Good riddance, trailer trash!

For those who may not know: when we sold our trailer, we ended up playing "bank" for the people who bought it. For the last two years, they have been making monthly payments to us. Once we realized they were no longer living in Logan, we decided we didn't want the liability anymore and offered them a bit of a discount if they paid if off two years early. And today, they brought us a check! Yea!

While I'll miss the additional monthly income their payments were bringing in, it will all even out since we can now pay off the snowmobile, which means we also won't have to pay snowmobile insurance this year.

And here's the other fun part: There will be enough left over to pay off Lillian's ICU bill. It would have been paid off by the end of the year anyway since I've upped our payment in hopes of getting it gone as soon as possible, but paying off something earlier than expected is always nice - especially when you've been paying for you're kid who's almost two. I guess they can't repossess her now. :)

The frustrating part in all this good news, however, is IHC's crappy accounting department. Ok...so they probably aren't that crappy, and I know several wonderful people who work or have worked for them. (After Tina's experience with offending people, I don't want anyone to think I don't like IHC or its employees.) But here's the deal (it's kind of a long, boring story to anyone other than us, so feel free to skim):

I guess they changed how they're handling bills that are set up on a long-term payment plan like ours was. Unfortunately, they didn't bother to tell anyone (or at least I never heard anything) that this change would be taking place. Using my wonderful online bill pay, I set up the payment to go automatically on the first of every month. About that time this month, I realized I hadn't received the statement yet but didn't think too much about it since it sometimes comes a little later. When the statement finally made it to our house, I noticed the payment was no longer going to the same department and my account number had changed.

I checked our bill-pay information and saw that the check had cleared our bank the day before I got the statement and two days after they printed it, so I figured they would get everything transferred over soon. Since I could check the balance online now (that wasn't an option before), I decided to keep an eye on it for the next week or two and call if the payment never appeared. I hate when people call in a panic without giving it some time to resolve itself like the lady who called work all freaked out because she got an invoice for a conference in the mail and she'd faxed a PO the day before she received the invoice. How were we supposed to recall a letter sent in the mail just because we received your fax? But I digress...

Anyway, a week later, the payment still hasn't shown up. Now that we have this check in hand to pay the balance off, Erik called to get the payoff amount and get it taken care of. They didn't show a payment was made and transferred him to the people who used to handle our account. They told him they didn't know where the payment was and were surprised to hear that the check cleared our bank last week. "But the person transferring payments is really behind..." Surely they knew this issue would come up when they changed who was handling the payments. Maybe they should have put something in place so payments weren't "lost" in a pile on someone's desk. And how far behind is behind? How long until the payment actually shows up on my account?

Long story short: we have to get a copy of the check from our bank and fax it to them to prove we made the payment; then we can get the payoff amount. But I'm still thrilled to get rid of two bills for good and wash our hands of the trailer that was our home for four years. I almost shed a tear...almost.