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One of my least favorite things to do is to spend the afternoon on the phone with a finance company. There are items lower on that list, like trying to decipher Tim’s handwriting and correct his grammar without knowing exactly what he’s trying to say in the letter he drafted, and filling out elaborate forms and questionnaires — all of which I also had to do today.
The reason I had to talk to the finance company is that on their last statement (for payments on a forklift we bought three years ago) there was a late fee and a finance charge, which I refused to pay. Instead I sent them a copy of the canceled check for the previous payment, showing it had been made on time. This confused the heck out of them.
First they called and said they hadn’t got the copy of the check, so I called them back and offered to fax it. But the account person told me that in the interim she had found the check and would do more research. A few minutes later she called again and said that it was the previous payment that had been late. I was dumfounded, because that check had been written ten days before the due date, but paid by the bank four days late.
So she told me that I had two choices. She offered a one time waiver of the late fee and finance charge, or I could send her a copy of the earlier check in question, proving it was paid on time. I wanted to keep both options open, because I was sure I was right, but not sure enough. And in fact, the check was paid late, although all the other checks I wrote the same day arrived on time. So I sheepishly called her back and asked for the waiver, promising never to allow one of our payments to get lost in the mail again. (Well, I had to blame somebody. Why not the post office?) | 
