Expulsions
10 June 2003, 8:35 PM

Seven days of Spanish class
10 June 2003, 8:25 PM

Hola! Me llamo Fazia Rizvi. Yo soy webmaster y trabajo en Texas por una universidad. Yo soy estudiante tambien. Estudio la espanol. Hay veintiun estudiantes en la clase. Regresar a nueva casa de la noche y hablo par telephono a mi madre. Mi madre es enfermero.

:-)

New Jersey - The armpit of the U.S.
10 June 2003, 6:03 PM

I hate the state of New Jersey. I lived there for only a few months and yet it was one of the most financially destructive times of my life. I think they have no consumer protection laws at all. And it's the only place I've ever had a cop tailgated me on a lonely road at 1am in order to make me speed up so that he could give me a ticket.

What really throws me for a loop is that people are nasty and unhelpful to me when I'm polite and say "please" and "thank you" and behave patiently. But if I start out bitchy, nasty, mean and downright obnoxious they are suddenly sweet, helpful, and very friendly. And they seem to *like* me when I'm being nasty. I just don't get it. I think they're all insane.

It's coming up right now because I'm having to deal with 'em. I'm already going three rounds with them to get my car title. See, I bought a car while I was living in New Jersey. Then I moved - like people do - out of state. I registered my car in Texas and all was well. I paid that car off two years ago. But Ford sends the title to the DMV, not the owner. I, of course, contacted my local DMV. But it turns out Ford sent the title to the New Jersey DMV. Great. Just great. It took three phone calls just to get a form mailed to me that I could fill out and request my title. That got returned to me with requests for *more* documentation. I wouldn't be surprised if they next asked me for my first-born child. I'm still trying to get my title out of them two years after this car was paid for. I can't get RID of the damn thing until I get that title.

Now I'm also having to beat heads together to get a couple of accounts closed.

Here's the story. I still get junk mail - flyers and brochures and other stuff from United Teletech Federal Credit Union where I used to be a member. Mostly I just throw these away. I'm no longer a member (I don't work for the company anymore and I'm not even in NJ) and I don't do any business with them anymore, so why bother reading their junk mail?

But I happened to open one that came in the mail last week. It was just a glossy newsletter with news and info for credit union members. You know the kind of stuff. One paragraph buried inside caught my eye. It mentioned that "inactive accounts" would be charged $30 every quarter starting June 30th unless they were closed or there was activity in them.

I'm sure you can guess what I was thinking. It'd be just like them to have never closed my checking and savings accounts, start charging me $30 for each four times a year (and never send me any notice that they were doing so) and then 10 years from now try to collect a few thousand dollars from me.

So I decided to check. I called the Credit Union in New Jersey to ensure that my accounts were closed. Surprise, surprise, they're not. I have an inactive checking account, and inactive savings account and a paid off loan.

Okay, so I ask the customer service rep to close the accounts. She said she couldn't do that. AND SHE WOULDN'T TELL ME WHY. She couldn't give me my account numbers over the phone. (That's okay.) But she also wouldn't send a statement to the address they have on file! None of it made sense and she said she'd "call me back while she spoke to her supervisor on an unrelated matter". I blew up at her.

That, of course worked. *sigh* Be nasty and you get somewhere. It was my mistake to have been nice and accommodating in the first place. But I only got a little bit somewhere since I'd started out nice. She just told me that I have to call their attorney before I can close my accounts. I was so angry I hung up on them.

A few minutes later I called back, starting out as nasty as possible, "I'm just calling to confirm that you refuse to close my accounts so that I can make my complaint to the Better Business Bureau and then seek legal action again UTFCU." The customer service rep on the other line was immediately gracious and helpful and quick. It turns out that UTFCU has to get a letter from their attorney's stating that the loan has been paid and nothing more is owed before they can close the accounts. And of course those attorneys have done no such thing.

So tomorrow I have to call the DMV in New Jersey, say I'm filing a compliant, and threaten the Directors with a lawsuit in order to get a copy of my car title mailed to me.

Then shortly after I need to call those attorney's and threaten a lawsuit and a complaint to the Better Business Bureau if they don't fax a letter to UTFCU that the loan has been paid.

Then sometime after that I have to call the UTFCU again and be nasty and threaten them so that they'll close my accounts.

And finally I'll need to send a letter, registered mail, that states that my accounts are closed and that they may not charge me fees - so that I'll have a receipt if I ever need deal with them again. I've got twenty days to acomplish all this before they start charging my accounts. (Since it's been years and I don't know my account numbers and they refuse to send me a statement, there's no way I can deposit money in the accounts and then withdraw it to keep them active. I'm tempted to find out how to anyway just so I can find the most paper intensive way to send them ten cents. International Money Order maybe?)

In the meantime I've got the BBB's website up and I'm filing a complaint right now.

A state full of criminals, that's all they are.