Aqua Finance makes bad day even worse

Dear Aqua Finance,

I guess I should say thank you. I hadn’t had a good cry in a while, and our conversation really did help open the floodgate.

In today’s hard economic times, it is nice to know that creditors are so understanding and patient. I have been fielding calls for about a month now, always answering, always polite. I have explained our situation time and time again: my husband was let go on July 25th, since then we have only been paying the mortgage and feeding the kids.

I sincerely apologize and tell them that as soon as he is working again, I promise to catch everyone up. They say they are sorry for our circumstances, and they are sincere I might add, but unfortunately the calls will continue. I say thank you: I know; it is ok. (Mind you, I just got off the phone with one of them, and this is exactly how the conversation went.)

Enter Aqua Finance (headquartered in Wausau, WI). We had a water softening system installed in our new house shortly after we moved in. It is financed through Aqua Finance. When I got the third call from them in one day on Tuesday the 2nd, no one was ever on the line when I answered, I even went so far as to call them back and explain the situation to them. They said they would call again on Friday to see if anything had changed.

Unfortunately, when they called on Friday, absolutely nothing had changed. My husband is still out of work; we are still behind on everything. I was transferred to a credit specialist to see what they could do to “help” me.

The conversation started out simpy enough; she asked me about my income, and I described our outgo. Simple math proved that there is barely anything left to feed a family of four after not even paying the basics. She asked me if I was behind on my utilities; I said not all of them, although I do have a shut off notice from the water company, and I didn’t tell her that. It wasn’t any of her business.

She asked me if I was behind on my car payments, I said not yet, but that this month I didn’t know if I could even pay those. She asked me about the insurance I was paying; I gave her the dollar amount. By this time, if she was keeping track, she could see how far in the red we were. She asked if I had considered refinancing the house to get a loan or lower payment. I reminded her that we just bought our house, signed the papers on May 30th, and moved in on June 9th. At that point I gave her the run down on how our summer went.

Two weeks after we moved in to our dream home here in Maricopa, we got the call that my husband’s father had passed away under very ugly circumstances. We dropped everything, loaded up the truck and headed north to Seattle. We spent $3,000 we didn’t have to take care of his final expenses. We got back home exactly two weeks later. Two weeks after that, my husband was let go from a really good paying job with insurance. Since then, everything has been on me.

Mind you, we were already in the hole due to the family emergency,; this was like an additional slap in the face to both of us. So basically, summer sucked. She said, yes, I can see that. She then proceeded to put me through the worst grilling I have ever been through with a creditor in my life. It was humiliating and berating. She did all this with a very gentle and seemingly understanding voice.

At some point during the conversation I was asked if my husband had gone down to McDonald’s yet and applied for a job there. Had he gone to the local grocery store and applied? The first thing on my mind was “what business is it of yours where he has applied for a job, and who the hell are you to give me direction like that?” She asked if we had applied for food stamps yet. I said, no, I hadn’t thought of it yet. (Now that you mention it, I feel worse than I did before, lower than low, thank you so very much.) I was asked if my husband had applied for unemployment yet. I said yes. She asked what the outcome was. I said that he was told he didn’t qualify and then told that he did, and right now, we aren’t sure. She asked when we would know, and I simply said, I don’t know. Can we say absolute grilling? Since when do creditors get down and dirty with personal information?

I can’t remember parts of the conversation because at this point I was crying. My husband was upstairs listening to my half of the conversation. I am sure he was feeling quite sick about it because he said, “Jesus, honey, if it is that bad tell them to come get the damn thing!” I relayed that to the lady on the line, and she said, unfortunately, they don’t do that, and we are still responsible for the bill.

She asked if there were any expenses we could cut back on like cable or Internet. We are on a two-year contract with DirecTV, so no. I work from home and need the Internet service, so again no. When she hinted towards finding items in my home to sell off in order to pay my bill to them, I about lost it. It is bad enough that our staples right now are rice and Top Ramen; I didn’t need this on top of it.

I kept looking at my clock; the kids would be home from school soon. One thing I have been really good at is shielding them from my personal distress about everything. The last thing I wanted to do was have them come home and see me in tears like this.

Aqua Finance finally said they would call me back on the 15th to see if anything had changed. I said, how about I call you back when there is a change? Unfortunately, she wouldn’t go for it. I said do what you have to, and we ended the conversation. When I got off the phone, I was sobbing.

I went upstairs and talked to my husband briefly, saying, “what else do they want us to do?” We are doing everything we can. He said they probably wanted us to sell our firstborn so they could have their money.

I went to my quiet place, the toilet room in my bathroom, and silently sobbed for five minutes. It actually felt really good. I wet a towel and wiped my face, gathered my composure and went back to work at my desk. The kids came home, I greeted them with my usual greeting, and we went on with our day. Nothing more was said about it between my husband and I. He keeps looking for a job; I keep holding down the fort.

Want to hear the best part of this? My bill of $87 to Aqua Finance was due on September 1st. I was only four days late when we spoke. Can you imagine what they will put me through when I am 30 days late?

Bottom line; don’t finance a penny through Aqua Finance, unless, of course, you enjoy self-inflicted torture. Just my humble opinion.

Submitted photo