It's been one of those days

Where to begin... Nathan pre-order a new expansion limited edition for his game. He had been tracking it online, as most people do who are excited about getting a package. On Saturday night, he checked the USPS tracking number, and it had a note saying, package could not be delivered as addressed, from that morning at 9:40. Even more frustrating was that it was now 5 pm, and the post office closed at 4:30. So he had to wait until this morning to call to find out why it couldn't be delivered. It turns out, that the normal post deliver wasn't working this past weekend, and there was a new girl, (and of course, she was out sick today). Anyway, she sent the package back! After making several phone calls, it was discovered that something with the tracking number and our address didn't match. So instead of knocking on our door and trying to verify if we order a package from game stop, she sent it back. Not only do we think she didn't try to verify, she didn't even come to our house or walk by it, because we had someone else's mail, return to sender stuff, clipped to the outside of our mail box, clearly visible from the side walk. There are 18 house in our courtyard, and you have to walk to get to the mail boxes. So it's not as if she could just drive by. She would have walked by our house to deliver mail to our neighbors. After talking to our local post office, the lady on the phone was surprised to hear the substitute deliverer did not take our return to sender mail.

The most frustrating part is, because the game was a limited edition, if it is returned to the warehouse, you just get a refund. They do not re-send it. Also, you can't buy the limited edition in stores. And you can't get anywhere else. So now, because someone took the easy way out, we are left without. The game was part of Nathan's Christmas present.

I did notice today that we got a bunch of mail. Most of it was forwarded from our old address. As I started going through the mail, most of it was trash, I opened something from Direct TV. This was very strange, because we had a bundle with Verizon that included DTV. So we've never received anything from them before. I opened it to find a bill. I paid the Verizon bill back in October, and thought everything done and paid for. Somewhere there was a miscommunication between Verizon and DTV, and DTV did not accept payment from Verizon for October. As I open more mail, I found a credit to our Verizon account, with a note telling us a check will follow for the payment that DTV did not accept.

Before we moved, we had problems with DTV and trying to move with it. But then the messed up our channels while still in MA, so we decided to just cancel and get cable once in OH. They tried to pin $150 early termination fee on us. Ummm, we were never locked into a contract, (being military, I ALWAYS make sure we won't have to pay early termination fees, if we have to move). They tried to tell us, because we got a DVR, we were locked into a two year agreement. But if you look on their web site, it says that only applies if you down grade, and we upgraded. After all was said and done, no late fees for us =) But now we find out that they never got payment for September, (they bill a month behind), or October. So now we are paying for two months because, one, I didn't even realize they bill for last month, not a month in advance, and two because they never accepted payment from Verizon in October for the month of September.

Not only that, they billed us $200 for our DVR. Yes, we still have it. But we tried to return it, and they told us they would send us a box to mail it back to them once we move to OH. Guess what, no one actually sent us a box to send the DVR back. Now, we are waiting a box to send the DVR back. You better believe I am sending that registered and certified and insured. I am not being charged for the thing, if whoever delivers it, breaks it.

I hardly ever write checks. Because, I know I will forget about them and spend that money again. In our large amount of mail, I found a letter from the credit union at Hanscom telling me we did not have the funds for a check and therefore was charged a $20 fee. I found another one stating the same thing, with another $20 fee. It took a lot of digging and more frustration to figure out what check they were talking about. Once that was figured out what check and who it was for, it hit me that I did write a check and now there is no money in that account, because HFCU took it all in fees. (This is not our main bank account. We opened this one in MA to cash checks that were sent to us. Most of the time there is no money in this account anyway.) So tomorrow I will be making more phone calls and adding more stress and frustration to my life. I really hate checks. Is it time for bed yet?