For me it was getting the responsible party’s insurance company to pay up for a minor fender-bender. She took her eyes off the road and slammed into a line of stopped cars, in broad daylight, with a CHP motorcycle cop stopped immediately beside me.
Net damage to my truck was a dented bumper and tailgate; both had to be replaced and some painting had to be done by the bodyshop as well. Grand total was about $3k.
I had to go to the ER to get X-rayed and checked out to make sure I wasn’t in fact dead. That was a couple of hundred dollars.
It took over a year to get paid. A year of arguing with their claims adjuster, her supervisor, multiple calls, emails and faxes, promises made by them only to be broken, I had the body shop threaten ME with small claims court because insurance companies wouldn’t pay what they had promised they would, even with estimates in writing up front…the stress was pretty amazing, I could see myself turning into one of those angry screaming customers you see in “World’s Bitchiest Complainers”.
I had to shepherd the entire process along or nothing would have ever gotten resolved. After complaining in writing to the BBB and the chairman of the board of her insurance company, my case was reassigned to a new adjuster. One phone call, albeit an hour long with me standing my ground and refusing to budge an inch, and I finally got my damn check sent out, including compensation for my time and aggravation.
Which led me to the realization that the other person’s insurance company is not out to make things right or pay for damages done, they are out to wear you down through means fair and foul (mostly foul) in the hopes that you will get so frustrated that you’ll just forget the whole thing.
This past summer I had to get medical records from a minor outpatient surgery performed in 1987 at a small, specialized hospital which has since physically moved and been swallowed up into a department of Very Big Regional Teaching Hospital, which wasn’t really much fun.
Also, the collective process of college financial aid and dealing with loan companies is pretty awful.
Applying for a visa or as said above doing anything immigration related.
Its bloody amazing, 150 years ago travel was difficult, but getting in and out of a country was easy, now travel is easy, but getting in and out is difficult.
I know a former INS agent (I’m not certain what they are calling her department now) who has always said she would be suspicious of any husband that knew the specific names of his wife’s toiletries. Knowing he smell of the face cream or the price (especially if he complains about the price) would be indicative of a real of marriage, but the typical man realing off names like Estee Lauder, Clinique, etc. would seem too odd.
You have to go early before the numbers run out, then wait several hours for your number to be called. No problem, I thought, I’ll go out for a long lunch. No. They lock the doors.
Another time I waited in a long line quite some time just to get a number, waited an hour or two for the number to be called, and all they did for me when I finally got to the counter was silently hand me a huge stack of forms.
If you have a simple question for INS, call the Fraud hotline. They’ll probably hang up angrily when they find you have a question unrelated to fraud, but even if it takes ten calls, this will be much faster than calling the regular number.
These experiences are all prior to the 11th of September. Has it gotten worse?
(On the other hand, I have an unbelievable story of speedy response relating to immigration in another country …)
Dealing with workers compensation and disability has GOT to be at the top, if number one, on the list. Your soul is completely crushed in the process, and you wonder where they find people to work for them who have had their humanity completely sucked out and replaced by something purely evil.
That’s better than at the Czech Foreign Police (where foreigners go to do visa/residence paperwork). The Ukrainian mafia guys take all the numbers and then go around selling them. If you want a number that is coming up soon, it costs more than one with a 12 hour wait.
The Czech police do nothing to stop this practice as they are in on it too. Most people hire someone to stand in line for them.
I vote for mortgage companies. I am a remodeling contractor that specializes in insurance claims. Mortgage companies are often named on the checks in addition to the homeowners.
My best conversation so far is that I need to sign a mechanic’s lien waiver prior to the mortgage company releasing the funds. This means I am giving up all legal rights to get paid for the job. Before I get paid. This is their official policy. Fuckers.
Another vote for dealing with a loved one’s death. When my mother died, the banks were fine. The paper work for the government stuff was annoying but bearable. The PayTV contract and direct debit for charities were a nightmare to try and cancel. Magazine subscriptions on direct debit were almost impossible to cancel, and a few managed to get through the next year’s subscription by delaying a response.
Not the companies’ fault, but my mother liked catalogs, especially from book sellers and knitting/sewing suppliers. Literally hundreds of them. It took a year to contact them all and convince them that I didn’t want them transferred to me. I still have thousands of books in boxes to deal with.
But the worst by far was the company from whom she had leased the retirement unit. Tiny print, page 14 of the contract, was a clause that said you had to give notice, in writing, TWICE, within 14 days of the death. We - naively - thought one formal letter would be enough. Especially when they replied acknowledging the letter and saying nothing about needing a repeat! $14,000 lost in cold cash. And an appallingly poor valuation clause which meant a pitiful amount of the original price was recovered - the unit reselling immediately at double what they’d paid back. And we were only one of hundreds caught the same way. Those contracts are now outlawed.
If I hear once more “What we have done is quite legal” as if that’s the same as “It’s ethical” then I will scream.
no phone or address for the courthouse. Just the PO box where I can send my payment
no procedures listed anywhere for said fight
the case will automatically be decided against you if you don’t follow the unlisted procedures
excuses are like assholes. everyone has one. A judge won’t care that you couldn’t possibly slow down without the tailgater smashing into you, or that there were no posted speed limit signs on the 4-lane road in the middle of nowhere directly off an interstate.
