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Gaffer Variety:
I Should Have Called Sam 025:
By Willie Gaffer:
I should have called Sam is a household joke here. In this case, Sam is Sam Bernstein, a personal injury attorney. If I hate anyone more than bill collectors it's got to be personal injury attorneys. Even so, every once in a while I am tempted to engage one. This was one such case. It happened long enough ago that I can recount it with a bit of humor now. Not much, just a bit. I don't know if it's me or if things like this happen to everyone. It seems I do a great deal of complaining about being mistreated by fools. I am sure it happens to everyone and most people just don't fight it like I do. I suspect most folks just try to slide around it and go on. I also think that is why these incompetent types can continue with their bungling and cheating. Not enough people fight them.
I think more people would fight them if they discovered what a rush it is to
finally win. One of the most satisfying things I do is to go up against these
two bit bullies and thugs and have them back down. If you have the facts, they
must inevitably back down, be it a big outfit like Verizon or a small timer
like this one. I will continue to fight them whenever it is possible and I will
continue to report on the encounters in this column. Every time I encounter
lowlifes like this, you will hear about it here. When I present these things in
aggregate in a book, you may come to realize how completely corrupt our
American corporate structure is. I promise, all of these items and more will
end up as an entire chapter in the book I will probably call, "The
Decline." That is about how
This particular case happened because of some incompetent clerks at MDO Imaging Associates. At that time I had occasion to send this letter to those people.
Director
MDO Imaging Associates PLC
Copies
Russell Collection Agency
MDO Imaging Associates,
Norman Hagenow, CEO Genesys Health Systems
Reference account number 3673.
Dear Person:
Please do not ignore or discard this letter. This is an official complaint against MDO Imaging Associates and is the only one you will receive.
I am beyond angry with the behavior of you staff in Flint Twp., MI. Your people have bungled your billing, blamed me for it, and sent a local collector to harass, intimidate, and coerce me. That is completely unacceptable.
Here are the facts:
On
Apparently at that time someone from MDO performed some kind of alleged service
for me.
As is usual, my insurance did not cover the entire cost so I owed you some
balance. The important thing is, I did not know that I owed you any money
because you did not tell me.
The first indication I had of your alleged bill was from a sudden, unexpected
dun from Russell Collection Agency in August 2005, four months after the fact.
My wife called that agency, but the Russell spokesperson refused to give her
the details of the situation. She insisted on some kind of release form to do
that.
Following that, we spent a few days following the false address and phone
number for MDO which we found in the
We finally did acquire your correct phone number and my wife called the office
on
After some run around and hassle she got through to a woman who did not give
her name.
In that conversation we discovered that MDO had been sending bills to an
incorrect address.
Your people had made an error.
You had not just sent one bill to an incorrect address, you had sent three.
We know that the Postoffice returned those bills marked as undeliverable. They
always do.
In spite of that, in several months your people were unable to figure out that
you had assumed an incorrect address rather that asking me for an address.
All of the other parasite firms that work out of Genesys had my correct
address.
They sent me bills and I paid them.
You are the only ones who got it wrong.
The unnamed woman did not apologize for the bungling, but she did promise to
take the bill out of collections immediately. That turned out to be a false
promise.
The unnamed woman also agreed to send us a bill so we could see it and pay it.
She did keep that promise.
When we received the bill, my wife called the Flint Twp. office to find how we
should proceed to pay the bill.
It was then that the unnamed woman revealed that she had not taken the bill out
of collections on the instruction of her supervisor, so she said.
That act reveals to me a profound degree of malicious intent.
The unnamed woman also told my wife it did not matter where she sent the
payment. We could send it to Russell or to you. That also turned out to be untrue.
Nevertheless, on
That should have ended it, but it did not.
On
That is what caused me to react with this letter.
The theme through all of this is one of failure on the part of your people in proper procedure. Reviewing the facts, it is difficult for me to see how all of it could be simply the result of mistakes on your part. Certainly the refusal of your staff to take this thing out of collections when you were clearly in the wrong indicates malicious intent. Whether there was intent or simply incredible incompetence and indolence is really irrelevant to my wife and me. The mental anguish and sleepless nights we suffered because of this would have been the same.
Now I want an end to this. I want you to call off your bully collector and respond to this letter. I will expect a response within two weeks of the date of this letter (September 6, 2005). I do not want a telephone response. Our experience indicates that your verbal promises are unreliable. I want a written response above your signature. Anything less will be unacceptable.
I hate attorneys, I hate courtrooms, and I hate confrontations. I am bending over backwards to avoid those things. Please do not force me to seek legal remedies. Step up to your responsibility and do what you know is right. I want to be done with you people forever.
Willie Gaffer
The follow up was we did receive a response frm these fools but it was much confused. Apparently they were able, with the collusion of the USPS, to delay receipt of my letter for three entire weeks. According to our postmaster this is perfectly legal. On top of that, although I paid for a registered letter and the tracking, the letter left no track. For three entire weeks, I did not know where it was. On one day, 9/15/2005 the letter was accepted at the Ortonville Postoffice. From there it apparently went by magic to Chicago where it was deliver on 9/21/2005. There was no record of the letter anywhere in between Ortonville and Chicago. That's a distance of over 300 miles.
One interesting item here is we got the response from MDO before my letter
was delivered to them. How could that be? I don't know, I suspect the USPS was
not fully forthcoming. The response was just a cover your butt dishonest reply
with a left handed apology. It was not at all satisfying, but it is all we will
ever get from an outfit like this. I got a much better response from the CEO of
Genesys Health Systems. She told MDO to shape up or get out of Genesys. Perhaps
they will behave better next time. With people like this, brute force is
usually effective. In fact, it seems to be the only thing they understand. In a
future essay, I'll get into my take on outfits and people like Russell
Collection Agency. I have had a couple of experiences with these lowlifes.
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