Twice protected. Well, kind of

My insurance agent has been calling me for the past week, reminding me to send in a cheque to renew our household insurance. Everytime he called, I'd say okay and then go look for the renewal notice. Somehow I never seem to get round to finding it or doing it. Well I'm a busy woman and I've got tonnes of bills to pay each month. So if it's not payable by internet banking I often forget to get them done. Why? I never could locate my cheque books whenever I need them, that's why. Anyhow, he called again two days ago and did me the service of giving me the account number, policy number, etc. so I don't really have no excuse to not pay it anymore.

Only to find out that you can't really pay it by internet banking, and not by pps through the internet either. So I called the pps hotline, having gone through 10 fucking minutes of that stupid automated phone system, I tried to pay it over the phone, only to be told that I hadn't registered the bill, so I can't pay it that way either.

Anyway, non stop hassle was what it was. So I gathered all my strength and concentration and managed to dig out my cheque book and wrote and sent off the cheque.

Today, a receipt for my cheque arrived in the post. What speedy service! What great efficiency! I thought.

.....Only that the cheque number on the receipt was not that of the cheque I wrote!!!! How crazy is that!!! I thought my insane insuarnce agent might have actually wrote a cheque himself cos he can't rely on me doing that on time?? Is that possible? Surely not without my consent. Surely he's not that insane. So I called him and he found it just as impossible as it sounds.

Anyhow, I had no choice but once again gathered up all my might and concentration and found the only other cheque book I've got. Turns out that I had writtedn a cheque and sent it off ten days ago to pay for the insurance! So now I'm going to pay for the damn thing twice. Damn!!

I should have bellowed at the insurance guy. He should not have kept ringing me AS IF I hadn't paid when in fact I have even though I couldn't remember it myself. Instead, being completely crazy that I am, I in fact apologized to him.

The more I think about it, the more enraged I'm feeling. I'm contemplating writing a letter of complaint. You're on my side, I hope.