Another monthly bill just arrived from Wellcare, the provider of my Medicare Part D (prescription drug) coverage. For the second time in our year-long relationship, they announce that I owe not one but two payments at once.
What’s happening here is Wellcare wants direct access to my bank account. They want me to give them my account number so they can engross monthly premiums whenever they feel like it. When I point out that I can EFT the money to them through my bank, they try to say my only alternative to letting them into my account is to pay by check, which I do not care to do. When I push back, I’m told well, yeah, sure I can pay by the credit union’s BillPay function, but it won’t post for a week or so, which means I have to pay well in advance.
O.K. That’s what I’ve been doing. Wellcare bills a month in advance. On January 10 I EFTed the February bill, which was due February 15; it cleared my account on January 12. How do I know it was actually the bill they claim is unpaid? Because they jacked up their premiums by four bucks, and last month’s bill was the first at the increased price. So I know that payment cleared my account, a month and three days before the due date.
Fortunately, their phone lines (presumably to a call center somewhere on the far side of Malaysia) are open until 2:00 a.m. EST. Sooo….
One ringie-dingie…two ringie dingies…about 40 ringie-dingies’ worth of climbing around the aggravating phone tree…
And we reach a human being with a distinct but unidentifiable accent and a voice that makes her sound about fourteen. This is entertaining.
After making a pass at trying to suggest I must have missed last month’s bill, she caves at the revelation that the payment that cleared my account was for $23.80, not the prior premium amount of $19.70, and she allows that yeah, they received it.
Now she attempts to explain why they sent a bill demanding $47.60 even though they received my last payment on time. Her ever-so-slightly fractured English delivers an explanation along these lines:
The reason you were billed twice is that your last bill was sent out before you made your January 12 payment.
{moment of silence}
“Wait. Let me get this straight:
• You send me a bill.
• When I receive the bill, I pay it.
• Because I pay the bill promptly after I receive it and not before I receive it, I get double-billed on the next statement?”
“No, no! that’s not it,” says she. “It’s that the bill you have right now was printed before we posted your last payment.”
“Ah. Yes. Of course. I understand.”
Hee heeeeeee! I personfully refrain from remarking that maybe they shouldn’t assume, a month and three days before a bill is due, that they’re not going to receive payment.
Hilarious!
Well, in the same envelope came an announcement that they’re dispensing with monthly statements and sending coupon books, which makes so much sense a person wonders why on earth they haven’t always done it. Actually, one wonders why Wellcare won’t let you pay a year or six months at a time, as the Medicare Part B insurer does. Wouldn’t that a) put a heckuva lot of subscribers’ payments in their investment accounts in advance of a heckuva lot of due dates and b) eliminate a surprising amount of paperwork and hassle for all involved?
So that was a fun way to expend some time. The only thing more amusing is the Workman Waltz.
This morning the roofer had tons of asphalt shingles piled on the ridge of my roof and, while I was taking a 7:30 a.m. walk with La Maya, had a vast dumpster dropped on my driveway. I’d asked to have it put as close to the west edge of the driveway as possible, so I could get my car out. What I didn’t realize is how huge the container would be. There was no way I could squeeze my car past it, even if it weren’t placed so close to the eaves that I couldn’t open the garage door.
So the minute I shoot into the house, it’s on the phone to the roofer. He calls the trucker back, and they good-naturedly move the damn thing so I can remove the car from the garage and park it on the street.
Yesterday, when plans for this dance were being laid, RooferDude said he was going to have his crew rip off the existing shingles today, unless it was raining. I pointed out a 30 percent chance of rain was predicted for today, and I didn’t want the roof removed if it was gonna rain. He agreed that they would put off the job until Tuesday, by which time the rain was expected to pass and a freeze warning would be in place.
So with the car parked on the street, I’m sitting here building next summer’s freshman comp courses, when Cassie starts to bark at some mysterious thumping. Look outside thru the windows. Trucks.
A half-dozen Mexican guys are on the roof, getting ready to prize off the shingles. Weather report says there’s now a 40 percent chance of rain today; I put it at 100 percent, since La Maya and I got sprinkled on while we were circumnavigating the park. I trot outside and ask them what they’re doing, because their boss said they weren’t supposed to be here today.
One, and only one, of the men speaks fluent English. He says, “Well…well, but it’s not raining.”
I say (stepping around a container of salsa someone has dropped and left spilled all over the middle of the accessible part of the driveway), “Well…well, but it’s GOING to rain. And I don’t want that roof torn off there when it’s just about to rain and we’re supposed to get thunderstorms!”
“I’m calling the boss!”
“Bueno.” I go inside and dial up the boss, too. He doesn’t answer my call, but apparently the crew foreman gets through; he tells them to stand down. They climb off the roof and go away, bearing the busted-open salsa container, which I placed in the back of one of their pickups.
An hour or two after they left, it rained. Pretty generously…certainly enough to cause a leak, if they’d pulled off the shingles and not nailed down enough plastic tarp to cover half of Disneyland. So far, none of the high winds and pyrotechnics one expects with a Sonoran Desert thunderstorm have come up. But the night is young.
And dark. My car is parked on the street out in front of my house, about as vulnerable a spot as you can find this side of the parking lot at the nearby Metrocenter Ghost Mall, which has the highest rate of car theft and break-ins in the city. One leaves one’s car parked outside around here at one’s peril.
RooferDude says he’ll have the job done in a couple of days. We’ll see about that.
Image: Songbird Perched on an Asphalt Shingle Roof. TriviaKing. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.