This blog is dead

The blog in this physical location will soon be dead.  In a few days a DNS entry will be made that will redirect the blog to the new location at www.codejnki.com.

For those of you who lurk in the feeds, you'll want to head over there and update your readers.

The Philosophy of the North American Slacker

More than 10 years ago I formed an idea.  An idea to create a branch of philosophy for the rest of us.  That or just the name of something really really cool.  I am proud to announce the creation of North American Slacker, the home for this idea.  There will be blasts from the past and new writings that fit in to this new branch of thinking.

What does it mean for this site?  Not exactly sure.  But for now, enjoy.

Dazed

I am feeling very dazed lately.  I am not exactly sure why.

It probably has something to do with lack of sleep.

Interview Part 2 -- Electric Boogaloo

A few weeks back Dolphyngyrl put a call out for people interested in doing a 5 question interview.  I jumped at the chance to bust out my writing chops and gave her this little nugget of a post.  Well in all sense of fairness I decided I need to send her five questions of her own to answer.  Lets say it took her a tad longer to get these back to me.  But here they are:

1. What was it like learning you were going to be a mother for the first time?

Ah, see. I had my kids when I was young and stupid. I'd wanted babies for as long as I could remember. So I was happy, sure, and scared, too. I don't think I was smart enough to be as scared as I should have been. I remember everyone telling me that they just wanted the baby to be healthy. And a girl. I wanted a boy. :)

But I didn't have any of that happy pregnancy glow thing everyone talks about. I didn't feel particularly connected to that alien growing in my belly. There wasn't that whole "the heavens parted and angels were singing and OMG I'm pregnant?" thing.

2. As a bureaucrat is the role of the bureaucracy to sustain the bureaucracy?

Ah, that depends on what your role in the bureaucracy is. Personally, no. My role is to protect the citizens of California from people with professional licenses who feel that the law doesn't apply to them. Or people without professional licenses who think it's ok to go ahead and practice, anyway. There's a part of me that feels very "caveat emptor", and that consumers need to be aware of what they're getting and who is providing the service and make sure to do their homework. I mean, there's this whole "personal responsibility" thing, right? But then I hear stories about the guy who was killed by an unlicensed chiropractor who was giving "adjustments" in his damn garage, or the state inspector who walked in on an in-progress breast augmentation in a BEAUTY SALON. You and I might look at that sort of thing and wonder why the hell anyone was stupid enough to allow themselves to undergo such a thing, but people do it ALL THE TIME. I don't know if it's because people, in general, just don't think about these things, or if it's because of the particular makeup of the California citizenry. In California, we have a LOT of people who weren't born in America. A lot of them don't speak English that well. Maybe in the "old country" there were no specific requirements as to who could work in certain professions, and maybe there were no licensing agencies. Maybe they don't know that you get a boob job from a plastic surgeon, generally in a hospital, and not as part of a hair-nails-tanning-tits special. Just because I know these things doesn't mean John Q. Public on the street knows them.

3. Have you ever considered looking for work outside of California?

A couple of times, yes, I've half assed looked at other states. The main issue right now is SweetPea's family. She's basically the only one taking care of her grandparents, so it's not like we can move any time soon. Of course, there's also that minor issue of the father of my children, but I think he's run plumb out of voting power as to where we live.

Also, though, I have a personal need to be near the ocean. We're about two hours away now, and I can't imagine being farther away than that. Which rules out, what, 80% of the country?

In a few years, though, we might look and see what other options there are, and if there isn't somewhere that we might enjoy more.

4. What was your first tattoo?

The big ass kanji on my left thight. Getting it left me with a relatively unrealistic sense of what getting a tattoo would be like. It was almost completely painless, and my biggest issue was that I was BORED. When I got my cherries, I was a little surprised by how much more it hurt. Word to the wise: tattooing over bone hurts A LOT. Tattooing the soft, fleshy parts? Not so much.

5. Cold beer or drink with an umbrella?

Almost exclusively a cold beer. Generally speaking, diet Coke is about as sweet as I like my drinks. Occassionally I venture more into "cocktail" territory, but it really depends on my mood, where we're at and what we're having (if anything).

Basically speaking, if you want to get me a drink and aren't sure what I want, get me a beer. But not just any beer. Look for Widmer Bros. Heffeiweissen, Fat Tire Ale or Guiness. If they don't have any of those, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is ok, too, and just about everywhere here has that.

Citi Mortgage

So the Citi mortgage postings have been quite popular.  Next week I'll post a final wrap up of everything.

Those 25 random things

So the latest Internet meme out there is the posting of 25 random things about you on Facebook.  Well, if I have my Facebook notes application set up right, then I can post them here and then they will auto post over there.  Isn't technology grand?

*Warning* content filter will be off an may contain vulgarity, blasphemy, insults, and other such comments you've come to expect from me.

1. I am the oldest of 4 children.  There are 11 years between my youngest brother and I.  He just joined the Army.  I really don't know much about him.  My guess is he'll be in Afghanistan by the end of Summer.
   
2. I am an atheist.  Although raised Methodist I came to the conclusion one day that I did not need an omnipresent, omnipotent, invisible being to exist in the universe in order to feel at peace with myself.
3. I have a degree in philosophy, which I lay blame for #2 on.
4. I was married for three years.  Come May I will have been divorced for 2.
5. My girlfriend and I have a cat that will vocally respond to the phrase "Whatchu talkin about Willis."
6. I have played guitar since the 10th grade.
7. I am now better at Guitar Hero than I am my guitar.
8. I was born in California and moved to Michigan in 2001.
9. I've seen almost every Stanley Kubrick film except for Full Metal Jacket.  But I have sat through all of Barry Lyndon.
10. I am not a Democrat.  I am a liberal progressive.  The difference is I have a spine and am willing to stand up for the things I say I believe in.
11. I have a gigantic crush on Rachel Maddow.  I think it was the Rhodes Scholarship.
12. I met my girlfriend through an online dating website.  I am not ashamed to admit it.  
13. I am a dyslexic and a horrible speller.
14. There is a short circuit in my auditory short term memory.  You can tell me three items.  If you tell me a fourth I'll forget one of the other three.  If you hand me a list of ten items I can read it once and probably remember them all.
15. My house is furnished from IKEA.
16. If given the chance I'd move out of the country without thinking twice about it.
17. Every job I've held has had something to do with the fact that I'm "good with computers".
18. I am 6'2" and weigh 160lbs.
19. Unless prompted I might go days without eating.
20. I've been a fan of Doctor Who since before I can remember.  Till this last season.  I am nearly ready to write it off.
21. I brew beer.
22. If you take 2005 and 2006 and put them together, I spent more nights in a hotel room than I did sleeping at home.
23. Mythbusters and Aqua Teen Hunger Force are the two TV shows you can count on me watching.  
24. I can't think of a better life theme song than "Get Over It" by OkGo.
25. I am an NPR nerd.

And there you have it.

I should feel a little guilty

Once I had reached five (5) years on the job I started earning three weeks of vacation per year.  My vacation days reset every April on my hire date anniversary.  So far for the 2008 year I've taken four days total.  Which means that I'm staring at eleven (11) days of vacation that I need to use.

So this year I decided to repeat last year's little experiment and take consecutive Monday's off.  I now have scheduled 10 Mondays and 1 Friday off for the next 11 weeks.  Today is week number one.  What am I going to do?  Well not sure.  It is a quarter to eleven right now, I'm still in my robe, and I have yet to beat Grand Theft Auto 4 which I bought a year ago (I've restarted it a few times for various reasons, the most recent because PS3 finally introduced XBOX style achievements).

But in the interest of furthering scientific research, I have placed a cat underneath an IKEA bag to test it's intelligence.  It has been 5 min.  Draw your own conclusions.

Fail me three times -- Citi Mortgage Continues

It is time for a third entry in to our continuing series on the failings of CitiMortgage.  If you are new to this series I will direct your attention to the previous postings here and here.  The entire saga began back in the fall when I decided to start budgeting my life appropriately and pay all of my major bills in installments every two weeks on my pay day.  There are many great advantages to this, some of them being:

• Automatic payments set up through my bank's FREE online bill pay service.
• With 26 paychecks in a year that works to a 13th yearly payment on large things such as the house and the car.  This helps to bring the balances down faster.
• My money is being budgeted far better than it was previously.

I started all of this up in early November.  In early December I received my monthly statement from Shity Citi telling me that I had not made my full payment when in fact they actually received three half payments (a payment and a half for those of us who went to public schools) between billing periods.

So I did what any normal person would.  I called the customer service 800 line.  As I have previously mentioned I try to be very polite to phone bank customer service reps, given my previous work experience.  Now my original call to the phone bank wasn't that bad.  The rep realized what I was trying to do, opened up a case to get it sorted out, and bid me a good night.  I thought that at this point things were sorted out.  I was wrong. 

The next month I got a statement that again stated that I had not paid in full, and was now accumulating late charges.  Frustrated I called customer service again.  This time the person on the phone suggested that I sign up for their BiWeekly Advantage plan.

I have received the latest reply from Citi's customer support group.  Let's take a look and see what we've got:

Thank you for your inquiry. To answer your first question, CitiMortgage would credit any additional funds received toward the principal balance of your loan if it were current. However, CitiMortgage does reserve the option to apply any excess funds toward any outstanding fees before crediting additional principal payments. And in our prior email, we explained that your credit could be affected if you sent payments less than the total amount due.

CitiMortgage does not offer a biweekly program; however, they do reccommend The BiWeekly Advantage Plan to their customers. When you enroll in The BiWeekly Advantage Plan, you are buying a service from FNC Insurance Agency (FNCIA), an affiliate of CitiMortgage and member of Citi. The one-time enrollment fee of $375.00 and the $1.50
transaction fee help to offset the costs of administering the Plan for an extended period of time. The Plan's program fees are comparable to other similar programs available.

CitiMortgage cannot credit funds less than the total amount due toward your loan, per your original loan documents. And, although The BiWeekly Advantage Plan and similar programs draft on a biweekly, weekly, or semi-monthly basis, they all remit full payments to CitiMortgage. The funds drafted by The BiWeekly Advantage Paln are held in a non-interest bearing Citibank account until they are credited to your loan.

I hope I was able to answer your questions. Should you have additional questions regarding the Plan, please feel free to contact FNC Insurance Agency at 1-800-955-6060†, option 3. Our Plan Specialists are available to assist you from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. You may also visit us on the Internet at www.citimortgage.com/biweeklyadvantatge.

Sincerely,
Vickie Murphy
Plan Specialist

Interesting, we actually have a name.  Well at least I am starting to get further up the chain on this issue.  Let's break this down, because there are few great nuggets of information in this.

you are buying a service from FNC Insurance Agency (FNCIA), an affiliate of CitiMortgage and member of Citi.

Wait, so I would have to pay Citi in order to pay Citi?  I think we are stepping in to recursion here.

The one-time enrollment fee of $375.00 and the $1.50 transaction fee

Whoa there buddy, the original customer service rep said the enrollment fee was only $300.  In the past few days it has gone up by $75?  And where did this $1.50 transaction fee come from.  The person I spoke to on the phone never said anything about a transaction fee.  Then again I cut her off from speaking the moment she mentioned the enrollment fee so she never really got a chance to tell me about the transaction fee.  So let's do the math here.  (For those of us who went to public school this is a word problem.)

I want to pay my mortgage off early.  It is currently a 30 year loan and bi-weekly payments could potentially cut the length of the loan down to 26 years.  I get paid 26 times a year.  If I make a payment every two weeks through the BiWeekly advantage program, how much money will Citi have made in fees from me?  Be sure to show your work.

$375 + ((26 * $1.50)*26) = $1371

Yes boys and girls, provided Citi never increases the fee (cause that never happens) Citi wants me to pay them an additional $1300 or more simply................to pay them.  Huh?

per your original loan documents

Basically it is a cop out.  They know they could do exactly what I am asking, they simply don't want to.  And because they don't want to, they put it buried in to the one of the 5 bazillion documents I signed at closing to make sure I don't do it.  Maybe I should go back and re-read every page I signed just to make sure I didn't sign away my kidneys.

So this calls for another letter back to Citi.  At least now I have a name to go with this whole situation:

To Vicki Murphy,

Vicky,

I do appreciate your answers regarding the BiWeekly Advantage plan. I unfortunately will not be participating in the program as I do not actually see an advantage. According to your previous e-mail, if I was to enroll in the program I would effectively be paying Citi an additional $1300 or more over the life of my loan for a service that my bank currently offers me for free.

I have instead opted to open a high yield checking account at my bank and will be transferring funds to that account to make my payments. This will hopefully result in both the loan being paid down sooner (which was my original intent) and that I will earn interest as opposed to paying additional fees.

I would encourage Citi management to review this plan and change their policies regarding how payments are made to accounts. Charging customers additional fees to simply process a payment is no way to build goodwill with your customer base.

Please verify for me that the late charges incurred have been credited off of my account.

But you know what, that just isn't quite enough satisfaction for me.  I also opted to send my Congressman a letter as well:

Mr. Peters,

I have recently become aware of Citi Mortgage's BiWeekly Advantage program where they charge customers for the "connivance" of making bi-weekly mortgage payments.

Citi refuses to allow me to send payments to them bi-weekly and instead requires that I use a fee based service that is a subsidiary of Citi Group to accomplish this.

Many people try to make bi-weekly payments on their mortgages to speed pay down. The effect can shorten a 30 year loan by up to seven years.

Citi's "BiWeekly Advantage" though has no advantage for their customers. Instead they charge a $375 enrollment fee and a $1.50 transaction fee every time they draft from my checking account.

Since this program is run by another subsidiary of Citi Group this is clearly a program designed to collect fees from customers and recoup money they would lose in interest by me paying down my loan.

Since Citi is the number #1 receiver of TARP funds (currently $50 Billion) I feel that this is is something that congress should investigate.

I have chronicled my on going dealings with Citi regarding this matter at my own website: http://blog.codejnki.com.

I myself have not signed up for this program, but fact that this program exists infuriates me and I feel that it is completely unethical.

I would appreciate any help or advice in this matter.

Read that little section again. I'll wait. 

Did you see that bit where Citi is the #1 receiver of TARP funds?  Yes we've given this incompetent group of idiots fifty billion dollars because they don't know how to make sound financial decisions.  And they have the audacity to tell me I can't pay them?

Folks, this is the reason why the economy is in the tank.  Because of geniuses like the guys who run Citi, hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs.  The banks are not winning any friends nor are they solidifying any of the arguments for helping them.

If a bank is "too big to fail" then it is "too big to exist".

Good luck, we're going to need it.

CitiMortgage continues to Fail

After being confronted with the "option" of paying a $300 enrollment fee for the convince of paying half my house payment every two weeks I sent a rather terse (and maybe inebriated) e-mail to CitiMortgage concerning their BiWeekly Advantage program.

Looking around the net it appears that I am not the only one who has come to this conclusion.  The good thing is that I never agreed to sign up for it.

Today I received an e-mail response from Citi:

Please understand that CitiMortgage is unable to recognize funds as a payment for your mortgage loan that are less than the scheduled amount due. In accordance with your loan documents, your payment is due in full once each month. The principal and interest portion of your payment is based on a monthly amortization and cannot be applied in two installments.

In the future, if partial/installment funds are received, they will be applied to one of the following: (1) applied to outstanding fees and then to the principal balance, if your loan is contractually current (2) placed in an unapplied (holding) account associated with your loan until the balance of the payment is received if your loan is contractually delinquent. Please note that late charges may be assessed or adverse reporting to the credit bureaus could result since your payment will not be applied.

If you need further assistance regarding your mortgage account, our Automated Account Information Line is accessible 24 hours a day at 1-800-283-7918*. Customer Service Associates are also available at this number Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m., and Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., ET and Sunday from 12:00 p.m., to 11:00 p.m., ET. When you contact us, please refer to your mortgage account number.

Thank you.

I was floored.  A canned e-mail.  They didn't even have the balls to send a semi-human interaction e-mail.  This simply called for another e-mail through their contact us link on their website:

I have some further questions regarding the inability to process a Bi-Weekly payments.

If I was to send my payment in full with an extra $25 where would that $25 be applied by default?

Did the person who responded to my previous request actually threaten to ruin my credit if I sent you MORE money than you are asking for?

What exactly does the $300 enrollment fee cover?

Who gets to keep the interest earned on the bi-weekly drafts prior to the payment being applied to an account? Is it split 50/50 between Citi and the third party or is there some other arrangement?

If you are capable of processing bi-weekly payments sent from the third party, why are you unwilling to process the payments sent directly from me?

But let us take a few moments and take a look at a choice phrase from that canned response shall we?

"Please note that late charges may be assessed or adverse reporting to the credit bureaus could result since your payment will not be applied."

That's right, Citimortgage company threatened to report me to the credit bureaus for what amounts to me paying them more money?  Could it possibly be that this is actually something to my benefit and not to theirs?

This saga has not concluded.  If I do not get a favorable resolution I may be forced to set up an auto payment equal to 1/20th of my payment sent out every weekday.  I'd like to see what their billing software does with that one.

Featured Interview

I was featured in an interview over here.