I love the Government.
Sometimes the absurdity of the day to day operation of our government is hilarious. Case in point: I have about $20,000 in student loans I'm attempting to pay off. I don't think that's too bad for having been in school off and on from 1999 to 2007. The government rates might not be fabulous, but they are really goddamned lenient about giving out forbearances and stuff (in my experience) so long as you make a good-faith effort to not default. Since I consolidated through the government and not through a bank, I can still take advantage of all that.
Since I declared all of $2800 in income last year, and I'm going to be doing good to break $7000 this year, I'm trying to get on the Income contingent repayment plan, since that could drop my monthly payments significantly, and according to their calculations will actually drastically reduce the amount of interest they charge me. To do this, I have to give the Department of Education permission to access my tax information on file with the IRS (which confuses the hell out of me because I thought tax information was a matter of public record). So I sent them the release form to give to the IRS with my name and social security number on it.
I should have known there would be trouble when I noticed my name was miss-spelled on the form I printed out... But I thought it would be ok if I just corrected it manually. It asked for my name as it appears on my tax return, so I wrote that out, and as that's the name on my social security card, and everything else, I figured that they'd figure it out. I vastly overestimated them.
They sent me a letter saying that I have given them the wrong name. I have not given them the wrong name, I made sure to give them the right name. But the right name doesn't match their records. However, if I give them the wrong name, it won't match the IRS's records. I think this is hilarious.
I tracked their correspondences with me back to January of this year, and I found that between the 9th and the 16th of that month, my mail started being addressed to Miss Marroran-Beebe. I don't know why my name suddenly grew an extra "ra" right then, but apparently it did. I just didn't notice till now.
Monday I get to call them and try to convince them they screwed this up. Chances are they'll fix it for me, but I wonder what kind of proof I'll have to give them that my name is in fact the name they had on file for years, and not the mutant name they created for me 5 months ago. I also wonder if they'll insist I send them the form I already sent them, of which they sent a copy back to me, telling me my name was wrong when it clearly wasn't. If they want me to send it again, I'll be kind of peeved, because they obviously already have it, as the mailed me a copy of it. If they want it back, I guess I'll send their copy back to them, and see what they say then. They'll probably tell me they don't need that form mailed back, they already have that one (obviously), and can I send them a new one that says exactly the same thing. Hopefully they won't, but I wouldn't be surprised.
This isn't the first thing they've screwed up either. I'll probably lose my rebate because my first payment was late, only because their on-line system failed to actually register the payment I set up on-line, even though it told me it had. I set the payment up a few days in advance, since I wasn't sure a check would get there in time, but their system failed, and now it has me recorded as making the payment 2 weeks late. I called and complained, and they said they put a note in my account to the effect that I called and reported the error...but as that was my first payment back in March, now get this, they told me to call back in one year (one year!) to talk to an account person around the time they actually review the account to see if they'll still give me my rebate.
Maybe God really does love America. I don't see how we could have lasted this long if we didn't have some kind of long-suffering divinity keeping our stupid asses from starving to death and poking our eyes out with our golf clubs and drowning in small puddles and shit.
Since I declared all of $2800 in income last year, and I'm going to be doing good to break $7000 this year, I'm trying to get on the Income contingent repayment plan, since that could drop my monthly payments significantly, and according to their calculations will actually drastically reduce the amount of interest they charge me. To do this, I have to give the Department of Education permission to access my tax information on file with the IRS (which confuses the hell out of me because I thought tax information was a matter of public record). So I sent them the release form to give to the IRS with my name and social security number on it.
I should have known there would be trouble when I noticed my name was miss-spelled on the form I printed out... But I thought it would be ok if I just corrected it manually. It asked for my name as it appears on my tax return, so I wrote that out, and as that's the name on my social security card, and everything else, I figured that they'd figure it out. I vastly overestimated them.
They sent me a letter saying that I have given them the wrong name. I have not given them the wrong name, I made sure to give them the right name. But the right name doesn't match their records. However, if I give them the wrong name, it won't match the IRS's records. I think this is hilarious.
I tracked their correspondences with me back to January of this year, and I found that between the 9th and the 16th of that month, my mail started being addressed to Miss Marroran-Beebe. I don't know why my name suddenly grew an extra "ra" right then, but apparently it did. I just didn't notice till now.
Monday I get to call them and try to convince them they screwed this up. Chances are they'll fix it for me, but I wonder what kind of proof I'll have to give them that my name is in fact the name they had on file for years, and not the mutant name they created for me 5 months ago. I also wonder if they'll insist I send them the form I already sent them, of which they sent a copy back to me, telling me my name was wrong when it clearly wasn't. If they want me to send it again, I'll be kind of peeved, because they obviously already have it, as the mailed me a copy of it. If they want it back, I guess I'll send their copy back to them, and see what they say then. They'll probably tell me they don't need that form mailed back, they already have that one (obviously), and can I send them a new one that says exactly the same thing. Hopefully they won't, but I wouldn't be surprised.
This isn't the first thing they've screwed up either. I'll probably lose my rebate because my first payment was late, only because their on-line system failed to actually register the payment I set up on-line, even though it told me it had. I set the payment up a few days in advance, since I wasn't sure a check would get there in time, but their system failed, and now it has me recorded as making the payment 2 weeks late. I called and complained, and they said they put a note in my account to the effect that I called and reported the error...but as that was my first payment back in March, now get this, they told me to call back in one year (one year!) to talk to an account person around the time they actually review the account to see if they'll still give me my rebate.
Maybe God really does love America. I don't see how we could have lasted this long if we didn't have some kind of long-suffering divinity keeping our stupid asses from starving to death and poking our eyes out with our golf clubs and drowning in small puddles and shit.