my account last year and the balance is currently zero, Amex never updated anyone and there remained a balance on HIS report. I was very polite in my request to send me fax verification that he is no longer on my account, and that the account balance is zero.

“We can’t do that,” I was told by the surly Customer Service Associate.

“Why not?” I innocently inquired.

“We don’t send personal information in a fax to a private party.”

“But I only need you to say that my husband is no longer on my account and that my balance is zero. You don’t need to put my social security number or the card number in the fax,” I said.

“We do not release names and we do not fax information to a private person.” She was getting testy.

I pleaded. “But this is MY account. I am asking you to give ME information on MY account.”

“We can fax it to your bank.” ?!!

“You can fax it to a third party - but not to me?!” Now I was getting testy.

“That is correct. Who is your lender and what is their fax number please?” I gave her my mortgage guy’s name and MY fax number.

“Can you please remove this from my husband’s credit report and send us verification that it has been done?” I asked.

“No ma’am. Your husband needs to call us to make that request.

“But again, this is MY account and you should have updated this information last year. I’m just asking you to update the information and send us verification!!”

“He needs to call to make that request.”

My mortgage guy called them back and pretended to be my husband. They did everything he asked.

I’m so glad American Express is on top of the identity theft epidemic! I cannot access my own information or ask that it be updated, but I can have my personal information sent to someone else and any man can call up and pretend to be my husband.

I have news for Amex: People engaging in identity fraud are NOT doing it so that they can go around improving people’s credit scores!

I have a feeling that these Customer Service Associates are so unpleasant to talk to because they have to spend all day making excuses of why no customers can speak to a supervisor. Are there even supervisors? Having never spoken to one, I have no way of knowing. I feel bad that these people don’t have a support system in place - that no one has their back when they have to face a difficult customer.

I imagine the “Supervisor” drunk and passed out in his office while the Customer Service Associate nervously chatters on about “Oh, hee hee. There’s no need for a supervisor to be involved,” gently rubbing the fresh hand-mark on her cheek.

No need?! What I NEED is a house and in order to get one, I NEED for you to be a human being, I NEED for you to have some understanding of my situation, and I NEED this goddamned fucking piece of shit bogus information taken off my husband’s vindictive, lying, craptastic credit report. If you won’t do that for me, then I NEED to speak to someone who can and will. I imagine that would be your supervisor. While that person is speaking to me, why don’t you go ahead and look up our history with your company, particularly the part about how much money we spend on your card and how we pay it off every single month in full (don’t bother rechecking - the decimal is in the right place) - then maybe you and your alcoholic supervisor can decide if you feel the NEED to make me a happy customer today or an account-canceling customer today.

If only I had the nerve. What I REALLY need are some balls.

And two extra points on a credit report.

Next week is Christmas and I am getting my 5-year-old niece the entire Suze Orman book collection with the advice to get into the habit of checking her credit report annually starting at age 7, and try try try to marry a mobster so she can pay for everything in cash.

This happened last week. I’ve been hesitant to post it because it deals with a term that some people find politically incorrect. But you know what? I’m not always PC. Neither are you. And I forgive you. Here’s what happened:

So there I was typing away, IMing with my sisters, when suddenly - I got knocked offline. And I realized that everything got quiet. Then…there was an authoritative knock at the door. It was the Southern California Edison guy. “Good Afternoon. I had to turn off your electricty for non-payment. It appears that you owe a balance on the account and it is overdue.” I didn’t know what to say! Obviously there was a mistake! My electricty was being turned off?! We pay our bills! I felt so…so…ghetto. I was tempted to get all up in his face “Why you gotta do me like dat? How’m I gonna pay dis bill when my babies’ daddies don’t pay no child support?” Hey, treat me ghetto…

But instead, I invited him inside so we could figure this out - since I know we paid the bill online. He remained outside the door - in fact he didn’t even acknowledge my invitation. I guess, in his line of work, he gets threatened often and didn’t feel it safe to come inside. Lest I bust a cap in his buttocks. By the looks of my half-unpacked apartment, I didn’t blame him. We did sort it out - it was a clerical error on their part. He turned the electricity back on. It still left me feeling…I don’t know. Icky.

And this is how like-minded (and mean) my sisters are - I get back to IMing them and I say “Oh my god - my electricity was just shut off and-”

“Damn, girl! Didn’t you pay yo bill?” Meg said.

“Oh no they di’int!” Tina chimed in. Thanks girls. You made me feel SO much better.

Let’s add to the list, shall we? “That ghetto trash in 4022 who had their electricty shut off.”

Later that afternoon, we received a phone call from our friend Mike. “Meet me at the boat. Leave NOW. We are going sailing.” 40 minutes later, we were off the coast of Newport, sailing past Laguna, sunshine in my face, wind in my hair - aaaahhhhh. What a life! Ghetto to THIS in the blink of an eye. I feel like…J. Lo.

K. Lo! - that’s me. Now where’s my fur track suit?

I’m in a pretty rotten mood today…so the following will be more venting and spite than anything else.

I hate Equinox gym. My experience has been that the staff is unprofessional, they employ inexperienced, barely trained, and insanely expensive “personal trainers” who are going to kill someone soon, and when they give out false information, say, with regards to the proper method for canceling your membership…they still hold a client financially responsible when said client has received such false information from one of their employees. See where I’m going with this? The end result of today’s incident is that I paid for two extra months of membership when I was told my membership would expire last month and I would owe no more money.

Here’s what I did that I have never done before:

1. Throw any object, in this case an ATM card, at a customer service representative, in this case the general manager.
2. Curse at a customer service representative (the G.M.)…for example…”Thank you for your payment, Ms. Rensing. You know, you can still use the gym through the month of May.” My reply “Not a f**king chance!”

I would have felt somewhat empowered by my newfound belligerence had I not dumped out half the contents of my purse on my way to storm out the door - which I wouldn’t have been able to do anyway because a blind man was coming through the door at the same time. This is so me. (the throwing and the cursing - not so much me.) I was tempted to warn the blind man that this gym is evil and must be stopped. But then I figured he had enough problems to worry about and I’d just vent in this blog.

But this all leads to a major conclusion, one which I’ve been denying for some time now. I am too patient and nice to strangers (even after living in NYC for 2 years! That’s how much patience I have!) This is normally not a problem, but this trait also means that I am not vigilant enough when it comes to seeking out information, double checking information, confirming, following-up, etc….I take things on face value and believe it will all work out ok. I don’t want to be a pest, afterall. I should have gone to the gym in person and spoke to the manager way before my membership was nearing its expiration date instead of listening to the misinformed advice to “just let it expire” of whomever answered the phone.

You know those people in your lives - bosses, relatives, friends - we all have them - that are nags, nudges, pests…they can really be annoying! They just get under your skin and drive you crazy with the phone calls and the questions and the constant reminding. I need to be more like that. I’ll let you know how it goes.