When "Charity" Runs Out...

#sandy #fraud #sandyvictim It’s been 3 months… and today I’ve hit my bullsh!t limit.

If you are easily offended, please do not read on.

Here are some stories that everyone in their cushy homes and their comfortable situations can ooohh and ahhh about and say “I’m sorry” and “this is terrible” and “this isn’t right” and then go on their merry way.

Yes, this is a bit of bitter mixed with a dash of hostile served up in a cocktail of frustration for your reading pleasure!

Three months into this Sandy saga and we are no further along than we were the day after the storm. No insurance response, no place to live close by, no money in hand, no building permit, no architects plans, no regular schedule… (shall I go on or do you get my drift?)

Every few days we still go to our oil flooded home and pick up the mail… I haven’t changed our mailing address for two reasons; (1) it is added confusion and we simply aren’t permanent at any other location and (2) my sense of pride and my arrogance (two things no one can take away from me) refuses to receive mail at another other location but my HOME.

Well, I picked up the mail this Saturday afternoon and saw 2 letters from FEMA. When I opened them I realized they were from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) which is the insurance company I pay to insure my home from Flood. Yes, the same insurance company (government funded) that has NOT responded to my requests for information on my claim.

Guess what they sent me? I’ll give you a hint… what do you think they should be sending me at this point 3 months down the road? Ok… now you have that in your head, flip it 180 degrees… what is it now?



Yes, you got it! THEY SENT ME A BILL!


They want to collect my next year’s insurance payment at $700 more than last year’s payment. Yep… they want to collect that money and they STILL haven’t given me my money that they owe me or any indication of what I should expect to receive for my claim.
All of this after:
- J was in the hospital Saturday morning due to cutting his hand on a broken dish and needing stitches
- I fell down the stairs and literally broke my butt on Monday; and on Sunday limped 5 miles of a ½ marathon due to a foot injury
- My daughter hasn’t slept a full night since we moved into J’s Uncles house; so I’m on 3-4 hours of sleep a night
- I have a tearing pain in my shoulder and a never-ending stiff neck from sleeping in a 50 year old bed
- Another cold shower because the place we’re staying has a problem with letting me ever have a hot shower (J gets in the shower and it works… I get in.. it’s cold)
- The DVD player broke just as we were attempting to watch a movie as a family for the first time since the storm (well at least we finagled the computer and a makeshift indoor campsite to get it working)
- None of the people offering apartments for rent have called me back; they are not wanting to rent to people with kids (yea sure it’s illegal but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen)

OH and don’t forget that the next few weeks are going to be absolute hell because J is traveling and I’ll be dealing with the kids, the 2hrX2hr commute and the job all on my own.

Seriously people, I CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!

Back to the bill from NFIP - So what do I do with this bill? What do you think I should do with it… maybe I should have a vote on this… burning paper airplane? return to sender with a nice “F YOU” message on the front? Scan a copy and send it to my adjuster as a claim?

Well at the time all were possibilities but instead, I did the semi-sane thing and shook my head and pulled out of my oil ridden driveway to drive to my cousins house so I could attempt to forget the ridiculousness for a few hours.

And now for... "this is what made me go insane":

NFIP stands for “No Fing Info People”?
Monday morning hits an I’m on a new path to fixing all my problems. I have phone numbers, fax numbers, paperwork, the works in my bag and I’m headed off to work. I make my first phone call just to find the fax number to NFIP (my insurance company) and this is where everything goes terribly wrong (dun dun dunnnn)…

A lovely lady by the name of Porsha (I swear… not making this up) verifies my information and I ask her for the fax number and she says, “Mam, is your husband there? I need to confirm with him that I can speak with you about your account.” WHAT?!?!?! I have called over 30 times to this call center in the past 3 months and they have NEVER said I couldn’t talk to them because I wasn’t on the account. So, 4 people later, being hung up on 3 times by the manager (Barbara), by the employee, etc. and I’m nowhere. I can’t even get the damn fax number!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!! I call back and speak with a nice gentleman and I don’t give him my account info… instead, I ask him for the fax number and guess what? He gives it to me! Is that crazy or what? I proceed to find out that my adjuster has finally submitted his paperwork to NFIP and they can’t give me any information for 7 days. Don’t ask me why it will take 7 days or how they determined 7 days was a good time to add to the 3 months I’ve already been waiting but they said 7 days so I’m sticking with it. J proceeded to call the adjuster and tell him he is out of compliance for not sharing the info with us directly and scared him into the sending the information to us via email. All that and all we had to do was have J call the adjuster and threaten to tell on him. REALLY PEOPLE?!??! CAN THIS GET ANY MORE DIFFICULT?!
Oh… BTW, we still have to pay the bill or it will go against our credit. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Ok… on to the next one

Apartment Mess: I receive a phone call from the apartment complex that we are applying to so we can move back into the area and reduce my 2 hour each way commute down to 30 minutes a day. The woman Karen tells me that they’ve increased the price of the apartment. When did this happen? On Saturday, the day before I handed in my application. Why didn’t they tell me this on Sunday? They didn’t understand the terms so they were unable to communicate this then. So now they want to charge a sur-charge for the lease being less than 1 year. All this from an apartment complex that is advertising “Help for Sandy Victims” and they even had an article written up in the local Patch stating that they were the only place in my area that were helping people by modifying lease terms and reducing the security payments. At first I complained to her. How could she change the terms 1 day after I handed in my application!?!

Then I literally BEGGED this lady to fix this problem. She wouldn’t give me the contact information for the landlord but called me back an hour later and stated that she can give me the lowered security fee but will still have to charge me the surcharge. This is how “charity” runs out. My recourse, nada… I need a place to live. I can’t complain, report them, etc. because then I’d have nowhere to go!

Building Permit: We can’t get a building permit to raise our home until we have an architect’s drawing. We can’t start work on the house at all until we have a building permit. The architect said he’d be done in 2 weeks, it’s been 4 and yes, we’ve already paid him the first payment.
Rock. Me. Hard place.

AT&T Service is Down:
We are living in another town at J’s uncles house. We don’t have internet access at said house. Instead, I worked with my company to purchase a wireless 4g hotspot so that I can connect to the internet at “home”. I also signed up for AT&T service through my iPad and guess what? My phone service is also AT&T. On Friday a problem began with the cell tower in our area. All 4g/3g service is down until February 10th. There is nothing they can do to help me.

I can’t make this stuff up.

Ok so my Monday absolutely made my head spin. I’m done… reached my limit in being nice to people on the phone, and following the godforsaken process and still being hit with a NO WIN, YOU LOSE situation.

What recourse do I have in any of these situations? Nothing. Absolutely nothing can be done other than write a letter and hope your local officials look into it. These places should be fined for the way they’ve done business and the money should go to the people effected!

But no, our officials are focused on “ousting LIPA” to blame them for not restoring power in time and passing laws about gas stations having enough gas during a storm. Seriously? What about the people that are still suffering? What are you doing for them? Answer is… NOTHING (oh but the Patch will write an article if you want.)

Shall I come back in another month and tell you that nothing has changed or is this story getting old?

-s