Title

No, I didn't run out of ideas for the name of my posts. I'm talking about the title for my recently-defunct dung pile of a car. Back in June, I was in a wreck. Long story short, they totaled my car, sent some money to the bank and I had to pay off the rest of the loan if I wanted to keep the car. So I got a personal loan to cover the rest of the car loan. I expected to receive the title in the mail soon thereafter. It was a big hunk of doo-doo, but it ran and I needed a car.

Months passed and I didn't get the title. I kept on meaning to call the bank about it, but you know how those things go. Believe it or not, this is the abridged version.

Now I have to have the title in order to sell the poop pile to the junk yard. I finally called the bank. "Who paid off the loan?" I did. "I see here that we got a payment from Progressive." Yes, but I paid off the rest of it with a personal loan, so it belongs to me. "Oh, well it looks like we sent the title to your insurance company. I'm sorry, but you'll have to call them."

Gah. So I called Progressive and, three transfers later, I was connected to someone who had a vague idea of what to do. "You're going to have to talk to the claims adjuster, Tyson, who took care of the claim in June. I'll call his number and see if he's there." Of course, he wasn't. The customer service rep left a message. However, my cell (only) phone was out of juice and I wasn't able to get some power until late that evening. I wasn't really looking forward to talking to Tyson, because he told me that there was no way that I was going to be able to keep my car in the first place. Wrong!

During my cell phone's short period of death, a different adjuster (thank goodness!) had left a message asking me to call back between 8am and 5pm. Why is it always during work that I have to call these people?

When I finally talked to the guy about my title, things started going downhill even more. "I received a message that you had a question about your claim #---------------- (stupidly long number) on June 21, 2007. You wanted to know something about your car's title?" Yes. I want it. "You kept possession of the vehicle?" Yes. Your company totaled my car. A payment for the car was sent to my bank and I paid off the rest of the loan so I could keep the car. "If we recieved a title, then your claims rep should have sent it to you." Yeah. I don't have it. "Well, I don't see in your file that we received a title. Are you sure your bank sent it to us?" That's what they told me. "Would you mind waiting for a minute while I go get the physical file?" No problem.
(Five minutes later.) "I see from your file that the title was sent to our Houston office. They should have sent it here, but it's not anywhere in the file. I'm going to have to do some research here. I'll call Houston and try to figure out what happened."

Great. Now I'm probably going to have to go through the state agency that keeps track of these things. And of course they're only open between 9am and 4pm.