Grace: Did you already pay the bills for this month?
Will: No, I haven't gotten around to it yet. Why?
Grace: We got a late notice from the credit card company. The notice says that they
haven't received the payment yet and it's past the due date. We are being charged a late
fee plus a finance charge of 15%.
Will: Let me see that. That can't be right. I paid the minimum payment on the last bill. I
better call and talk to customer service tomorrow. I'm sure it's a mix-up.
Grace: I really hope so. The last time we were late with the payment, I tried calling them and telling them that
the check was in the mail, but they didn't buy it.
Will: That's different. Don't worry about it. I'm sure I'll get it straightened out. Worse comes to worst, we're only a
month late. They won't send the collection agency after us.
Grace: I know I can count on you to take care of it. I just don't want this late payment to affect our credit rating.
Will: Leave it to me. I'll take care of it on Monday. It's as good as done.
In this podcast, we talk about paying the bills, the “bills” means the expenses or the things you have to pay such as your telephone and your electricity and your water, you have to pay the bills, the bills of your house.
Well, in this dialogue, Grace the woman says “did you already pay the bills for this month?” and Will says “no, I haven’t gotten around to it yet.” to get around to something meaning that you are planning on doing it but you haven’t done it yet, maybe because you don’t think it’s very important or maybe because you have been so busy that you haven’t been able to do it. so the expression “have you gotten around to it yet?” “no, I haven’t.” means I haven’t done it yet but I am planning on doing it.
Well, Grace says that they received a late notice from the credit card company, a late “notice” is when you do not pay your credit card bill or any bill on time when you are supposed to and after maybe 5 or 10 days, the company will send you a late notice telling you that you are late in paying the bill. the notice that Grace received says that they haven’t received the payment yet and it’s past the due date, the “payment” is the money that they send to the company to pay your bill, to pay their bill in this case. the “due date” is the date that something has to be paid, it’s the deadline for when you have to pay a certain bill. to say something is past the due date is the same as saying “it’s past the due”, it’s pass the due is the same as it’s after the date that something has to be paid. well, they are being charged a late fee plus a finance charge, a “late fee” is the extra money they have to pay because they are late and a “finance charge” is the money, a percentage that you have to pay on what you owe, this of course is how credit card companies make money, one way that they make money as that if you don’t pay off or pay completely, what you owe every month you have a finance charge and it’s like interest that you pay on a loan.
Well, Will says that he can’t believe what has happened, he says that he paid the minimum payment on the last bill, the “minimum” payment is the least amount, so for credit card company Visa, Master card, they will say “well, you spend 500 dollars, you don’t have to pay a 500 dollars this month, you can pay just 50 dollars and we will charge you interest on the rest of the money.” so the 50 dollars is the minimum payment, you don’t have a late fee but you do have a finance charge. Will says that I better call and talk to customer service tomorrow, “I better call” means “I ought to call” or “I should call” and that’s a common way that we say that for example “you better go to school” means “you should, you ought to go to school”, it’s somewhat informal. Customer service is the department in the company that takes care of it’s customers that if you have problems or complaint, these are the people you call and you end up waiting on the telephone for many hours, that’s customer service, lol. Customer is just of course another word for the person who is buying the product or service. Will says that he is sure it’s a mix-up, a “mix-up” is a mistake, when someone says that was a mix-up, they mean that was some confusion, that was some problem, some error.
Grace says that she tried calling the credit company the last time they were late and told them that the check was in the mail. That expression “the check is in the mail” is sometimes used as a joke meaning I have already sent you the money and it’s in the mail service, they haven’t delivered it yet. many people say that something as a joke because of course you can always say “oh, yeah, I mailed the check already, you just haven’t received it yet.” well, according to Grace , the credit card company didn’t buy her reason, didn’t buy her excuses, she says they didn’t buy it , in this case to buy means to believe , not to purchase something with money, that’s also a use of the word “to buy”. but here means simply to believe something, usually something that is a excuse perhaps or some explanation that may not be true, we will sometimes say “ well, she told me that she love me but I don’t buy it, I don’t believe it.”
Well, Will says that the situation here is different that he is sure he can get it straightened out, “to get something straightened out” or “to straighten something out” means to get it fixed, to solve the problem, to end the confusion if there was a mix-up, you can straighten it out means you can undo or tell the person what actually happened and end the confusion. Will then says worse comes to worst, we are only a month late, the expression “worse comes to worst” means that in the worst possible situation, we sometimes say “worst case scenario”, a “scenario” is like a situation so what he says here is even if the worse thing comes bad worse, something that is more bad is worst, we don’t say more bad, we say worst, something that is the worst situation is the most negative possible situation. so worse comes to worst, Will says we are only a month late, they won’t send the collection agency after us, a “collection agency” are usually private companies that are responsible for getting money that is owed to companies, so when people don’t pay their bills for many months, there will be a collection company that will call them, mail them, try to get them to pay their bills. This collection agency take a percentage of how much the bill is and that’s how they make money.
Well, Grace says that she knows that she can count on Will, to “count on” means to “rely on”, she says I don’t want this late payment to affect our credit rating, your “credit rating” is the information that companies look at when they want to see if you are good with your money, if you have paid your bills on time, and if you don’t you can get a bad credit rating, and in the United States that is very important because if you want to buy a house or buy a car and you have a bad credit rating, many companies will not give you money so it’s important to have a good credit rating by paying your bills on time. Will says to Grace “leave it to me” meaning let me take care of it, I will handle it, I will solve the problems. “it’s as good as done” means you don’t have to worry about it, I am going to do it and there will be no problems.
