As a consumer are you well informed? Do you pay attention to the receipts you get and to all the wording on your bills? I have started doing this and have found that there are many times when I am over charged, especially with grocery shopping, and that the fine print on some of the bills, especially insurance bills, has inaccurate information on them. I work hard for my money and I do not want to spend it by being over charged for goods and services.

Several months ago I was paying my semi annual installment for my car insurance. I noticed that the premium had gone up, but I did not pay a great deal of attention to this. My husband noticed the increase and questions this because our policy was supposed to decrease after six months of no claims. We had not made a claim in the six months. I started reading on the bill and noticed that it stated that our drivers license records indicated that we had one or more violations that caused the increase in our insurance. Neither my husband nor I had received a ticket or fine in the six month period. We called the insurance company and we were told that there was an outstanding parking ticket that had been issued two years ago. They said that it was indicated that there was a warrant out for my husband’s arrest due to this outstanding fine. The ticket was for parking in a handicapped space without a sticker. My husband works with disabled clients and is always very careful not to block any accessible spaces, let alone illegally park in one of them. We went to the department of motor vehicles and asked to see our drivers license records. Both records were clean. There was no mention about an outstanding fine or warrant on my husband’s record. We asked for copies of our drivers license records to send to the insurance company. The department of motor vehicles offered to fax the information directly to the company.

When we arrived home we called and explained the situation. The representative stated that they did not know what had happened, but they would readjust our premium and send out a new one. Our guess is that because we have a common last name, someone else’s record was accessed rather than my husband’s or a wrong number was entered when doing the records search. If my husband would not have reminded me about the amount of premium we would have paid three hundred dollars more for our insurance. We would have paid the increased amount rather than the discounted amount for being safe drivers. It is very important to take the time to read your bill statements and also your receipts.