The Laptop Saga

**WARNING** Super LONG post!

I contacted Angus's school the other day asking about what happened to the Scholarship money that he had won for his laptop. Angus was awarded a Laptop Scholarship just before he started High School. He had to write a letter stating why he wanted to be in the laptop class, what sort of a person he was, how he would look after his laptop etc. It was really exciting for Angus to have been awarded this money. It was $600 to help us pay for something we could not have afforded at the time. We truly were struggling with paying for everything back then.

Anyway, the reason I had asked the school was the fact that I had spoken with the rent-tech people who are in charge of the financial side of this while we rent the laptop. I had wanted to get a pay out figure from them so that we would own the laptop outright once the three year rental had expired. So I wanted to know the balance owing. I also asked if the scholarship money had been used as the school promised to pay the $450 deposit for me.
Well not the deposit actually as the rental company would not accept my order until I had paid the deposit via credit card before the order was even completed. So technically they school was meant to pay the $450 off the balance owing so I wouldn't have to continue paying the $40 per month for three years.

Imagine my surprise when the lady I spoke with told me that they didn't accept payments like that for the laptops. That the scholarship money was NOT paid into the rental account. I thought hang on a minute where did the money go? The school certainly didn't put credit onto our school account because when I have received the print out for what money we owe its never really shown us in lots of credit.

I finally went into the office the other day and asked about it. Of course they couldn't see what had happened with the money but they had only checked for this year and not last year when the money would have actually been deposited. The lady in the office left a message for the Laptop coordinator so that she could get back to me and let me know what happened.

I received a phone call from the coordinator today. She seemed a bit confused about my inquiry. The question she answered (what the lady at the office had written down) was not the one I had asked. So I explained to her how I had spoken with the rent-tech people. That they said the scholarship money wasn't paid to them because they don't accepts payments in the format. So the coordinator said she would check things out her end and call me back.

I was just curious as to what happened with the money. I think I was within my rights to find out. It was awarded to Angus after all for that BRILLIANT letter he wrote.

The coordinator phoned me back again about 5 minutes later stating that they had absolutely NO record of Angus ever receiving a scholarship. To which I replied that I still had the letter he had written and the letter of thanks that he written once he had found out he had won one. Angus was notified via email that he had received it and I thought he had kept it in his gmail account. I should have printed it out and kept it in his folder in the filing cabinet because when Angus got home from school and logged into gmail I could not find the email at all.

Of course the coordinator sounded put out that I had asked about this now. She basically stated that she had now been lumped with this. She was surprised that the rent-tech people had not queried about this payment earlier. I said that I paid it out of my OWN pocket. I forgot to mention that the order would not have been accepted by them unless I had paid the deposit by credit card. She said she would get back to me.

And now the waiting begins .......

I'll let you know more once I find out what's going on.