Money: December 2004 Archives

• Back in June, I lost my credit card, so I was issued another one with, naturally, a different number. I told the relevant parties, except my ISP: I forgot. So they've been trying to bill me since then, and me, thinking that if there ever were a problem, they'd let me know as they've always done. I figured that everything was fine with them, and I didn't check the details of my credit card statement (plus I absolutely hate looking at it). Seems as though it all came to a head on Friday, though. The order was made to cut me off. But all of this seems a little strange. I remember a couple of years ago when I was about two weeks late with a payment. They suspended the service. Two weeks. But this time it was six months without a word. Now, they say that they called and left messages, but I never got such a message from them. They say that they sent emails, but I keep all my emails from companies with which I do business, and I never received anything from them. I always check my junk email filter thoroughly as well. Nothing. So I had to pay $400 this morning to save my Internet connection. Hello, world.
• Université de Montréal. I swear to God that within the French system there are two kinds of people: québécois and foreigners. I was born in the province next door, but it's like I might as well have been born in Burundi. When I made the statement under oath a few months ago, I declared that I was a resident of Quebec. Now they want me to prove that I am not a foreigner. This would not be a problem at McGill or Concordia, I'm sure. Anyway, I lost my birth certicate years ago, so I have to reapply. I'll get it in six to eight weeks if I am lucky, and then this bullshit will be over hopefully.
• Revenu Québec insists that I owe them a bunch of money. They showed me that I wasn't actually paying them money off my paycheck in 1998 (my company was sketchier than I thought), although I figured that my company was paying taxes. I didn't do my taxes that year, and never really took them seriously until 1999/2000. This means that I will be paying them in installments for a while. Look at me, I'm jobless!

I will not be crushed in spirit. If it's one thing I cannot afford, it's that. I'm not buying.

In a matter of a few days, three separate agencies have decided to make me pay them twice for things I already paid for. First, a few days ago, the HR woman from my old job gave me a call to say that the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency wanted me to pay them taxes from pay back in 1998 totalling some $1400. They wanted her to give them my account information so they can garnish my pay. The problem is, of course, that I have no job. The other problem is that if they had my account information, they could seize my account and simply take all my money. Lastly, they never bothered to notify me that there was a problem. Sounds like a scam, doesn't it? Especially when I went down to the CCRA office to find out what was going on. They had no idea. They never issued an order to garnish pay.

When she first told me this story, I asked her to be absolutely certain that it was CCRA that had issued the letter. She said she was. She was fucking wrong, of course. It was Revenu Quebec, who are even bigger fuckers than the CCRA.

I went down to their offices and was surprised at how fast I was served (5 minutes, but even more surprised that the tax queen that I was dealing with was really fucking hot. I couldn't quite believe it. I mean, she was super hot. Government workers, especially tax workers who work in grey and beige offices and screw people over all day are never attractive. That's like seeing a hot bus driver (which I did see a couple of weeks ago and nearly floored me since 70% of the ones here are extremely average middle-aged French guys).