The Skinny On Me: The Dragon Has Awoken

The dragon has awoken.

I am so incredibly livid right now, I could spit venom in the eyes of anyone who crosses my path.

This world has completely crumbled into a travesty, and it's times like this that make me disgusted to be a human being. I'm so sorry that I don't have a recipe post for y'all, but I am so incredibly angry right now the post I originally wanted to write wouldn't have come from the heart and, considering that I'm always as honest as possible with y'all, I couldn't write a fun Valentine's Day post without getting this off my chest.

Y'all don't mind waiting until tomorrow, right?

I walked into the office this morning with puffy eyes and a snotty nose because of the rudest customer service representatives I have ever encountered.

I'm assuming that y'all are up to date on my stupid, aggravating back injury?

Because of this injury, I am in pain on practically a constant basis and, as much as it sucks to admit this, I rely on medication to get me through the days. Please don't comment with natural remedies and elixirs. I promise they won't work. I've had steel plates and screws drilled into my spine grating on my nerves for the past three years. A cocktail of witch hazel and lavender ain't gonna cut it, folks.

Since our move, I have been receiving my meds through a mail order pharmacy called PMSI. From day one, I have had nothing but trouble with them. They rarely get my medication to me on time, they always blame me or make excuses for why the meds aren't shipped out when they are supposed to, and as of Monday they have all but called me a liar and off-handedly accused me of being a druggie scrappling for pain killers.

So, in my opinion (feel free to form your own) PMSI is the most incompetent company I have ever had the displeasure of working with, and I highly suggest you run for the hills if you are forced do business with them in your future.  Case in point: I received my medication on Wednesday afternoon. It arrived via FEDEX and, doing what I always do, I opened the package immediately to make sure they didn't screw something up.

Oh...something was screwed up all right. Screwed up big time.

I instantly recognized that I had received a shortage of medication. The container wasn't even half full which was a big red flag.  I hand counted what I was sent, and I concluded that I was missing ¾ of my Rx. The first thing I did was call PMSI, and they immediately launched an investigation to see what the problem was. They said they would call me back in a few days.  I will be the first to admit, I fully blamed PMSI for this mistake, and it didn't even cross my mind that something else could've happened. The bag, so I thought, hadn't been tampered with and, because I had had so many problems with them before, I knew that they had caused the miscount.

I also knew that they were going to blame me for the mistake and take absolutely no credit whatsoever for the problem.

Which is exactly what happened.

I received a phone call from one of their agents this morning who was incredibly snooty from the moment she started speaking, and she told me that they had launched an investigation and concluded that they hadn't done anything wrong. I explained to her that that was impossible, a mistake had to have been made, and there was a big problem because I was out over ¾ of a medication that is supposed to last me an entire month.  I suggested that maybe someone had manipulated the paperwork. She told me that was virtually impossible. I told her the paperwork had to be wrong or something else had to be off. She told me it wasn't.

We went back and forth like that for a bit, and you could hear the condescension in her voice. The woman could care less that I was freaking out because I had to somehow survive stretching a 10 day supply into a 30 day supply. She showed zero sympathy for the fact that I have a documented *SPINE* injury that is incredibly painful, and the only way to dull the pain is through my medication. The way this woman spoke to me and the things she said to me and the way she made me feel...as if I were a strung out pill head trying to get something I wasn't owed...was outright disgusting. My husband even commented on how he could hear her yelling at me through the phone.

I have *NEVER IN MY LIFE* been treated that way by anyone in the "customer service" field. And the first thing I did when I got off the phone with her (after contacting my attorney, of course) was file a report with the Better Business Bureau for their conduct. I'm not sure if it'll do any good, but it sure made me feel better.

So, this is where this situation gets even stickier.

When I got home this afternoon, I ran across the package my medication came in. When I noticed it, my heart fell to the floor for three reasons:

1.  The bag had obviously been tampered with. The sealed bag had clearly been re-opened and re-taped which is something that I somehow (WTF?!?!?) missed the first go around. So, more phone calls had to be made.
2.  PMSI's counts were right, and I messed up by automatically assuming they were in the wrong. I take full responsibility for that. However, they still had no right to speak to me or treat me the way that they did. So, the BBB complaint remains.
3. It hit me again that I was destined to be in a ton of pain for the next 30 days, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

I immediately made a phone call to FEDEX and filed a complaint, and they are now launching an investigation of their own. I'm hoping the fact that one of their employee's not only stole, but stole a very well regulated medication that is a felony to misuse, will light a bigger fire under their behinds and help them get to the bottom of this. I made sure to point out the one *GLARING* difference between this shipment versus all the others. This shipment was the first time someone was not home to sign for it, so it had to be sent back to the FEDEX  facility overnight for re-delivery the next day. It sat in that facility for several hours in a college town that doesn't have the best reputation, so that leads me to suspect that's where the problem occurred.

There I go assuming again, but it's hard not to do when you have been dealt a card like this.

Getting to know you...

Have you ever had anything stolen from you?

Do you use a mail order pharmacy?

Have you ever filed a complaint with the BBB?