Complete and Utter Tool of the Year . . . For the Last Five Years

***UPDATED: Thursday June 15th, 2006 -- See Below***




Got a call Wednesday (which is why I missed posting last Wednesday). Thought I'd take a minute and explain why here.

A Private Investigator called and informed me (pursuant to Texas Law) that he had been retained to locate assets for Citi Financial to collect due to their re-opening collections on a 2000 Lincoln Towncar Limousine.

A What??? A 2000 Lincoln Towncar? My car with Professional One was a 1997 Lincoln Towncar. (That's my golden Towncar behind Tool-Boy in the photo above.)

He gave me the name of Mr. Shirette at Stevens & Michaels Associates for point of contact. I called him immediately; he was "Out to Lunch" at 2pm. I waited an hour, then called again. After a brief conversation learned that he had some kind of information that either (a) the limousine was NOT covered by our 2002 bankruptcy (he kept referring to it as a "business bankruptcy"), or (b) that we may have concealed funds from the company, thus invalidating the limousine company bankruptcy in 2002. (Again with the "business bankruptcy.")

I explained to him that we had declared a personal bankruptcy in 2002 on our lawyer's advice and referred him to that lawyer. I also told him that he needed to let My ex-business partner and his psychotic girlfriend (and I named their names to him) know that this type of statement against us was both fraudulent and harrassment and that they had been stalking us prior to our departure from Indiana in 2002. Some of you may remember that ugly little time; the midnight phone calls, the changed phone numbers, the police called when creditors were beating on my front door with a baseball bat, and the threat by the girlfriend to "blow your f***ing head off if I wasn't a Christian."

He paused for a moment when I said that; then he as much as confirmed it was these two by mentioning their names back to me and let me know he would look into this and contact my lawyer.

I'm sure these two doofuses were involved because they have repeatedly insisted the Professional One closure was a Business bakruptcy, not a personal bakruptcy -- even though they received the notices just like everyone else did.

I called my lawyer's office and told Shirley (my lawyer's secretary) what had happened and that I suspected Tweedledum and Tweedledumber; Shirley replied "Oh, Honey, they call here once or twice a month." Seems they've been really busy trying to do everything possible to confuse, obstruct, and otherwise screw up the bankruptcy closing for the last five years, and now that it has finally closed, they've redoubled their efforts to do everything possible to try to make my life miserable.


Five years.


Five years later, and they still can't let go and get on with their lives.


Also, I'd very much like to know how Citi Financial got hold of our unlisted phone number and gave it to this Private Investigator. The lawyer's on that one as well -- and probably wondering why in the heck he ever accepted this simple bankruptcy from hell.

The truly funny part is that when Ariane and I were debating renewing our Mailbox at the UPS Store last month, we had a spirited discussion over whether these two were nutso enough to carry a grudge this long. We both agreed they wern't, but Ariane wanted to keep it "just for the peace of mind." Good thing we did, eh?

Ah, if the Valparaiso Prosecutor had only pressed the embezzlement charges I wanted, lo those five years ago.

UPDATE: I may yet get my wish, one way or the other.

Mr. Shirette called back Wednesday night, and I returned his call Thursday. He was very apologetic (as he well should be -- contacting the debtor in a Bankruptcy case is strictly prohibited by Federal Law; and we could've very easily gotten him into a LOT of trouble had we been the vindictive bastards My former business partner says we are.) He asked if I minded talking with him for a minute, which I didn't -- so I did. His major question was what happened to the limousines after the bankruptcy, and I told him that they had been towed away by a company out of Chicago, and that this company had the name and phone number of the people who had originally sold us the cars and financed them to us. I even offered to provide the documentation for the repossession of the cars (I still have all the paperwork stored away here -- I anticipated these kinds of idiocy.)

So, apparently, the finance company absconded with the cars somehow. Or, at least, someone absconded with the cars.

Hmmmm . . . I wonder who that could have been.

Meanwhile, Mr. Shirette is very annoyed (to put it mildly) as to who is wasting his time and getting him a potential Federal Rap for violating the terms of a Bankruptcy.

Be afraid, Mister Crowe. Be VERY afraid, Ms. White. You were stupid enough to give him your callback number on the Caller ID.

~~JD~~