I’m so stressed out and pissed off right now I’m shaking.  I’m literally shaking.  I’m going to share this with you all because I just need to purge and and release a bit of pressure before I explode.  Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not asking for help.  All I’m doing is venting.  I’ll never make it of I can’t purge.

The Great Purge

You may recall a few weeks ago, I had a problem with my bank (PNC).  I don’t have the link to the post on me, but you can do a search for something about overdraft fees. 

Right before our van was stolen last January, we had about $2,000 worth of work done on it.  2 weeks later, it was stolen.  I made payment arrangements with the shop and spread the payments put over most of the year.

The last check was for the remaining balance and was about $1,200.  That check was dated for August of 2012 and was never meant to be cashed. When we reached that point, the check was supposed to be ripped up and we were going to spread the payments out once again.

However, we had a summer filled with hospital trips and health emergencies and I lost track of where we were with the payments.

At some point along the way, our numbers changed and even though I’d swear that I changed my number with the shop, they had my old number and couldn’t get a hold of me.  They have honestly been great so I can’t really be upset with them.  However, after not being able to contact me, they cashed the check. 

PNC, in their infinite wisdom, allowed a check for $1,200 to clear from an account with a $2.43 balance.  I had even opted out of overdraft protection so something like this could never happen. 

Two weeks ago, I about stroked out when I saw my bank balance was (-$1,200).  This was right before Christmas as well.  Perfect timing right.

I called the bank and we tried to dispute the check because, in my opinion, it should never have been allowed to clear. What’s the point of opting out of overdraft protection??  I have sense learned that opting out of overdraft protection only applies to debit transactions.

The check even states,  void after 90 days and it was cashed well outside of the 90 days. 

I called the shop and they said that if the bank would just bounce the check back they would rip it up and we could work out something else.  They really are great.

A few days later, the money was back in my account and I thought all had been fixed.  I received nothing from the bank to tell me otherwise.  However, 2 days ago the check cleared my account for a second time,  sending my account down the toilet to the tune of well over (-$1,000). 

I called the bank and they explained that I had received a provisional credit and when the dispute team decided that the check would stand, they took the money away.  I was never notified about this, or warned that the money was being removed and to be prepared, like they are supposed to do.

The only recourse I have left is if the shop agrees to refund me the money and make new arrangements.  They are going to do everything they can and I’ll know next week.  Honestly, I doubt it will happen.  It would be bad business for them. 

This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. We are 3 months behind on our mortgage and I have to make a payment Monday because we are in default and proceeding into foreclosure, from what I understand.  There is no help available either, we’ve looked. 

I also have to pay my brother, who works for me next week.  However, the moment our paycheck is direct deposited, it will be ingested by our negative balance and disappear forever. 

Now my problems are affecting my aunt and uncle (who we rent the house from through a land contract) and my brother and his fiancé and her son.

To make matters worse, Sprint has raised its ugly head once again and screwed me over, for old times sake.  When we switched to Tmobile, I removed our old Galaxy Note 2’s from our account before selling them on ebay for enough to make a mortgage payment last month. 
I even went so far as to activate old phone on our lines prior to porting our numbers out to Tmobile to ensure the ESN’s were clean. 

I even made another call to Sprint to make sure that ESN’S were all released prior to listing them on ebay.  A clean ESN is needed for the phone to be activated.  Guess what. I was contacted by the buyer this evening because Sprint has flagged that phone as being stolen and the buyer is unable to activate it. 

Thankfully, he’s very understanding and realizes that this is a Sprint thing and nothing that I did wrong. 

I spoke with Sprint a total of 3 times this evening trying to straighten this out. 

The first two times the friggin systems were being updated so they could access my account.  The third time was not the charm but they did access my account but couldn’t fix the problem because the department that handles these issues was closed.  They told me I should have called earlier.  I explained that I had, twice in fact, but they choose to perform system maintenance during business hours, making it impossible for me to fix this. 

They said I have to call back on Sunday afternoon and they can remove the flag. 
I can’t begin to explain how disappointed I am with Sprint. I never reported the phone stolen and they have no record of me reporting the phone stolen, however, somehow it got flagged anyway. 

This is probably the same computer glitch that canceled my phone insurance without my permission, causing me to have to pay for the replacement phones they had to send out in order to trouble shoot their network. Maybe it’s same bug that lost records of my phone calls to customer service when I was told that I was to receive a credit to my account for over $500, including reimbursement for the out of pocket expenses caused by the glitch that canceled our insurance.

I’m on the edge of a cliff right now, not knowing how I will be able to get us through this. 

We have a ton of trips to Akron Children’s Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic beginning next week and while some can be rescheduled, others are far too important. 

If it wasn’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all. 

I don’t mean to sound like a whiner, I really don’t.  How exactly am I supposed to make this work?? My family is literally falling apart at the seems. 

I have 3 boys with #Autism and various other special needs. 1 child removed from the home due to behavioral issues and is hopefully awaiting residential treatment in order to get the help he needs. That same child is extremely medically fragile but no one can tell us how to friggin help him or how bad things are going to get.  Hell, they aren’t even sure what’s wrong in the first place. He continues to decompensate and we are powerless to do anything about it.

I have 2 other boys that have been so traumatized by their oldest brothers behavior that they are in complete chaos don’t feel safe in their own home. 

My wife’s health is all but gone.  Her list of medical issues is a mile long and continuing to grow.  The latest being Macular Holes in her right eye that may require surgery so that her retina doesn’t detach. This is actually one of the appointments we have this week. 

Our oldest has traumatized her to the point that it triggers her PTSD, simply hearing his name.  She can’t eat without getting sick anymore and she can go days without sleep, even though she has a sleep disorder. 

The list goes on and on. 

I feel sick to my stomach right now and I seriously, seriously question whoever thought I was capable of dealing with this.  I really believe that they severely overestimated my abilities. 

I’m only one person and I’m human to boot.  I can only deal with so much. How in the hell do you prioritize these things?
My wife and oldest both have very serious medical conditions a day both are deteriorating rapidly.  My two youngest are emotional train wrecks and need my undivided attention but I am only one person. 

I hate where we live because it’s not safe, however, I can’t lose our house to foreclosure, we have nowhere else to go.  Plus, this affects my aunt and uncle in a really bad way.

I’m very rapidly approaching the point where I just have nothing left to fight with.  Every last ounce of anything I have will be given to my wife and kids. In the end, it’s the right thing to do.  Having said that, everything else directly affects them as well. 

I’m being pulled in so many different direction and I truly feel like I’m going to crack. 

Sweet tap dancing Christ, as I’m writing this, my goddamm blog is down once again.  I just can’t win.  I just want to scream and beat my head into the wall. I swear to God, if one more thing physically shocks me today, I’m gonna lose it..