The usual source for these kind of IT problems is mergers or acquisitions. The bought company’s accounts are kept on the bought companies systems for awhile. With the hope they’ll make an organized conversion over to the buying companies systems. Meantime customer service workers have to operate both systems.
Then the CEO and CIO lose interest in funding this conversion as soon as the big press release about the “successful” merger finishes bumping the stock price. So they do a half-assed quickie job of copying over all the records from old to new. Which woks fine for the vanilla accounts but has bugs for most of the weirdball accounts.
It gets more fun when this happens more than once. Soon your complete and correct records only existed two companies’ IT systems ago and nobody now has a clue what got lost along the way. Nor do they have any way to find out since all those systems are long since shut down and thrown away.
THIS is insane.
On top of the first check they sent me they actually sent me the additional $229!
This went from them sending a bill I didn’t owe to collections to them sending me a total of $249!
In no way, shape, or form did this company owe me ANY money. Technically it’d be unethical for me to cash these. But they insist they owe me this money. Maybe I should put this ethical dilemma in great debates.
I got into a similar flail with the IRS once. (simplified version)
I legitimately owed them $50.00. I sent them a check for the amount. Their bank processed it as a check for 50 cents. They then came after me for the $49.50 deficiency in payment.
After several rounds (and months) of mails back and forth that began with me promptly sending them a check for $49.50 which they legitimately deserved, they eventually refunded my $49.50 and in a separate event refunded the full $50.00 I never paid! I never understood why.
I cashed the checks and walked away shaking my head. That was a couple decades ago and they’ve never shown any sign of being upset about the current state of play.
Computers are a truly wonderful thing. Pure mindless incomprehension.
Yeah, this definitely makes no sense. GMAC is generally sold through local independent agents. /QUOTE]
Bingo!
That, plus the content of response #2 pretty much sums it up: Somebody fat-fingered something on a keyboard and PKbites’ bike wound up as the target. I suspect, since it didn’t stand out as a debt until now, the real policy-holder who wanted the extra $200 of insurance in 2013 paid his bill.
But in financial industries, a thorough audit isn’t necessarily done until the account is closed. If things are rolling smoothly along otherwise, then there’s no need for an audit; the only contact you’d get about your account would be to remind you of premiums and renewals coming up or to try and sell you a new product that might fit your profile.
Eons ago, my mother filed bankruptcy. A decade later I closed a credit card. When they audited my account upon closure, they discovered the account was opened by my mother as a co-signer and should have been closed & locked when she filed for bankruptcy. Thus, the credit card company was obligated to give me back 10 years of monthly payments that I had made for usage that was mine (and always mine alone). If I hadn’t asked to close the account, they would have kept the line of credit revolving forever and never conducted that audit.
That little routine audit worked in my favor; this one isn’t working in your favor – but there’s no accusations of malice involved. It’s just that someone screwed up in a minor way and you can patiently keep inquiring until the matter is settled.
