Credit cards must die - or at least the people who work for the banks that issue them

Okay, I know there will be people who will say this situation is my fault and I should just own that and be responsbile - and all of you are cordially invited to kiss my arse because if you bother to read the whole thing, you will see the issue is NOT my responsibility at all. If you still disagree, great, write your own blog about it - this is my space to rant! Lets go all the way back to the 30th of October when our WaMu payment was due. For various reasons, mainly due to the current economy, we simply didn't have enough money to go around and the bill went unpaid. Roll forward to last Thursday, Nov 6th. We got the first call from WaMu advising me that the bill was past due, and thanks to additional fees and such now it was over the limit as well. Nice. I told the gentleman who claims his name was Steve but his hindu accent was so thick I could barely understand him, I said we would be paying them via ETF on next Wednesday, the 12th. I even gave him a minimum payment amount and asked if the account could please be noted since we were late. I owned that we didn't pay on time and it was now costing us thru the nose but we were going to pay them on the 12th and thank you for calling to let me know, have a good day. This was about 8:45am when he called. Between that time and 9pm that night, we got 7 more calls from Wa Mu. SEVEN MORE in about 12 hours, after I had given the info to "Steve" and thought all was well. Friday comes, we got 9 calls from them between 8am and 9pm. Woke Zane up with the last call - thank you very much. I told the 3rd caller (first two came in before I got out of bed) the exact plan I had told "Steve" 24 hours earlier, but in a less friendly tone. Still cordial, but terse. Saturday... seven more calls - three of them DURING the Gator game which was an 8pm game so it was kinda late if you ask me. I told the mid-day caller the exact same plan as I told "Steve" 48 hours previous and "Tom" 24 hours earlier, which had not changed other than in my tone of voice. Well, maybe a few words were now different but as none of them speak English well enough to understand, no worries. Sunday....day of rest, beautiful day. Six calls this day and one was answered with the same plan again detailed in loud, small and some very nasty words for "Sheila" to put on my account. I asked for a supervisor but she refused to transfer me so I questioned her parentage a bit, added some colorful animal parts references and eventually hung up on her. Monday now. Any guesses on the number? Nine. Nine calls that I heard - I did put the phone in a drawer for a bit and our caller ID doesn't stack them up, just writes over the repeated numbers. I did answer three of them. Not nicely, didn't care to be nice at this point. I am trying to work, take care of the kids and these ......people..... are calling me more than once per hour on average now. I called in to the "customer service" number off our statement, demanded to talk to a person whose FIRST language was English and was refused multiple times. I took a few minutes to gather my thoughts, tried to be nice and repeated my plan, now under 48 hours until payment will post mind you, and thought just maybe I had gotten thru with "Vida" which may or may not be her given name. They called 3 more times after the 45 minutes she and I were on the phone mind you but I let it go to voicemail....somehow. One of those times hubby answered and told them if they called us once more we would not pay them and if they think we are kidding then just try me! Now we're up to Tuesday, November 11. Anyone who knows me also knows that I have issues with the number 11 11 and hey, today's date is just that. Too bad they didn't know about that, might have saved them a lot of time and a lot of hearing me speak loudly in small but colorful words without letting them speak but demanding to be put thru to a supervisor. The calls began at 8:20am. I was awake but wasn't out of bed for the first one, but when I got out of the shower at 8:30, the phone was ringing. Guess who!? I didn't answer it as the kids were waking up and they are far more important. I get them settled with morning drinks/foods/TV (yeah I said it, TV) and at 8:45 the phone rang again. It was them. That is three calls in 25 minutes, while I am trying to have time with my kids. That did it. I snatched the phone up - see and there is a problem with cordless phones, you can't snatch them up or slam them down with any authority - and simply said "WHAT?" To this "Bill" replies with "Is this Michelle?" like he is my best friend or something. I ask, "who did you call?"....silence...."Is this Michelle Vance?" Again, phone getting quite cold with the tone of my voice, "who did you call?" He then proceeds to try and get assertive which was a fatal error and he needs to thank God (or whomever) that I really can't reach thru a phone and kill someone and I ended up shouting to put me thru to a supervisor NOW or hang the $%^& up and stop calling me or I will hunt you down and kill you, your family and your friends. I was a bit miffed you see. I pressed the 'off' button on my handset with much too much force - the best you can do with cordless when you want to slam down the receiver. Then I called WaMu's "customer service" number and went thru all of the BS again, for the fifth time in five days if you're keeping count. Got thru to "Vida" again, she says she cannot help me but will transfer me - actually hung up on me. Called right back, got thru to "Roberta". Sounds like an English speaking person, we talk, me much louder and emphatically. She assures me she is noting our account right now, the calls will stop so long as our payment is made on the 12th as promised. She says she blocked any further calls thru the 14th to allow time for processing the payment. Anyone care to guess what happened 90 minutes later? Yep! Another call from WaMu. I let it go to voicemail while I gathered my notes from all the calls and I called back in. Spoke with Nicole and Lori this time. Mind you I was on hold for more than 10 minutes for this to happen, but still. Between Nicole and Lori I was on hold and my call waiting beeped. GUESS WHO?!?!?! I mean, really. I am on the $%%^&^#^%& phone for the umpteenth time with these jerks, trying to get ONE of them to do their damn job and I look at the caller ID on the handset while on hold for this process and damned if they weren't calling me AGAIN!!!!! I told Lori this and asked her to please note that if I got ONE more call from them, they would not get one penny from my pocket EVER. Turn me over to collections I do not care but if you call me again I will become your worst nightmare and you not only will not get paid, your employees will be harrassed constantly because I work from home, have a cable modem and a redialer program on the VOIP line and I am not afraid to use it. I explained that a credit card is unsecured debt and if they would like to get the funds, they will leave me the hell alone and we will pay them as we have always paid them save for this one time. Oh yeah, did I mention this whole ordeal is because we are (now) 7 days late on a $62 payment for the FIRST time ever? Credit cards are a necessary evil but they are indeed EVIL. Our WaMu card will be mailed to them in many many tiny pieces with a scathing letter and I don't care that it will make no difference to them, at least I got it out of my system. I may just not pay them anyway now. It's the principle now. I did point out that their own company had to be bought out or go out of business so surely they understand not paying a bill on time once.....likely more. They didn't care for that comment nor did they have an answer for it.

That's It. I'm Done....

Okay so today was supposed to be one where I got up, did my Friday morning errands, a bit earlier than usual and without the kids, and came home to finish getting ready to leave for a weekend trip to see the BFF and family. Given that it is 2pm and I am online, you can guess that isn't how things worked out. I did my part, stayed up until 2am and got up at 6:30am to finish my work (my fault I was off schedule and it wasn't done) and then off to the bank, quick trip to grab a few things for the weekend visit and that is what I did. Before I left, I woke up the hubby, said can you please get up (9am now) and tend to the kids and start getting ready to go so I can get out of here now and back home faster. He agreed. I go about my business, knowing that I need this weekend away from home so bad that I can barely contain myself at the thought of hitting the road. Kids were even excited, well the 3 year old was. Called home 3 times to say I was at this point in my list, do I need anything else; again to say I decided to just hit Publix and whatever else we need we will get there as I was told there are both Target and Wal Mart nearby; third call to say turn on the oven, I am en route with brunch (pizza as requested) and we can get loading up while it cooks. I get home......not one single thing has been done. Well, the 14 mo old had breakfast. No bags packed, nothing cleaned up. Nothing. I left a very specific list for each child's needs to be packed, brought in from the shed the things that we needed to take -included them on the lists - and put suitcases in our bedroom to be packed for us. Didn't leave a list for his suitcase, he is old enough to know how and what he needs to pack. Not ONE item. Left a final 'to-do' list showing bathroom needs cleaning, empty trash, scoop cat boxes, etc and not one thing was done from that list either. I figured surely he at least packed his own bag. I was wrong. I decided that if the acceptable way to do things is to sit on my ass and let them be done for me then by God that is what I am going to start doing. I can't take this level of stress where I have to do/think/act and plan for every simple task for the entire family so I am just going to sit on my ass, like he does, and see what happens. We may get overtaken by dirty laundry and no one will likely eat a decent meal. I am not paying the bills, doing the budget - none of it. I will make sure the kids are taken care of, not to worry, but they are where I draw the line. If it is okay to be so damned inconsiderate of everyone else in the house, that's what I will do. I would prefer to have a clean, well run house with responsibilities taken and shared but I am so worn out from being the only one to do so. That's it. I'm done.....