IT MAKES ME SCREAM

…every time the library e-mails a “Courtesy Pre-Overdue Notice.”

JUST CALL IT A DUE NOTICE.  As in, “On this date your library books are due.”  The words “pre” and “over” are redundant.  Unneeded.  Unnecessary.  Pointless.  You get the picture.

aaarrggghhhh

I agree*. *Required.

Well, somebody has finally figured out the e-version of fine print – dark grey letters on a dark grey background.  Nearly impossible to read.  And I had LASIK.

This new development is only a small part of my murderous rage intense frustration concerning my student loan having been sold AGAIN.  This happens every couple of years and I have to create a new log-in and learn to navigate another website and – the catch – figure out the new payment system.

It’s not like I was in love with Chase.  The money-changers had it set up so that you could pay the minimum automatically, but couldn’t pay over the minimum amount without making an additional separate payment each month.  And that payment had to be at least $25.  Fine for me but there’s no getting ahead for recent grads by paying an extra $5 or $10 a month.

But this new company, ACS, is raising the bar for bastardly behavior.  First, they have set all accounts as “prepaid,” meaning if you have been responsible and smart and made extra payments on your loan, your due date is moved into the future so that you will still accrue interest in the meantime.  Even if you made those payments TWO YEARS AGO TO A DIFFERENT COMPANY.

Now, if you don’t have a headache and aren’t screaming yet, then you can “change your prepaid status.”  Which I did.

Some, or all, of your loans have been prepaid. A prepaid loan means your next payment due date has been advanced by the number of full monthly payments that are satisfied by the excess payment received.

If you decide to remove or change your prepaid status, the due date for your next payment will be adjusted to the date you select. Since interest cannot be satisfied in advance, changing your prepaid status will not affect your outstanding balance or the amount of interest already accrued. However, your account may become due for the current month. Please remember, you will receive a bill for your next payment due date (whichever date you select).

Since interest cannot be satisfied prior to it accruing, if you decide NOT to remove your prepaid status, interest will continue to accrue on your account while it is in the prepaid status. This will then be satisfied first when applying your next payment.

Of course, the payments don’t kick in until mid-May which means I’ll still be accruing interest for 6 weeks.  I plan to send an e-check which I’m sure they’ll take 3 weeks to process but at least it will count eventually.  I’LL MAKE YOU TAKE MY MONEY DAMNIT.

Throw Rocks at ACS!

And oh yeah, my entire payment history is erased.  Gone, baby, gone.  It isn’t on the new account and I can’t get it from the old account, which no longer exists.  Well, it sort of no longer exists.  I can log-on to the Chase website but can’t access the information.  When I called the 1-877 number the woman said the account doesn’t exist because I closed it (if by “I closed it” she means “we sold it” then yes, that’s what happened).  So can you get rid of the log-in so it’s not floating around in cyberspace?  No because it doesn’t exist. I just used it – I’m on the website right now.  You need to contact a different department. Do you do ANYTHING at this number?

At least future students will be able to borrow directly from the government which won’t have employees focusing on various ways to bend them over a chair for the next 20 years.  Thank you President Obama.

Ramblings: Tiger Woods & Zombie Fire Ants

- Note to MPR and other respectable news sources:  Drop the Tiger Woods stories already.  It’s almost as painful as continuous Sarah Palin coverage.  I am so tired of hearing about the poor “vulnerable” women (the MPR story was about how they are both poor and vulnerable, or vulnerable because they’re poor, or waitresses because they’re vulnerable.  Isn’t one an executive?)  Is it that difficult to imagine there are five six seven women out there who wanted to sleep with Tiger Woods?  And please spare me the whining.  A quote from The Washington Post: “If adultery is really about the power and satisfaction of conquest, Woods’s self-esteem was apparently only boosted by bedding the kind of woman he thought other men lusted after.”  OR he actually lusted after them

Having said all that I am now going to contribute to the problem by posting this link to the Tiger Woods Voicemail Slow Jam Remix.

- Another filling today.  Take it from me, FLOSS PEOPLE.

- Whose brilliant idea is it to release mass quantities of insects into the environment?   Our house is infested annually by giant ladybugs which were released to combat the giant aphids.  Did we learn nothing from Jurassic Park?  Hello – life will find a way.  Learn from us, Texas.  Zombie Fire Ants – Maybe Not Such A Great Idea.

- Oh those goofy Germans… Berlin paper installs sculpture “endowed with a massive penis that stretches the height of the building.” I highly recommend the slide show.

- Just right now this very moment I found out that Enya is not a man.  Apparently I had never seen an Enya commercial before and just pictured him (her) as a young David Copperfield.  Hmmm, I guess I wasn’t so far off.