Dreaded Debt

Last year when McD and I took a break I had a period of about 9 weeks where I had very little money coming in and had to basically live off what was in my bank account. Income support messed up my single parent claim and it took an age to get my payments sorted out.

Anyway during this time I had to default on some bills as feeding my boy came first. Most places were happy with this, I missed two payments and have luckily been able to spread the payments over the remainder of the year so even though money has been super tight I’m finally getting back onto my feet where money is concerned.

The only company who weren’t fine were my water company. The arseholes! They immediately sent my account for the WHOLE year (even though we were only in March) to a debt collection company. Apparently this is standard practice for them. That was not a problem, if that’s how they want the money paying then fine. But the debt company wanted to send a man out to interview me. Not fine! I agreed for a man to come around with the paperwork on a day that my parents were available and signed an agreement to pay the remainder of the account over 9 payments (it just so happened to be the day next door flooded my carpet). Done!

Not done. Even though I had been making payments to the debt company, the debt company failed to communicate this with the water company and the water company sent my account to a court for a court order payment. I was fuming at this point as I had already cleared half of the account through the debt company.

The court realised the mistake, spoke to the water company and it was resolved. I still had to pay £120 for a letter that the court sent to the water company. I’m sure I could’ve argued the toss and got out of this but at this point I was so fed up that I paid it.

Well this is the last payment I have to make to clear the debt I owed and I will start making payments through the water company again his month. Or so I thought. I received a letter from the water company in February asking me to pay the remainder of the balance in one go, I called and explained the situation and they realised the mistake AGAIN, saw that I was making payments and were happy.

Or again, so I thought. This morning I have received a phone call from a completely different debt collection agency regarding this very same account. I give up! I sat on the phone to the nicest lady ever, went through every letter and payment with her, made her check ALL of my other addresses, even from when I was married, and she had no clue why they were asking me for money. So this lady, who let me say is being an absolute star, is now going to correspond with the other debt collection agency and my water company and find out what their problem is. It’s clear to me that there is a huge communication issue between the first debt collection agency and the water company.

She is “optimistic” I will have a solution within a couple of hours. I sure hope so. I’m not one for not paying my bills, if I have to pay something it gets paid but I sure as hell hate it when people obviously cannot do their jobs right!

To cheer myself up, and maybe you after reading through that, here’s a gorgeous photo of my boy doing what we love to do most…