My Hot Button

I consider myself a fairly laid-back kinda girl. I don't get overly upset about many things. However, I discovered there is one thing that will rev me from zero to off-the-chart-in-10-seconds-or-less: a letter telling me there's something wrong with my credit. What??? What???? My heartbeat is accelerating just typing about it.

I recently decided to help stimulate the economy like the good citizen that I am.

Last week as I left work I was plotting my evening plans. It had been raining for weeks (or so it seemed) and the lawn was about ready to turn into a rain forest. It was the first item on the list.

I got home, picked up the mail and spied an official looking letter in the group. I opened it up and it stated that a certain credit reporting agency had a problem with "something" in my credit and thus they would not fund my car loan with the terms I believed had already been set. What? I had sailed through the finance office. My feathers were a little ruffled, but I decided to call the number given. It was a recorded message that told me to leave an account number and they would follow up regarding the rejection letter.

Then I remembered I had not pulled my "free credit report" for the year. Viola! I could look at the report and see if something was wrong. I pulled out the trusty computer, pulled up the website and discovered this particular reporting agency would NOT let me access my report without paying for it....in CLEAR violation of the law. I thought I had done something wrong, I tweaked, I double checked, I Googled. No, I was at the right site. Now, the blood pressure is about to geyser. I wrote a nasty letter to the website complaining about my inability to access my report.

So, there was nothing to do but go mow the lawn. As I powered through the lawn I steamed, I fretted, I fumed, I muttered. This government-bailed-out "bank" was trying to get out of my zero percent financing. By the time I got half way through the back yard a brilliant thought occurred to me...Go Visit Saturn. The letter had stated they knew what the problem was. I raced inside, showered :), and headed down there. When I got there the head sales guy saw me, remembered me, and ambled over to chat with me. He assured me there was nothing wrong with my credit, walked with me to the finance area, and talked everything over with them. They came back and assured me everything was good. No problem. Whew!

Fast forward a week, tag is bought, I've received the first payment invoice. I looked it over, it looked like the amount I expected. Whew.

Today, as I was racing home to get ready for The Lion King, I picked up the mail and spied TWO official looking letters. WHAT? I opened them....the first one was identical to the original letter. "We must regretfully inform you that we were not agreeable to handling the proposed transaction as submitted. We would, however, be agreeable to handling the transaction under the modified terms which have been relayed to the dealer." The second letter was the explanation of what they objected to, the length of the loan. This was the program that was set up, it wasn't something unique to my situation.

I had had it. I called the number, navigated the phone menu, finally got a customer service agent. I think she must have just started. I could hear the blank parts where her supervisor was coaching her through the call. I explain my problem, probably not very coherently. I explain that I thought this was all taken care of, have my first invoice, and now another set of letters. She tells me the problem is with **** credit agency and I need to take it up with them. I correct her. NO, the problem is WITH YOU. YOU SENT THE LETTERS. She hastily tells me there is no problem, just ignore the letters, everything is good....

Ha. I'll believe it in a few months.