So I go to the post office the other day to get my mail and I get this envelope from a company that only identified itself as "CEI". I could tell it wasn't anything cool like a credit card or my next issue of Playboy since the envelope was small and flimsy. Opening the envelope revealed something more shocking than a straight-edge rock star... a collections notice.
A collections notice alone was pretty shocking.. because, well, I pay all my bills. It's something that I've taken pride in as I age. But there was something that made this whole situation even crazier...
I was put into collections for $1.28!
That's right, Green Mountain Power was somehow shorted a whole buck and a quarter and they wanted their money. So how better to get your money than to ask a lawyer to get it for you. Funny thing is, they could have just called me.
Here's a copy of the collections letter I got, you can click on it to view it larger in a new window:
So I called up the agency and asked to make a payment plan. Really. Of course I wasn't really intending to pay it off with a plan -- but that's how stupid the whole thing was to begin with. The person I dealt with agreed with me and vocally called it "retarded". Good thing I didn't have diminished mental capacity, otherwise I probably could have had a lawsuite against them for using such a derogitory term. She was right though.
Ultimately, the amount owed was too little to run a credit card transaction for, and probably cost 10x+ just to process it.
Plain silly.
