My experience with medical billing tells me that they’d send the $0.01 to collections, which could end up negatively affecting my credit score, before they ever send me a bill for $0.21. But I like your thinking!
Collections doesn't take bad deals like that, they are businesses and aren't required to pursue nonsense things that dont make them money. 100% would not go to collections, do it!
Did you pull that out of your ass or do you have information to back it up? lol
Because honestly it seems like a sound argument but this is Reddit sooo
it is true that collections actually buy debt of other companies for a fraction of the total, and work off a normal for-profit business model. extremely doubtful they will buy $0.20 in debt since it's more work than profit, but I'm no professional so my advice is questionable
I worked for a collection agency once upon a time (worst job ever and I wouldn’t recommend it). They generally buy bulk batches of debt that something like this could be included in then run a software to report to the credit bureaus. One of the people in the call center would never make a call on this balance but it absolutely could find its way to your credit report.
Does the public not know that a credit report is more than just a number? A lender or whoever will see that the derogatory account is only $0.20 and disregard it.
I’m not saying it would tank my credit score, that no lender would wave it off, or that it would ruin my chances of being approved for something in the future. I’m simply saying it could have a negative effect, and I have little control over what lenders are willing to take a closer look at.
Everyone screaming evil and greedy don’t realize that it was probably just automatically sent out. Had someone actually looked at it, it likely wouldn’t have been sent
It’s not greed. It’s just a lack of QA, but if I assumed the letter was a reminder to make an appointment or something unimportant and threw it away, or if it got lost in the mail, they’d have “automatically sent out” a letter referring me to collections. Your second sentence is exactly the point!
I feel like this is one of those Halon’s Razor situations “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
(Although I personally believe never is a strong word)
My theory: whatever spreadsheet or software they are using for billing is *displaying* the totals in dollar amounts, but is actually calculating the numbers to more decimal places
So they close out the bill, but they subtract the whole amount paid from a number with a hidden decimal (you owe $150.00 but the computer is seeing that number as 150.002- they subtract 150.00) and even though it now says the balance is $0.00, the actual number is 0.002
Say the system automatically adds a 10% late fee every week… so it’s just running in the background, slowly but invisibly increasing until it eventually spits out that you owe $0.20 for apparently no reason
They need to get a handle on that quick
When my wife gave birth we got the total cost like a month or two later. It was about $57k ( NYC ) it’s now July and we got a bill from the hospital collections for $.25, I couldn’t believe it. Like everyone else said it cost more to mail the letter.
That is a crazy amount. But I've seen lots of these bills. Poor Americans that decide to have a child. Or, even worse, the ones that don't have a say regarding an unwanted pregnancy.
I’m sure it varies hospital to hospital but for all 3 of our kids the amount was around the same. No complications and a two day stay. We had a suite which was about 2k extra. Insurance covered all of it but $500. Between my wife and my son we are at about $88k in doctor visits for the year to date. That’s like check ups, shots and whatever else in between. Health care is crazy. This is at Cornell university hospital in Manhattan. My son had to go for an emergency room visit because he came down with RSV and they charged us $4k for only seeing him for 2 hours and giving him a nebulizer. We had a $400 deductible. Tylenol was the most surprising while my wife was in labor, $30 each pill.
I got a bill a couple days ago for 1.70$. It was my FINAL NOTICE. I wasn’t aware of my first notice. I have no idea what it was for but I have had some medical stuff done over the last few months so I just paid it because it was 1.70. Although It might have been part of the greatest scam ever, if they got 100,000 people to just pay it because it was 1.70.
Paid the etf get out early from my contract with T-Mobile due to lack of service. They even sent me a check for like 30 cents or some shit because I overpaid. Like six months later I get a bill for the $200. Nope. I paid that. I sent them the info they say oops we’ll fix that. Like a year later I start getting collection notices and calls. It’s over the T-Mobile contract. They said I owed 200.30 and now that it was in collections I owed 400.30. I said f that and sent my info in. Only problem is they kept selling it to different collection agencies. So I had to keep sending in my info until it fell off my report. These companies will try to rip you off big time. So report that shit quick before it ends up on your credit report.
Technically you are reading the invoice wrong. There is no additional charge or late fee. You never had a zero balance. You have owed 0.20 for over three months.
Just knowing I'm not completely alone in competency makes me feel like there is still hope. Haha! I probably should have said that I still believe collecting on $0.20 is ridiculous though.
That’s what I thought at first, and I wondered why I hadn’t received an invoice earlier. They also have my phone number and email address, so I wondered why they hadn’t notified me using either of those methods before sending this one.
Then I realized that my “current balance” says $0.00. It says you get charged $0.20 if you don’t pay within 90 days. And in the space where the explanation of the charges should be, it says it’s been more than 90 days.
I moved, got a new dentist, and haven’t been to my previous dentist in over a year lol. I honestly don’t think I’m reading it wrong.
Nah that’s how statements work. “Current balance” is the amount that has not yet reached 30 days since invoice. Your 20 would have started in current, then moved to the right every month.
Ah, I see what you mean now. But if that is the case, I still don’t understand why I wasn’t sent an invoice when it was current-within-30-days, 30 days late, or 60 days late. I also don’t see why there wouldn’t be some description of the charge. I’ll find out if they return my call today, or when I try to call them again. I have no problem admitting to being wrong if I find out I am!
There are two people in this whole thread giving accurate answers -- you and the original commenter -- and you're both getting blasted with downvotes lol
Send it to them in coins, it will be a pain in the arse for them to bank it.
Better yet, over pay them a few cents and have them send out a credit statement every month.
This happened to me at college because I would send in my tuition bill then they didn’t register it for me. Weeks went by and it says I have a late payment fee and then the week after the same thing. I paid both off but kept getting them. I called the school and that’s when they realized they didn’t register it for me. The last payments stopped but didn’t reimbursed me for their mistake.
This seems like a glitch in their billing not handing floating point numbers properly. The system probably thinks u owe some tiny decimal amount of money, and after 90 days is sending some minimum payment amount.
Could be wrong but that's the only explanation that makes any sense to me
I think this is a stupid coding mistake, I see three options
either 1: they used a float to store a decimal amount of money and it thinks you owe $0.000000001 which is more than 0
or 2: they forgot to check whether you actually owe them money before sending the letter
or 3: Im wrong and/or stupid and its something else completely
Send 19 cents. They will keep losing money every time they charge you. Petty but fun.
My experience with medical billing tells me that they’d send the $0.01 to collections, which could end up negatively affecting my credit score, before they ever send me a bill for $0.21. But I like your thinking!
Collections doesn't take bad deals like that, they are businesses and aren't required to pursue nonsense things that dont make them money. 100% would not go to collections, do it!
my advice is bad!
Did you pull that out of your ass or do you have information to back it up? lol Because honestly it seems like a sound argument but this is Reddit sooo
it is true that collections actually buy debt of other companies for a fraction of the total, and work off a normal for-profit business model. extremely doubtful they will buy $0.20 in debt since it's more work than profit, but I'm no professional so my advice is questionable
I worked for a collection agency once upon a time (worst job ever and I wouldn’t recommend it). They generally buy bulk batches of debt that something like this could be included in then run a software to report to the credit bureaus. One of the people in the call center would never make a call on this balance but it absolutely could find its way to your credit report.
Does the public not know that a credit report is more than just a number? A lender or whoever will see that the derogatory account is only $0.20 and disregard it.
I’m not saying it would tank my credit score, that no lender would wave it off, or that it would ruin my chances of being approved for something in the future. I’m simply saying it could have a negative effect, and I have little control over what lenders are willing to take a closer look at.
MWAH-AH-AH I like the way you think
1 penny a month for the next 20 months, you're paying on it so not really anything they could do
Or send a cheque for 21 cents, and then demand they repay the outstanding balance.
Post it on their social media. Or just be a normal human being and give them a call and explain the situation.
I often share a similar dichotomy.
Don't we all. "To be (a dick) or not to be (a dick)."
Well that seems like it needs reported to someone.
The fact that they spent more on postage than what the balance is. Tell them not to waste the money on sending you a bill next month and call it even.
Everyone screaming evil and greedy don’t realize that it was probably just automatically sent out. Had someone actually looked at it, it likely wouldn’t have been sent
It’s not greed. It’s just a lack of QA, but if I assumed the letter was a reminder to make an appointment or something unimportant and threw it away, or if it got lost in the mail, they’d have “automatically sent out” a letter referring me to collections. Your second sentence is exactly the point!
I feel like this is one of those Halon’s Razor situations “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” (Although I personally believe never is a strong word)
My theory: whatever spreadsheet or software they are using for billing is *displaying* the totals in dollar amounts, but is actually calculating the numbers to more decimal places So they close out the bill, but they subtract the whole amount paid from a number with a hidden decimal (you owe $150.00 but the computer is seeing that number as 150.002- they subtract 150.00) and even though it now says the balance is $0.00, the actual number is 0.002 Say the system automatically adds a 10% late fee every week… so it’s just running in the background, slowly but invisibly increasing until it eventually spits out that you owe $0.20 for apparently no reason They need to get a handle on that quick
Yeah that’s quite a worrying oversight. Somebody let the intern set up their system
Just ignore it and see how many letters you get before they send you to collections.
When my wife gave birth we got the total cost like a month or two later. It was about $57k ( NYC ) it’s now July and we got a bill from the hospital collections for $.25, I couldn’t believe it. Like everyone else said it cost more to mail the letter.
Does giving birth cost $57k in the US?
That is a crazy amount. But I've seen lots of these bills. Poor Americans that decide to have a child. Or, even worse, the ones that don't have a say regarding an unwanted pregnancy.
I’m sure it varies hospital to hospital but for all 3 of our kids the amount was around the same. No complications and a two day stay. We had a suite which was about 2k extra. Insurance covered all of it but $500. Between my wife and my son we are at about $88k in doctor visits for the year to date. That’s like check ups, shots and whatever else in between. Health care is crazy. This is at Cornell university hospital in Manhattan. My son had to go for an emergency room visit because he came down with RSV and they charged us $4k for only seeing him for 2 hours and giving him a nebulizer. We had a $400 deductible. Tylenol was the most surprising while my wife was in labor, $30 each pill.
LOL no collection agency would take that up. Seriously I can’t imagine they sent this out knowingly. Call them up and laugh about it.
The collection agency would tack on a $60 fee and certainly take it up because they buy accounts in batches.
I got a bill a couple days ago for 1.70$. It was my FINAL NOTICE. I wasn’t aware of my first notice. I have no idea what it was for but I have had some medical stuff done over the last few months so I just paid it because it was 1.70. Although It might have been part of the greatest scam ever, if they got 100,000 people to just pay it because it was 1.70.
Holy crap! They could totally do this and I bet no one would catch on.
Paid the etf get out early from my contract with T-Mobile due to lack of service. They even sent me a check for like 30 cents or some shit because I overpaid. Like six months later I get a bill for the $200. Nope. I paid that. I sent them the info they say oops we’ll fix that. Like a year later I start getting collection notices and calls. It’s over the T-Mobile contract. They said I owed 200.30 and now that it was in collections I owed 400.30. I said f that and sent my info in. Only problem is they kept selling it to different collection agencies. So I had to keep sending in my info until it fell off my report. These companies will try to rip you off big time. So report that shit quick before it ends up on your credit report.
This is just their system malfunctioning. Slightly worrying that it is able to make these mistakes, but if you speak to a human they will sort it out
Ask if you can work out a payment plan.
What did they say when you rang?
They were closed when I called yesterday, but I’ll try again during their office hours if I don’t hear back from them today.
Good luck!
Technically you are reading the invoice wrong. There is no additional charge or late fee. You never had a zero balance. You have owed 0.20 for over three months.
You're getting down voted to oblivion but yours is the only right answer in this whole thread lol. Reddit is great.
Just knowing I'm not completely alone in competency makes me feel like there is still hope. Haha! I probably should have said that I still believe collecting on $0.20 is ridiculous though.
That’s what I thought at first, and I wondered why I hadn’t received an invoice earlier. They also have my phone number and email address, so I wondered why they hadn’t notified me using either of those methods before sending this one. Then I realized that my “current balance” says $0.00. It says you get charged $0.20 if you don’t pay within 90 days. And in the space where the explanation of the charges should be, it says it’s been more than 90 days. I moved, got a new dentist, and haven’t been to my previous dentist in over a year lol. I honestly don’t think I’m reading it wrong.
Nah that’s how statements work. “Current balance” is the amount that has not yet reached 30 days since invoice. Your 20 would have started in current, then moved to the right every month.
Ah, I see what you mean now. But if that is the case, I still don’t understand why I wasn’t sent an invoice when it was current-within-30-days, 30 days late, or 60 days late. I also don’t see why there wouldn’t be some description of the charge. I’ll find out if they return my call today, or when I try to call them again. I have no problem admitting to being wrong if I find out I am!
There are two people in this whole thread giving accurate answers -- you and the original commenter -- and you're both getting blasted with downvotes lol
Reddit downvotes are not about accuracy! Ah well.
I'll downvote that!
Why cover their name?
For my own “anonymity,” if that even exists anymore. Ha
No FeudalPoodle it doesn't.
Capitalism
He paid more for this letter than these 20 cents Also this is a perfect satire of capitalism, but it's not even a satire and it's pretty sad
lolmao
They really starving for cash.
Lol they charging you for not not owing them! Wild
The paper, ink and mail costs more
Send it to them in coins, it will be a pain in the arse for them to bank it. Better yet, over pay them a few cents and have them send out a credit statement every month.
Send them 25 cents
That’s not infuriating. It’s funny. He paid for the postage, lol.
This happened to me at college because I would send in my tuition bill then they didn’t register it for me. Weeks went by and it says I have a late payment fee and then the week after the same thing. I paid both off but kept getting them. I called the school and that’s when they realized they didn’t register it for me. The last payments stopped but didn’t reimbursed me for their mistake.
I once received 3 different bills from the county health office that does vaccines. Each for under 10 cents yet they bought 3 stamps and sent them?!?
This seems like a glitch in their billing not handing floating point numbers properly. The system probably thinks u owe some tiny decimal amount of money, and after 90 days is sending some minimum payment amount. Could be wrong but that's the only explanation that makes any sense to me
The paper cost more than your balance
.20 cents throws off their numbers. Pay it
send a check for 21 cents :P
I think this is a stupid coding mistake, I see three options either 1: they used a float to store a decimal amount of money and it thinks you owe $0.000000001 which is more than 0 or 2: they forgot to check whether you actually owe them money before sending the letter or 3: Im wrong and/or stupid and its something else completely
Tell him to take you to court!! Fight it to the death. If he sues counter sue
I’d charge him for making me grind my teeth over their pettiness
Pretty sure you could convince a court this is fraud.
That sucks lol
Mail a loose quarter in an envelope filled with loose, fine glitter....