Topic: The day that Lady Luck saw fit to intervene...
Neurotic Cat
My fortune cookie's empty... That's also the title of my autobiography.
posted
Hey Teemo Forites!
I cant stop smiling and the reason for this seems something worthy of discussing on this fine forum.
My story begins with the following sad facts (dont worry kids - it does get better but really need to set the scene):
at the beginning of 2004 I realised;
My ex was a controlling, undermining, selfish, miserable example of the male form
My job, was stressful, soul destroying and totally devoid of purpose or satisfaction
My house, which I loved, couldnt make up for its location. I was forced to admit; that living in a city 140 miles away from my family, and the relocation to this particular city, is what had started a downward spiral in my life...
In June - during a period of ill health relating to all of the above - I returned home to the nest. I was unfit to work for 5 months. During this time I phoned my loan company and explained that I was unable to make any sort of payments towards my loan and was there anything they could do for me?
The lady I spoke to listened to me sympathetically and finally agreed that she would suspend my direct debit until I could get back to work.
I finally got back to work in September, but as I am still clawing my way desperately out of my over draft, it has taken me until today to get the courage up even to call them. Still cant really afford the repayments, but I'm working again, so no excuses!
Well here comes the good bit:
I called them this morning to confirm that I could restart my payments - only to be told that the full amount (£8000) has been paid off and the loan closed down?
Now as far as I know, I have no mystery benefactors, who would feel it necessary to pay off my fairly substantial debt. So I can only assume it is a huge administration error on the part of this particular loan company!
Oh well! I'm certainly not going to argue with them and I'm sure this particular faceless moneygrubbing corporation can do without my hard earned cash without suffering too much!
Anyway getting to the point...
My question is this:
Has there been any time in your life when lady luck has seen fit to intervene?
It doesnt have to be money related but I'd love to hear if any one else has experienced unexpected good fortune?
quote:Originally posted by Neurotic Cat: Oh well I'm certainly not going to argue with them and I'm sure this particular faceless moneygrubbing corporation can do without my hard earned cash without suffering too much!
It's a bit pissy to denounce a company as 'faceless, moneygrubbing' when you entered into a financial agreement with them - presumably of your own free will - and then defaulted. When you contacted them it seems as though you got a humane and personalised response, with a tremendously reasonable outcome in the shape of the suspension of your payments.
And what's this about your 'hard earned'? The £8000 was money you borrowed and, presumably, spent - where exactly is the hard work in 'earning' that?
You might think my tone is a bit harsh but unless you take a close look at your attitude to money you'll end up back where you were six months ago in pretty short order.
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I want to bank at the same bank that you bank at dude. Their interest rates neither incur outlandish charges or cost any of my own money to pay off.
"The bank that likes to say 'Tighten up yer pelvis love, I'm coming a fuckin train"
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Nope, there's still time to point out that there may be extra charges and that the debt will be so extreme that they will want to renew the contract, adding a pound of flesh to each payment.
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Yeah, definitely get them to confirm it to you in writing, cat. I'll give you a cautionary tale here (and when it comes to debt I'm full of them). A few years ago I fell into that "repay one loan with another" trap. So I was doing that thing that the banks used to like to encourage you to do which was to consolidate a loan. As I had repayment protection on the loan I was due to get a little bit of that money back when one loan paid off the other one. Imagine my delight when I checked my bank account to find the tidy sum of £2,500 in there. But I knew it wasn't mine.
I phoned up the bank and said they'd obviously made an error, she insisted they hadn't and that the money was mine. I insisted it wasn't, but she reassured me absolutely 100% that it was all mine. So I used it to pay back my final outstanding credit card.
One month later cue the bank phoning me saying that they had made a mistake and I had to pay them back instantly. They wouldn't listen to any explanations or the fact that I had been reassured that the money was mine. I didn't have anything in writing and besides, they were acknowledging that they had made a mistake but now they wanted the money back.
In the end they kindly agreed to give me another loan which did in fact work out less than the interest I'd been paying on the credit card anyway, so all's well that ends well. Kind of.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially when it's in the form of a financial institute. Write to them and get them to confirm back to you in writing the status of your account. Maybe you did have some kind of insurance on there that you'd forgotten about? Either way, get it in writing, I cannot stress this enough. Ignore this warning at your peril!!
quote:Originally posted by ben: Hngh! Out-downered by the newbie.
Er, do you mean me?
Anyway, this is the principle that I was thinking of - ie. if a bank pays money into your account in error and you know it's not yours, then you do not have the right to spend it. Finance Q&A from the Guardian I'm guessing that the same principle might well apply. But I'm no lawyer.
eta: Cross-posted with Uber Trick's more fulsome explanation of the same....
posted
I remember I once saw an episode of hit US sitcom Friends where Pheobe (she's the dizzy blonde one) got into a hilarious situation with her bank after they accidently credited her account with several thousand dollars. After a series of amusing scenes (I think Ross rolled his eyes at one point and Chandler said something very droll) they gave her even more money *and* a telephone shaped like an american football. Crazy!
I recounted this tale to Ben at a meat and he actually hit me (albiet with an open hand) and told me life just doesn't work like it does on TV. I now know this to be true. Thanks Ben.
posted
I'd watch the front door as you will probably find if its a less than scrupulous loan company, a la the ones advertised in the Sun newspaper or on daytime TV, you will have had your debt sold to a collection agency.
Neurotic Cat
My fortune cookie's empty... That's also the title of my autobiography.
posted
Well thanks for the replies guys. I have asked the loan company to provide me with confirmation that the loan is paid off. And ben I did think your tone was a bit harsh but hey no matter.
I guess after some shit times it just seemed nice that maybe I'd gained some benefit from a random administration error.
I'm sure in these days of computer systems that these things will happen.
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After getting myself into about 18k's worth of debt, I'm finally in a position to start paying some of it off properly by saving up a chunk. Instead, I'm going to buy a Capri and stick a V8 engine in it.
quote:Originally posted by Neurotic Cat: I guess after some shit times it just seemed nice that maybe I'd gained some benefit from a random administration error.
I'm sure in these days of computer systems that these things will happen.
Well, if it did and someone got away with it, that would be wrong. I don't really see why someone who takes out a loan should have it written off; I can see why you'd want it to happen but there is no entitlement to it, and you seem to be implying ("I've had some shit times") that you deserved it. Perhaps on a cosmic, karmic scale you "deserved" good luck, but I expect we could examine the experiences on the shit side of the scale and argue that they were your fault anyway (moving house, getting involved with a specific person).
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Nevertheless in the spirit of fairness I wonder if anyone would have been so harsh if it was someone like Uber Trick (ie. long-term contributor with online friends) who had made the original post.
posted
In the spirit of fairness kovacs I'm pretty sure people would have been harsher if I'd made the original post, given my debt history and all.
Who was particularly harsh apart from ben anyway, and he's often harsh to lots of people, it's part of his fatherly role. Everyone else was offering advice weren't they?
Edit after re-reading: Ok, advice with dark undertones and bandy's comic interlude. Sorry Neurotic Cat if your smile was lessened by this thread. I hope you get your stroke of luck whether it be through this means or another.
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: Instead, I'm going to buy a Capri and stick a V8 engine in it.
Has the Smart Cart's novelty worn off already?
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Neurotic Cat
My fortune cookie's empty... That's also the title of my autobiography.
posted
Well as first posts go this ones a corker!
Noones actually answered the original question and the attitude i'm getting from the rest of the forum is that I am in some way doing something wrong by going along with this situation?
and yes Kovacs i think your 2nd post hits the nail on the head but I am a newbie so maybe i'm not qualified to hold such an opinion.
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quote:Originally posted by Ringo: Instead, I'm going to buy a Capri and stick a V8 engine in it.
Ringers, I have a colleague here who has three Ford Capris - all classics - if you need speak to people with the same affliction as yourself, mail me at gmail and I'll put you in contact with him.
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Has the Smart Cart's novelty worn off already?
It wore off after about a week. Now I'm stuck with the damn thing for at least a couple of years so the way I see it the only thing I can do is to get myself a cheap second hand car for about £500 and do it up. The 3.8l Rover V8 will fit with a bit of work, which should give me something to abuse people with at Santa Pod. Either that or a Mini and stick a Hayabusa turbo engine in the back.
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Once upon a time, many years ago, I realised that life was not going how I wanted it to. I did not like my job, my relationships with other people were laced with tension and I was downright miserable.
One day, in a fit of self-hate, I mugged an old lady. I know it was wrong, but I felt so low, I needed society to recognise the pathetic individual that I was.
Anyway, to cut a story short, I got nicked. It was an alarming experience, and one that I would not recommend.
However, on the day before I was to enter my plea, the CPS annouced that they had lost my file! All my interview tapes gone! My statement, vanished! Gone! I was free to go!
Lady luck was certainly smiling on me on that day!
posted
Well if they insist it is paid off, and will send you written confirmation of this, then what can you do - Send them an anonymous parcel containing 8k in used notes and hope they do something nice with it?
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posted
No, I don't think people would have been as ungenerous on this thread if it had been you, Uber. The only parallel I can think of is when Bandy and Scrawny were trying a minor insurance fiddle, and a couple of people offered pretty tentative objections, backing off when Scrawny posted an annoyed response. (Or that's how I remember it.)
Nobody really berates Ringo for his tendency to buy new cars, stereos, silver PS2s and neon gearsticks when he's heavily in debt; perhaps because (as with Scrawny) they know he will get in a strop if challenged.
With Neurotic Cat, the truth is that nobody here, yet, as far as I know, is bovvered whether they hurt NC's feelings or provoke an angry response. Neurotic Cat doesn't yet carry any particular weight on the board and nobody is afraid of offending her to the point where she leaves the board -- nobody is wary that she has mates on here who will post in her defence, and so on. That is harsh but fair to the Neurotic Cat, I think. To cheer Neurotic Cat up, the longer she posts the more "weight" she will gather.
The reason I posted with a downer on the Neurotic Cat is that I have a couple of similar situations in my own life where I'm hoping an institution doesn't realise I am gypping them for money, and this thread made me feel uneasy about it. Not through guilt but from the idea that they always find out and make you pay it back.
Neurotic Cat
My fortune cookie's empty... That's also the title of my autobiography.
posted
quote: Message edited by: Uber Trick - Edit after re-reading: Ok, advice with dark undertones and bandy's comic interlude. Sorry Neurotic Cat if your smile was lessened by this thread. I hope you get your stroke of luck whether it be through this means or another.
Thanks Uber, I did appreciate your good advice. I am a little disappointed that my thread hadnt quite gone how i'd expected but no worries. The smiles still there - after all everyones entitled to their own opinion and constructive advice was offered for the most part.
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quote:Originally posted by kovacs: The only parallel I can think of is when Bandy and Scrawny were trying a minor insurance fiddle
As it turned out, i'd named the laptop on the insurance policy and was paying a premium for it anyway, meaning that I was well well within my rights to put in a claim for it.
To tie up the tale, all of the stuff finally arrived yesterday and is now sitting pretty in our flat just waiting to be stolen again.
quote:Originally posted by Waynster: Ringers, I have a colleague here who has three Ford Capris - all classics - if you need speak to people with the same affliction as yourself, mail me at gmail and I'll put you in contact with him.
Cheers man. I'm still not sure if I'm actually gong to do it yet. The prospect of paying off lots of debt over the next couple of years and potentially having much more money to play with when I do finally get rid of the Smart, does have a certain attraction. Especially when, if I think about it, I really do want to buy something properly shit-hot fast as my next car, something like a Supra or an RX-7, so if I can get rid of as much debt as possible, it does put that within my reach.
Still, I don't know that i can last that long before feeling the need for speed. I'm so bored of the Smart it's physically painful. Even if it does have a dump valve and a silver viper stripe..
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A couple of years ago, I attempted to update the firmware on my mobile phone so that it could hold 200 SMS messages rather than 10. It all went fine until the PC I was using crashed towards the end of the operation, leaving the phone a hapless victim of botched brain surgery. It was useless.
Later that evening, I bought a bottle of fizzy blue drink, of the variety that guarantees diabetes in the under-fives. I carefully poured it out into a glass, turned on my phone and dropped it in. It was heartbreaking. It was like the end of Terminator 2. The phone started vibrating and flashing, with weird characters appearing on the screen. A broken photo here, some internal code there. The vibration caused it to spin and pulse in the glass, and I watched with tearful eyes until the light finally went out.
A quick call to Orange about how my girlfriend's niece put the phone in her drink, and within 24 hours, I've got a brand new phone, that happily came with the updated firmware already on it. I'd got away with it - that time.
Recently, I lost my phone. Totally genuine; I went to a pub with it, and left without it, and had no idea where it was. I called the pub the next day and they hadn't seen anything. I had insurance, so I called up Orange to let them know of my misfortune. The call didn't go so well. Maybe it was the hangover, maybe the knowledge that the future of my social life was hanging in the balance. Either way, I blew it. "Did I have the phone with me at all times?" Well, no, otherwise I wouldn't have lost it. "Did you take it to the toilet with you?". I don't know - maybe I did - I don't usually worry about taking my phone to the toilet."Did you take the phone out of your pocket? Did you put it back?" Yes, and I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Either way, somebody else has it now, because it was fully charged and now it's going straight to voicemail.
clickety-clack as the girl puts all the information into the Judgement Device.
"We can replace your phone for you"
"If you pay £300"
[ 30.11.2004, 05:02: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
quote:Originally posted by Uber Trick: Who was particularly harsh apart from ben anyway, and he's often harsh to lots of people, it's part of his fatherly role. Everyone else was offering advice weren't they?
I'd argue I was offering advice too: for NC to detail how her loan company had granted her the benefit of the doubt...
quote:The lady I spoke to listened to me sympathetically and finally agreed that she would suspend my direct debit until I could get back to work.
...and then describe them as 'faceless, moneygrubbing' seems at the very least ungracious - but I sense it's symptomatic of an attitude along the lines of the world 'owing' her something. In this case, £8000.
It's this warped sense of entitlement that gets so many people into such deep shit and - as we've seen with Ringo - people pussyfooting around the issue doesn't seem to do the person much good in the long run.
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quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Has the Smart Cart's novelty worn off already?
It wore off after about a week. Now I'm stuck with the damn thing for at least a couple of years so the way I see it the only thing I can do is to get myself a cheap second hand car for about £500 and do it up. The 3.8l Rover V8 will fit with a bit of work, which should give me something to abuse people with at Santa Pod. Either that or a Mini and stick a Hayabusa turbo engine in the back.
Hehe, told you not to get it.
Although I am proud of you for admitting your mistake and now choosing to kick that piece of shit to the curb and get a car with some character. I’d advise the mini, each one is it’s own person and are especially fun to drive. There’s a huge mini club near to me and have some close friends who’d kill for the chance to help you fix it up.
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I racked my brains for a couple of minutes and came up with a couple of incidents along the lines of "I was just about to step out into the path of an HGV, but then at the last minute I remembered to look. Wasn't I lucky?" - but nothing I couldn't honestly attribute to having felt touched by luck, fate or any other abstract mystical concept.
I take the rational approach - things either happen or they don't. Sometimes what happens is our fault and sometimes it happens to us. But there's always a cause and effect. No grand cosmic plan.
This is hardly the height of philosophical enquiry.... but does anyone agree with this way of thinking? Or do you need to believe in Lady Luck smiling on you to feel a bit of hope or something?
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A couple of years ago my friend bought a nice shiny new telly and DVDer from a well known high street electrical retailer, to be paid back by Direct Debit over 8 months after Christmas or something.
They never took the money out of her account and she has since closed down that account and moved house twice.
Yah see, it'd be really nice to have a big free telly, but I could never truly relax and properly ogle that fit one out of Spooks without the constant nagging thought that someone was going to smash my door down and drag it away. Or that £800 would suddenly be directdebited out of my account just before I had to pay a deposit or something.
The FEAR of the RIGHTEOUSLY HONEST.
Edit: Can't think of owt lucky recently. Tis bollocks.
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not...
You reached over with your hand and knocked my Jap over
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Warning - serious bit ahead: I know I like to joke and say I don't give a damn about my debt, and that things will all sort themselves out, but they wont. I can't say I ever felt like the world owed me anything. I have a problem whereby I want instant gratification, I'm impulsive, and when you combine that with the thought that, hey, you can have that sports car you want and all you need to do is sit for ten minutes speaking to one of the pretty girls at the bank, it's a recipe for disaster.
But the thing I never really had a sense of before, and would have stopped me from ever getting into this kind of debt in the first place, is responsibility. See, there's only one person who got me in debt. The bank didn't just give me money out of the blue - I went in and asked them for it. I signed the agreements, I used the credit card, I went looking for a new car… It was me every time. And only one person is going to get me out of that debt. Provided I keep making my regular payments, within the next two years or so most of my debt wil be gone and the bank will be happy. And I'll be happy. Of course I'll probably take out another loan at that point, or a mortgage or something, depending on where I am in life.
But the point is that my debt has made me very depressed. Nothing I've used that money for has brought me any real happiness. Not the sports cars, the flashy computers, the silver playstations (the one I've got at the moment is Aqua!), none of these material things have done anything to counter the burden of this emmense debt which I've placed upon myself. I don't deserve a break. I don't deserve an easy way out. If I had either of those, I'd simply go and get myself into debt again. The suffering part is the most important step towards realising the folley of bank loans.
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It would be good if you could follow Carol Vorderman around shouting that all, Ringers.
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