This has been an odd week money wise and it’s only Thursday. I think it really came to mind this afternoon when I was trying to buy something on line and could not find an option to check out on the site. More on that later.

Odd Week Exhibit A. If you were anywhere in the “48 states, Washington DC , and Puerto Rico” (more on that later too!) or even close by (and maybe even in one of those other two states) and you were seduced by “Black Friday in July” (oddly held on Monday and Tuesday) like I was, you might have purchased an all the rage, newest and hottest, must have, can’t live without item of the year, or an air fryer. In my case it was the air fryer. A week earlier I hadn’t even considered an air fryer but coincidentally Big Lots held its quarterly 20% off weekend immediately before Black Monday/Tuesday. If you don’t have a Big Lots in your state or country think of your favorite discount/buyout store. I saw an air fryer in the ad that came out in advance of the sale and thought “at that price I’ll try one” that price being almost half what it was in a department store plus an extra 20% off. Short story long, by the time I got there they were out. I’d not have given it a second thought except on Monday afternoon I was busy deleting emails when I came across a Macy’s ad featuring that very air fryer at exactly the same price I missed, extra 20% and all, at Big Lots. To make a shorter story longer, when the package came this week it included instructions to submit for a rebate for an additional $10. Just fill out the on line form and they’ll send me a VISA card with $10 loaded on it. The on line form included several fields, all required, including a space for “rebate code.” The instructions noted 6 or 7 countertop appliances each with its own rebate code. Except for my air fryer. Of course.

Odd Week Exhibit B: You remember a couple years ago Equifax, one of the big three credit bureaus who continually tell us how important it is to protect our credit, suffered a security breach that exposed the personal information of nearly 150 million people. They announced a settlement this week. The $700 million settlement includes $100 million in fines and $425 million in money set aside to reimburse associated recovery and corrective action costs for the affected people. Right away you can see some things wrong with these numbers. The fines and restitution amounts total $525 million leaving $175 million unaccounted for. Or more correctly unspecified. Well I guess those lawyers deserve something. They worked out a pretty good deal. The settlement specifies reimbursements of up to $125 per person for money spent on credit monitoring or identity theft protection after the breach as well as the cost of freezing or unfreezing credit reports at any consumer reporting bureau. Payments of as much as $20,000 also will be made for time spent remedying fraud, identity theft or other misuse of personal information caused by the data breach. The payment also covers up to 20 hours spent purchasing credit monitoring services or freezing credit reports at a rate of $25 an hour. So far that comes to $20,625 per claimant but there’s more. The settlement also cover out-of-pocket losses caused by the breach and as much as 25% of the amount consumers paid to buy credit or identity monitoring services in the year prior to the breach. That could raise each persons allowable recovery to $21,000 or more. Except the total specified in the settlement ($425 million) divided by the number of people whose data was compromised (147 million) comes to only $2.89 per person. The article didn’t suggest where the extra $20,997 per claim might come from. (And you thought you’d never use algebra in the real world.) It’s a good thing those lawyers got their couple million up front.

Odd Week Exhibit B-2: It was in the article about the Equifax settlement that I read the following:

“The settlement was reached between Equifax and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission. It covers all 48 states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.”

What do you think – writer, editor, proofreader, or modern version of type setter? Or practical joke to see if anybody notices? Yes, I know it’s not exactly money related but it’s just too good to not mention!

Odd Week Exhibit C: That website way back in the opening paragraph. I even had my daughter check on her computer thinking the mobile site I had opened on my tablet was truncated. Indeed, no “cart” and no “check out” button or icon was on the desk top site either. We did find a “continue” button the opens a pop up window with a brief order summary that included “back” and “continue” options. Sure enough, “continue” was the choice to get the order finalized.

You wouldn’t think it should be that hard to give money away .