Early last month I bought a set of stainless steel cookware from Amazon. It was not performing the way that I thought it should and I saw another set listed under a Friday sale and ordered it. Later that night I was doing some research and discovered two things.

1. The problem with the first set of cookware was actually my crappy gas stove in my apartment and not the pans. I also needed to adjust the heat with these pans compared to my older ones.
2. The new cookware set I had just bought, while cheaper, was clearly crappy as there were loads of bad reviews that I had somehow missed.

So, I sign back into Amazon in an attempt to cancel the order. Somehow, just a few hours later on a Friday night, I could no longer cancel the order as it was “shipping soon.” So, I did some research and learned that I could just refuse the shipment when it arrived and it would be returned to Amazon and I would get a refund just like that.

Ha!

So, the item was returned refused and I saw with the tracking info that it was delivered to the Amazon shipping dock on 12/15/08. By 12/24/08 my refund had yet to appear so I sent them a quick email to inquire about the status. I got a response that they had not received it yet, contrary to what the tracking info said, and that I needed to wait until 1/8/09 before contacting them again.

As expected, my refund never appeared and I was missing that $110. So, on 1/9/09 I sent them another email to check on the refund status. The response was that they had never rec’d the item so the refund had never been processed. However, they could see by the tracking that it was delivered to them and that they were going to process my refund for me.

So, the moral of the story here is unless you really want to be apart from your money for a month, instead of refusing an Amazon shipment to return something just bite the shipping cost and get a refund shipping label.

Today I had an interesting email in my inbox. What was it? Someone trying to scam me outta $25!

The subject of the email is: Please help my sister i know this isnt a very good way of asking for donations but please consider it

Email address sent from: meganbesler@hotmail.com

Invoice amount: $25.00

Note included with invoice: my sister amanda is 14 and has down syndrome. has developed a heart condition leaving her 6 months to live. me and the family have been trying to do something for her last xmas but cant afford it, if youd like to help, please email me for more information. meganbesler@hotmail.com or donate!!!

I logged into my PayPal account to take care of something else and noticed this:

So, what wankers, eh? I am thinking that I should not click “cancel” or else the scammers will know that they have found a live PayPal account.

The Bumblefucked household ended up the victim of the budget crisis in California. And all because my car was dirty due to the forest fires a few weeks ago.

Two days before Thanksgiving I got pulled over by the LAPD. My car is still registered out of state. I honestly was working on getting that changed. In fact, I had spent an hour the prior Friday at an Allstate office trying to get my car insurance changed over. Mr. Motorcycle Cop did not care though. Instead he gave me a ticket that is over $600.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that if I pay to get my registration changed over, my license changed over, and my insurance (already done) by 12/24/08 then I only have to pay court costs. And according to what I have read online that is anywhere between $10 and $50.

If you are moving out to Cali then here is my tip for you - keep your car washed. Seriously. The reason I got pulled over was because the car was dirty. This is no joke. The cop pulled me over, I put down my window, his opening line was “I can tell by how dirty your car is…” wtf?

PS - I officially hate you, California.

I think it is pretty well known that if you go overseas and are using a credit card that you are going to get hit with some foreign currency conversion transaction fees. What you might not know is that you can get hit with those shopping from home on your computer!

Last month I thought we had been bumblefucked by Wachovia in an attempt by their broke asses to get some extra cash from us. But apparently Wachovia is not the super evil bank I thought they were. They’re just plain evil. (but aren’t all banks?)

Seems Visa & Mastercard decided back in April to change the game when it came to foreign currency transactions. The change was that you can be hit with a foreign transaction fee even if you’re not in a foreign country! Evil, I know!

The new rules are that if you make a purchase that involves a foreign bank then you get charged the fee - even if your purchase is in US dollars!

Last month we made a purchase on Aerlingus.com and were hit with an “INTL SERVICE FEE” by Wachovia to the tune of $15.60. A quick Google search showed that other people that had gotten this had called Wachovia and been told that Visa did it, not them.

Fact: Wachovia tells half-truths.

Visa/MC does not charge merchants and consumers the fees.  Visa and Mastercard charge the bank/ credit card company the fees. Then the evil bank passes on the charge to the consumer. So yes, the charge does originate from Visa but it is charged to the bank (Wachovia in this case).

Seems that are some banks that are not evil when it comes to this and do not pass on the charge. Oddly enough, evil superpower Bank of America is supposedly one of them. And of course Capital One.

On a side note, American Express and Discover Card are not evil in this regard as they levy no foreign currency conversion fees on anyone…or so they say.

image credit: Andrea_F

If you do a search on the web on Sallie Mae’s customer service you will get a ton of results telling you how bad it is. It’s true. I know because I had the misfortune of having to call them yesterday.

As previously mentioned our student loan payments are crazy and I was hoping to get the payments deferred or temporarily halted in order to pay off the credit cards and then focus on the student loans. However, I have some of those nasty little buggers called private loans. Oh how I loathe thee.

In order to defer private loans you have to pay a fee. Um, riiiiiiiight. However, I knew this already. And that was not what I wanted to do. Instead, I wanted to change my payment plan. See, Sallie Mae has (had) this nifty little thing where once you logged into your account you could select  ‘Lower Your Payments’ under ‘Repayment Options.’ From there you could see something like this (click image to enlarge):

And if you click on ‘lower your payment amount you would get a break down of something like 100 payments at $xxx.x, then 48 payments of $xxx.xx, then 12 payments of $xxx.xx and one payment of $xx.xx. It would tell you the end amount you would have paid them. So, it was a great way to see which way was the least interest paid and so on. It showed you this for your current plan and for the available repayment plans in case you wanted to change things.

I know this because I had looked at it last month. And of the 4 repayment plans I could change to there was one that would lower my private loan payment from $305.01 to $189 and some change AND it only added like $2,000 to the end total. After some thinking I decided I wanted to change to that plan. But I did not know which plan that was. I went back to the Sallie Mae website and saw this instead (click image to enlarge):

Hrm. I hoped it would be fixed in a couple of days and waited. I continued to get this message and called them yesterday. What a mistake!

To start, I got someone that barely spoke English and had a hard time understanding me! I kept having to repeat myself and rephrase things so that she could understand. Once I finished explaining my needs to her she tells me this -

Private loan payment plans can only be offered once. I see you have had all of the plan before so I cannot change your plan.

What?!? The Sallie Mae page plainly states that you can change payment plans at any time.  (click image below to enlarge)

There it is. Plainly stated in English. Looks like I can change my payment plan daily if I want. Of course, there is part of a sentence in there that gives me pause, and likely gives them a way out of changing payment plans…

“…and all eligibility requirements are still met. “

Note how in the image above there is no link to see what those phantom eligibility requirements are.

So, now I am thinking maybe I should change plans. Maybe those wanker private loans should be first on the payoff list, even though the interest rates are only 7%. The relief of not having to deal with them any longer seems almost worth it. Then I would only have the federal consolidation loan left with them. And now, I say a silent thank you to EdFinancial for having the remainder of my student loans.

So, I got curious as to why I did not qualify for the whole economic hardship things with EdFinancial for my student loans. So, I did some digging around their website to try to figure out how you qualified.

Um, yeah, it’s pretty hardcore. As a single person you have to make less than $1300 a month. If you are living in New York City your rent is going to be more than that! Have a look at the chart below (click image to enlarge)

The Bumblefucked household owes a LOT in student loans. Most of the loans have been in an in-school deferment due to us taking a couple of classes at a community college before we moved. Well, now the grace period is over and those loans are coming due again.

The damages? About $840 a month. Ouch.

That’s just not right!

So, I went onto the EdFinancial page to see about getting a temporary deferment. My thinking is that if we can get the credit cards paid off before we start on the student loans that we will be in better shape.

Apparently I don’t qualify for a deferment. My loans make up $677 of that $840 a month. Why don’t I qualify? Well, judging from what they deem people are able to pay according to income you are not supposed to have any other debt. Great idea! But also highly unlikely.

Have a look at this:

What Can You Afford To Pay?

Your annual income Maximum monthly loan
payments you can
afford to make

$15,000………………………………………………………………………$100-$125
$20,000………………………………………………………………………$133-$167
$25,000………………………………………………………………………$167-$208
$30,000………………………………………………………………………$200-$250
$35,000………………………………………………………………………$233-$292
$40,000………………………………………………………………………$267-$333
$45,000………………………………………………………………………$300-$375
$50,000………………………………………………………………………$333-$417
$75,000………………………………………………………………………$500-$625
$100,000…………………………………………………………………….$667-$833

Wow, isn’t that interesting. Now, I entered my into their “financial hardship” calculator and was I told I did not qualify. If you look at the handy info above my monthly student loan amount falls into the $100,000 and above income level, yet I am far from that income level.

Suddenly, I understand the whole Students escape loan debt by living overseas article on CNN.

As you can see below, my refund from Staples has appeared on my credit card.

So, the question is - was my EECB a success? I got my refund but there is still a really big box in my kitchen with a chair in it. That is correct - Staples never came for their chair. Not terribly surprising considering their track record. I am just thankful to have the refund.

What will I do with the chair?

I think we will give it a couple of more days. And if the chair is still here then I will email back the guy from Staples that called and sent me email confirmation of the chair pick up. I just don’t understand why they don’t want their chair back. I mean, we already have two of them and they are really nice chairs.

Yes, that is right. We do. We still have the chair. No one ever came for it yesterday despite the email I rec’d below. Now, I’m just waiting to see if the refund shows up.

Hi [bumblefucked],

 

Sorry for all the inconvenience you have experienced with your return. I did call the warehouse and the return will be picked up today. I have gone ahead and issued you the credit of $140.71 back to your VI card. If you have any further issues or comments feel free to contact me back.

 

 

    Matt Dickman

     Associate Help Desk Lead

     Phone: (800) 304-0390 ext 6077

     Email: Matthew.Dickman@Staples.com

Staples called… the refund should be credited within 48-72 hours. They should pick up the chair within the next two hours.

Apparently threat is the only language retailers speak.