Stupidity fees: Paid for by offsetting incomes
June 7, 2012
Of all the annoying …
My car was up for a smog check this year and we were starting to cut it closer and closer to the deadline as we ran out of weekends to take the car in. That drives me nuts. But what’s worse? The fact that I was pretty certain that I’d paid for the registration itself months in advance of the smog check. Once PiC took care of the smog check, I mentally filed it away as: wait for the new registration.
That was over a month ago. I should have received the new stickers a long time ago but I’d completely forgotten about it in the flurry of recent events.
And I didn’t actually submit the payment.
ARGH.
The State of CA was kind enough to wait until the last tier of lateness was past to send me a reminder that they hadn’t received my payment!
I was so sure I’d already paid! And if I’d checked anytime after he did the smog check the late fee would have been lower.
It’s going to cost me an extra $89 to register my car this year. This makes me a few kinds of grouchy.
*****
I had some not-insignificant income that had gone astray last year and I’d jumped through so many hoops trying to resolve the issue with no result.
It was so twisty and frustrating that I couldn’t think of another person to call or another avenue to pursue. But the idea of that much money just sitting there was so frustrating that I was literally waking up at night every so often thinking about it. $3000 is no small beans! And I’d already paid taxes on it.
It was for the stupidest of reasons, really, the check was misaddressed, but I couldn’t get through to anyone to get the check re-addressed. And for the silliest of reasons, I was reinspired to try to resolve it again: watching a tv show, one of the characters started calling to request that companies reissue old checks.
The very next business day, I tackled it again: starting with the phone number on the check and working my way through every single contact phone number I had in my emails for the company’s Accounts Payable. It took a couple hours but I made contact with a real person who actually processed a real reissue!
*****
I came home later that day to a surprise check for a hundred dollars from a product I’d paid too much for. What a good mail day.
Seriously, the States really needs to move on from the age of cheques already! Glad you’re getting your (well overdue) moolah. That amount would certainly keep me awake.
I’m feeling your pain on getting your car certified and whatnot. I leave that up to T because he’s the one that drives it to work and, well, pretty much anywhere. But he’s been working long days and 6-day weeks and somehow we’ve managed to get to the point where the warrant is expired and god only knows when he’s going to be able to get it in, because nowhere has courtesy cars (The joy of the one car household.)
Yay getting money back! I’ve done things like the smog thing before. Very annoying. But much better that the effort money was way more than the oops money.
Gaaahhh! Frustrating.
Had to pay a little dumb tax here, too: forgot to file the S-corp’s annual report. The annual gouge is $45; they tack on $9 a month for every month you’re late.
Glad you managed to break loose the three grand, though. What a hassle. And the extra lagniappe at the end of the day is nice. Money happens, after all.