Disclaimer: this is a rant post about $$$. I'm in a bad mood about this so really needed a place to vent my anger, GAH. really brings me back to my teenage days but hey, we all need a channel to vent sometimes.
I'm so tired of people cheating me of money. now i understand that it's true - as long as they have leverage over you, they will always take advantage of you, whether they want to or not. Even if they don't want to, they will still happily charge you money, then you have to go back to them and dispute it and argue with them and feel unhappy, then they withdraw the charges. And people who didn't dare to dispute or didn't know that they can/should dispute would just suck it up and pay all the fees and money. It's sooo annoying! It's so not fair when the power is all in the hands of corporations and large organizations!! It's not like we can just throw money around and pay all their fees for nothing!
So what happened was, first a doctor's visit. Online i checked (*yodaspeak) - the hospital i'm going to is covered by my insurance, so there should be very minimal copay, if even any. Then i checked with the counter there and they confirmed, it's $0 co-pay. So i'm happy.
I saw the doctor, did the lab tests and urine sample, and left with prescriptions. Of course prescriptions cost money, as I've expected and insurance covers a portion. However, one month later, the doctor's visit bill showed up and it was a whopping $733!!! Like what??? If i knew doing those tests would cost me hundreds of dollars I wouldn't have done them, I could have just told the doctor I know I have this problem can you just give me the medication? This is an exploit of my expectations - first telling me it's free and then telling me it's hundreds of bucks!
I got pretty mad, and called the hospital. I also emailed both the hospital and the insurance company. How could the insurance pay $0 of my bill? I'd be fine to pay a portion of it but only if the insurance covers a usual reasonable amount (like 80% of the bill).
Turns out the hospital may or may not have made a mistake on my insurance and missed out on one of the insurance companies I'm covered under, so they added it to my profile and told me i will find out within 30 days how much the insurance will bill me. Seems like insurance covers everything after all - my current bill has returned to $0.
Second incident, I hurt my wrist and went to see a doctor. He got me to do an X-ray, and there was a copay for it. I paid on the spot and went home happy. One month later, I got a bill in the mail for the SAME. EXACT. amount of money! Again I'm pissed because I've already paid it and now you're telling me I should pay again? I called the hospital and found out they automatically send out a bill before you even pay it and does not register the fact that yeah I paid it on the spot. So I don't need to pay anything. Unless I were dumb and just paid it without calling them.
This is clearly inefficient - they should send the bill after the visit, and only if there's a balance. Somehow hospital electronic systems need to be better updated and be in sync with the payments and claims and everything. This is such a nightmare!
Third incident, my friend owes me rent and is paying me money through PayPal. Fine, I think it's free for personal transactions so she sent me the money. Now she paid me $1800, but the amount showing up is $1720.50 for me. A whole $79.50 missing!! Why? It seems like PayPal thought I'm selling a good and is charging a fee on the transaction because I'm a seller. EXCEPT I'M NOT! It's a personal transaction and not a seller thing!! So now I'm really mad and confused and upset, and I sent an email to PayPal. If they don't respond favorably I'll call them and prove to them it's a personal transaction and not a sale. And if all else fails, I'll suck up that $79.50 loss and never, EVER use PayPal again. or at least be more educated about it somehow, but why use PayPal when every other money transfer thing is free (google wallet, amazon payments, venmo, etc etc etc).
Bottom line is, people will always want to charge you $$$, especially when they have leverage over you. Thus you need to be aware and check everything carefully. To them, it's your job to call them out and escalate it sufficiently so you are paying the fair and correct amount. Their behavior is a classic example of "ask for forgiveness" (they just do it, then backtrack if you were smart enough to check it), rather than "ask for permission" (where they actually ask you if it's ok to charge this much before letting you use their service, then you can negotiate with them or choose not to use it).
I realise how important expectations management is in not just the business world, but also in any relationship or interaction. Otherwise, someone feels betrayed and hurt and wants to lash out/take revenge (by boycotting that company, telling everyone to avoid that friend etc). Worse still if you feel helpless to do anything, your quality of life just degrades, like that.
If only these services act more like the Google and Apple of today, where customer service is of utmost importance and the customer is always first. I'm getting spoilt here, with these tech companies that think in our shoes so they can manage our expectations better and not cause such anger and misery...how am i going to survive the real world?
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