| Unfair credit practices of CMRE Financial Services, Inc. |
[Jul. 16th, 2007|11:26 am] |
This is the first post I've made public in a while, and I'm doing so because I want to publicly shame everyone involved.
Just over two years ago, I was treated in the emergency room at Grossmont Hospital. I received several bills for my treatment, and paid them all within a few weeks, in a pretty normal way.
Last month, I received a call from CMRE Financial Services Inc., informing me of an unpaid bill from that 2005 visit. My response was, "Of course I'll pay any bill that I owe," though I wondered how such a bill had escaped my attention. I was told I would be sent a form that I would sign, confirming the credit card payment of the bill.
A month later, I received a call from the same lady (Rudy Mendez), this time more urgent (sounded a little rude really), demanding I pay the bill. I inform her (correctly) that I have not received the bill she promised to mail. At this time, she asks me to confirm my address. She states that I live on (B)oltaire Street, but I live on (V)oltaire Street. Ah, now I see why I never received a bill. She says she will resend the bill to my address.
The second bill arrives before the first, but I get them both. I'm irritated because more than a sixth of the bill is interest owed on the original bill. I should not be responsible for the interest accrued due to somebody else's billing error. Not only that, but clearly they have my phone number, and before last month, nobody to my knowledge ever called to tell me about this bill.
So, today I call CMRE, thinking that they'll reason with me and allow me to pay only the original portion of the bill. After all, the fact that the bill is two years delinquent is somebody's fault other than mine.
They don't care.
As I try to explain my complaint to Rudy, she raises her voice slightly and starts talking quickly over me, keeping me from communicating my point. So, I raise my voice slightly above hers to ask her to just hear me out. This happens several times, at which point she asks me not to shout, trying to take the rhetorical high ground.
Well trained at the art of convincing people to give her money is this jedi.
Part of me simply wants to refuse to pay CMRE anything at this point. The problem is that this bill is stuck on my credit rating, which will no doubt sap money from me in the future when I do something like take out a mortgage.
I ask to speak to Ruby's manager, and we go through the same exact ordeal. However, this time I'm told that CMRE had tried to call me many times over the past two years. Wow! Really? On this line she tells me.
I have flat out never talked to anyone from CMRE before Ruby. I have never even heard of CMRE. I had no idea that I had an unpaid medical bill of any kind, and I certainly would not have left it unpaid as it amounts to a tiny fraction of my wealth, and the damage it does to my credit rating is worth far more than the bill itself.
Beyond that, nobody ever called and talked to me before my bill was sent to a collection agency. I asked the manager of CMRE if she could provide a phone record of her company contacting me. She responded that legally, she's not required to do that, which is a mildly clever and obtuse way to refuse to answer the question. I responded that I wasn't asking about legal requirements, that I was just asking if she was capable of demonstrating to me that phone calls were made (that I never received!). She parroted out the exact same line about not being legally required. This of course not only makes me angrier than I was before, but makes me feel like she simply does not care that I am not responsible for the error made, and is simply following legal guidelines her company came up with to try to stonewall my requests for a reasonable assessment of the situation.
She also did a lot of the same talking over me that Ruby did, trying to twist my half-spoken complaint to try to make it sound as if I'm responsible, regardless of the error. When I asked her how she would feel in my shoes, being asked to pay a fine that was the result of somebody else's clerical error. She responded by saying that this wasn't a personal matter (she refused to answer the question) and simply reiterated a canned quote about how I have an unpaid bill.
And hey, if they'd tried to call me before, and it happened to be one of the rare instances in which I don't answer my phone (other than class time), then there's this nice system called voice mail they could have used to make me aware of the circumstances.
So, I call the original medical group that referred my bill to CMRE, Grossmont ER Medical Group. Of course, I had to do the footwork to find their number myself, because CMRE wouldn't give it to me, and I didn't (easily) find it on Google. The first thing I do is ask the lady on the phone to correct my address, which she does.
Next, I explain the situation to her. I already know that the payment process is out of her [group's] hands, but I am more interested in finding out if she cares about the business practices of CMRE. This tells me a lot about the medical group itself, and how it treats people. While she was very polite, she doesn't sound the least bit sympathetic over the fact that I never received a bill from her group. She says simply that the bill was never returned by mail, so it goes to the collection agency. She gives no reason why my phone number was never used to track me down. And she seems perfectly comfortable with the collection agency's response to the problem.
Just to summarize my thoughts on how to resolve this situation: I am absolutely, perfectly comfortable paying the $318.00 I owe for medical services. Just on principle, I am irritated over paying $63.49 in interest (at a 10% interest rate!) to clear my credit history.
But here I am, held hostage. I feel that this is tantamount to extortion.
So, why would a collection agency operate this way?
I suggest a few reasons:
(1) It's not worth my time to sue them. Even if I get the standard $1k or $2k payout for being jerked around, that's less than I will earn from the amount of work I will perform with that time. I suspect I'll send payment in later today, in full, including interest, after I'm done steaming over it all;
(2) Surely there are PACs buying senators to make it easier for collection agencies to operate this way (DISCLAIMOR: I have no proof of this, but it...jives with my common sense.);
(3) The medical groups and hospitals protect the collection agencies, and regard their practices as reasonable. And of course, all doctors are good people who care about their patients. More of that high ground that's just harder to climb. Beyond that, this feeds into point (1) where the medical billing group makes itself hard to Google and find a phone number for in general, making it harder for somebody like me to feel there is any reasonable way to resolve the issue.
(4) Either I have plenty of money, and the interest means nothing to me, or I don't have a lot of money, and paying an attorney is a gamble with a hefty price-tag.
I have a little bit of sympathy for (3), where the medical groups feel the need to work with collection agencies. Of course they do! But they should force these agencies to compete ethically. I am not the deliquent they paint me to be. I am being charged interest for a clerical error that occurred within the hospital.
What's really outrageous is this -- all my other bills came to me! -- and I paid them, yet my track record of paying all my bills seems to be of no consequence to the collection agency, or even the medical group that retains their services.
Even worse, I'm now a little worried that I don't actually know what will happen with my credit score. Will this be red-lined? During my first conversation, Miss Mendez told me that it would be taken off as if it were never there. But considering we've now had a disagreement over responsibility, and I couldn't trust her to act in a way I consider reasonable -- can I trust her to red-line it off my credit report? Will I be forced to seek legal respresentation anyway? If so, then I shouldn't pay the interest to begin with.
So, here is my response, a lengthy blog post, detailed and accurate, and very public. PLEASE PROVIDE A LINK TO THIS POST IN YOUR BLOG SO THAT GOOGLE PICKS UP ON IT AND DIRECTS PEOPLE TO IT. Right now, I feel that this is the best way for me to fight back. It's not a large amount of money, but it is a matter of principle, and it's wrong for people to make a living strong-arming a person like me who is happy to pay the bills that are due him.
I will edit this post later, and turn it into a format more closely resembling a letter. I plan to mail it to every television station and newspaper in Southern California I can easily find an address for. I hope as many people as possible read this and know that I
(1) Do not endorse the services at Grossmont Hospital as a result of their billing practices;
(2) Do not endorse the services of Grossmont ER Group as a result of their billing practices and partner in bill collection; and
(3) Question the ethics of CMRE, and think it's very possible that the people who work there are either desperate for any job, worship the dollar, and/or sacrifice babies in the name of the dark lord, Voldamort.
So, what should I do? Am I right to just sign off on the extra interest, and wash my hands of this whole affair? Should I fight it out of principle? If so, how do I fight it? If I retain an attorney, is there a good chance I'll just pay for his services and get nothing in return?
Thank you for taking the time to read my complaint. Feel free to post below, and hyperbolize about how this kind of credit battle signifies the coming of the anti-Christ. The end is nigh! |
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