Category: Rantings

Venting, bitching, and like that

For Santa’s Naughty List: Companies That Outsource

~ JodiLea

Santa

We (hubby and I) are so disgusted now with the company we retired from this summer.  I suspect that a lot of companies are doing the same thing. It still doesn’t make it right.

As a retiree, I no longer can use the company’s benefits office. Retiree benefits are outsourced to a large conglomerate somewhere in Illinois. They are the middle-man for your retiree medical plan. Retirees pay company, and they pay the bill to the carriers for you. Sounds great, doesn’t it?  Until you find out that the premiums they have taken out of your checking account are not going to your medical carrier.

In October hubby retired and signed up for his retiree benefits. November 1st, his first medical premium payment was paid and he signed up for auto-payment from our checking account. No problems with that. They were taking our money right on schedule. Because of his first payment crossing in the mail with the auto-payment set up, he was billed for Nov & Dec coverage at the same time, so now we had made 3 payments.

I contacted the outsource company about hubby’s over-payment. I also was going to complain about hubby not receiving his medical card with his patient number yet. Sigh.  I am told to contact the medical provider directly to ask about the card. I did so and found out that hubby did not have any coverage with them at all. WTF??

That was Monday. Now it’s Thursday and hubby is waiting for a phone call from the medical insurance and the outsourced folks. Someone seriously dropped the ball here, and neither side wants to admit it.  Meanwhile, hubby has not had any medical coverage for two and a half months!

I want to know what the Hell the outsource company did with the money?

This kind of crap makes me want to go pirate!  ARRRRR!!!

Thanks for listening, I feel better now. ♥

Today’s Addition To Santa’s Naughty List: The Cable Company

~ JodiLea

!SNOWMAN

Each December, I notice a shortage of Christmas movies available on Cable’s “On Demand” feature. Today was the last straw – I wanted to watch a Christmas movie while I worked on Christmas gifts. Snowflakes were floating down and decorating the trees outside.

A perfect day to get comfy and watch one of the classics. The regular TV channels offered movies I’ve never heard of, and same goes for the actors. Our Premium Channel had one: Scrooged. Both of us love that movie, so I selected it. That was when I discovered the Cable Co. wanted $3.99 for the privilege of watching an old (1988) movie.

I could have watched Scrooged in July for free. (“Free” being a relative term, used loosely in this post). In August I could have watched “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” – also an old (1989) movie.  Who the Hell watches Christmas movies in the summer?  Maybe all the people who got gypped last Christmas.

If that  annoys you, then the selections that are available will piss you off.

  • “Born on the 4th of July“
  • “The Exorcist”  [also II and III ]
  • “Halloween“

But all is not lost. There are really good Christmas movies disguised as regular movies. If you have not seen these, you should check them out!  (The “**” means not appropriate for children)

  • “Trapped in Paradise”
  • “The Ref”
  • “Home Alone” [I and II]
  • “Bad Santa”  **
  • “The Family Stone”
  • “Love Actually”
  • “While You Were Sleeping”
  • “Ben Hur”
  • “Die Hard” [I and II]
  • “The Holiday”
  • “Lethal Weapon“

So, I ended up watching The Ref this afternoon.  And all was good.  🙂

!SNOWMAN

Guess Again

~ JodiLea ~ 1 Comment

Just when (you think) the chaos in your life is at the maximum level, the post-office puts a bomb in your mailbox.

Mailbox

Not the exploding kind, but the kind that raises your blood pressure and makes the headache that you thought was already bad turn into a migraine. You know you’re in trouble because the return address is: “Internal Revenue Service” and it is not even near the holidays.

Sure enough, we made a mistake. A typo that our software should have noticed when it did the math. We were too excited about getting a refund for once, to realize something was off.  The official document  insisted we send them $10,000.oo. Yes, you read that number correctly. And who says the IRS has no sense of humor?

Hey! Wait a minute. There is a typo on our 2010 form and we have to pay them what we still owed. Plus interest. We were not the ones that took 2 years to find the mistake – we sent our return in on time.  Now they want the interest that the absent money could have earned. Oh, Really? I want to know where the Hell they invest their money. I would like to earn that kind of  interest myself!

I can understand about the interest. Almost.  But a fine??   Sorry, we messed up and here’s your money + interest. Now please go away.  But NO,  you’re  punishing  us. To teach us not to mess with the IRS? We don’t. Hell, they know how much money we earn – they have the damned forms.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.   Tax Form

We shall pay their bill (what choice do we have?), but not until the other chaos in our lives has settled down and we can find where we hid the damned thing….

photo credit(mailbox): Steve 2.0 via photo pin cc

photo credit (form): Josh Thompson via photo pin cc