Tag Credit Cards

Found Money

Michael 4 Comments
Oh you dear people. Everybody wondering “how much be,” then complaining “it’s not enough,” and now wondering “will there be more?” Well not me. I hit the jackpot! Yes I hit it big! I broke the bank! Citibank that is. I got me me a check from them. Me! A big ole check to start the new year. Yes, me! Do you want to know why? An error was made in my favor and they admitted it. In writing. And sent it to me. In a check. They sent me a check for (are you sitting down?) (you should be sitting down) for thirty-five dollars and no cents. Yep, 35 bucks.
 
Schmucks. Thirty-five freaking dollars. That would be 44.55 Canadian. Or if you’d rather — 28.58 Euros, 45.40 Australian Dollars, 26.50 Pound Sterling, 349 Venezuelan Bolivar, 2,588.23 Indian Rupees or 2,600.40 Russian Rubles  Thirty-five freaking dollars. Wanna know more of why? They charged me a late fee on a Home Depot credit card account they should not have. In 2014!!!!!!
 
In July of 2014 they charged me a late fee even though they had credited the payment to my account 3 days before its due date. No explanation why they charged me a late fee when the payment wasn’t late. I saw when it happened six and a half years ago. Actually I saw roughly 30 days after it happened 6-1/2 years ago when I recieved the following month’s statement showing the activity. I brought it to their attention but they couldn’t take my word for it. I referred them to their statement but they wouldn’t take their word for it. I was told they would need the date, amount, and drawing institution of the payment, the confirmation numbers of my on line payment, a copy of the acknowledgement screen or email of that payment, and proof that the payment was actually debited from my bank account and recieved by them. Upon receipt of all that they sent a very nice letter saying they would begin their investigation. And that was the last I heard from them. 
 
That was that was the last I heard from them until January 2, 2021 when slipped into my mailbox was a letter and an attached check for $35.00. A letter that said there was an error. No explanation. No apology. No word that was even the incident provoking this action. Maybe the whole world is getting 35 bucks and I’m not special at all. No mention they would be notifying the credit bureaus they misinformed them of a late payment 6-1/2 years ago and no freaking interest on my $35.00 that you know darn well they would have charged me had I owed them $35 for 79 months. Just $35.00. 
 
Hmm. Well, it’s found money. I should splurge with it. $35.00. I’ll get dinner! Take out dinner. Wait. $35.00. Better make that lunch.
 
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You have the right. . .

Michael Leave a comment

I don’t listen to satellite radio often, but when I do I prefer the commercial free channels. The funny thing about satellite radio is that on the channels that are not commercial free, a great many of the ads are for credit repair, an unusual sponsor for a service that charges hundreds of dollars a year in subscription fees. Or maybe not. One in particular caught my ear lately.

It began, “You have the right to reduce your debt.” My first thought was, no you have an obligation to reduce your debt and it’s called bill paying. Actually, my first thought was to switch channels but I fought that off, not because I need to reduce my debt but that once upon a time I was so heavily in debt that your average homeless person had a higher credit score than I. I reduced my debt by stopping indiscriminate buying, selling off assets, paying off creditors, and closing credit cards. I was pretty sure the fellow espousing my rights to un-indebtedness didn’t have those notions in mind.

I’m sure there are many reasonable ways to reduce debt. Just because most governments haven’t figured out a way to do it doesn’t mean that we have lower ourselves to their levels. Especially on this weekend – Labor Day weekend. Huh? The thing is, you don’t want to reduce debt that’s going to cost people their jobs. Huh?

It doesn’t matter if a business is a 12 seat diner owned by the guy down the street or a multi-national banking business run by a bazillionaire. If you take money away from them they will work out a way of making it up. Either that means raising prices or lowering expenses – and the biggest expense of any business is its human resource.

Yes, you have a right to reduce your debt. It’s not right up there with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But then again, maybe it is. If it makes you happy, you should reduce. You also have a responsibility to reduce honorably. When you sign an agreement to accept the terms of credit it includes the expectation of repayment. It’s what the people who lend you money deserve.  And it’s what the people who are paid their salary based on the money you pay them deserve.

Back to that ad – while most of it was playing I was mentally drifting thinking about most of what you just read. But I came back to earth in time to hear the tag line – “Don’t let the credit card companies trick you into thinking that you have to pay them what you owe.” Huh?

Happy Labor Day.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

It’s Increditable

Michael Leave a comment

Recently I came into some money and did what I’ve wanted to do for years – pay off everything. You see, even though I’ve posted here any number of semi-rants about credit card companies and how we’ve come to pretty much ignore common sense and are willing to charge just about everything including a trip to McDonald’s, for years I had been guilty of just such stupidity. Over the past 5 or 6 years I hadn’t used a credit card but I was still paying for my imprudent spending for 30 years before then. Fortunately I have lived long enough to pay off all of those card and other loan balances.

Let me tell you now though, if you ever plan to do the same, prepare yourself for some pretty annoying communications between you and your soon to be former creditors. I knew enough to know that interest charged is charged daily. That means the balance you see on your statement isn’t your balance any more by the time you get your statement. I called every credit card company or bank (and there were a lot of them) to request payoff amounts. Out of ten lenders, only 3 representatives knew what I was asking. To the others, the thought of paying off everything owed was as foreign as using antennae to get TV reception.  They would parrot the auto-attendant’s parroting of the “last statement balance” and didn’t know that wasn’t the total balance. Fortunately I was able to get the information I needed from a call center supervisor. Perhaps that was unfortunate.

Even with a current balance in hand, a human on the phone, and an ability to pay the stated amount immediately, four of the accounts sent statements the following amount with new interest accrued and due. After making several more calls I was able to ascertain that the reason there were still balances was because although the amount paid equaled the amount due on the day of the call, the amount paid was not credited for 3 to 5 business days resulting in 3 to 5 days of accrued interest. So once again I had to request new payoff amounts and submit new payments. I was not amused.

One account I had actually overpaid. When given a figure it was for interest charged through the end of the billing cycle so when my payment was credited in 3 to 5 business days it was still a few days before the cycle ended and I ended up with a credit for that card. Since I was simultaneously closing accounts as I was paying them off, I had no account for the credit to be credited against. Yet, it was still listed as a credit on a following statement with no mention of how I was going to get my money back. Not wanting to, I called anyway. I was told certainly they could send me a refund check. I don’t know why but I had to ask, why they didn’t just send a check instead of a statement showing a credit for an account that didn’t exist. Their answer was that it was policy to report a balance on an inactive account for three billing cycles before issuing a refund. I thanked them for their information and informed them that if I ever decided to re-open a card with them I would consider the three month rule before I decide to issue them a check. They weren’t amused.

Who were these people anyway? The three cards’ telephone reps who hadn’t a clue about how to determine a payoff amount were all serviced by Citicards, the fourth was issued by RBS Citizens Financial.  The company who wanted to hang on to my money for three months unless I asked for it earlier was Discover. Capital One, USAA, and HSBC were the only creditors who actually were helpful in paying off their accounts.

Certainly it was my fault for getting into more credit than I had a right to. When I finally had the means to get out of debt instead of getting out of Dodge I did so. Apparently those I owed would have preferred I continued to owe them. That’s ok. It took a few months and lots of phone calls but now instead of a bunch of cards I carry around a bunch of money. Boy does that confuse the people at McDonald’s.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Breach My Britches

Michael Leave a comment

We’ve talked about this before and people aren’t listening.  Or maybe they are and they don’t care.  After all, it’s their money if they want to give it away.  It just seems that it’s more the Average Joe and Josephine that are being bamboozled.  And just what are we talking about?  Call it what you will from the polite “breach” to the let’s-be-honest-about-this “theft.”  (And you’re probably figuring out that this isn’t going to be one of those breezy, happy go lucky posts today.)

So, here’s the deal.  Now K-Mart has joined Target and Home Depot and Michael’s and even P. F. Chang’s and Dairy Queen having had their charge systems hacked.  And what about all the other stores owned by the same companies?  If K-Mart’s systems have been compromised what about Sears and Lands’ End and Parts Direct?  Is our money in peril at these stores also?

How do we know these attacks are aimed at the little guys, the you’s and me’s of the world?  Look at the targets, like Target.  Not the sort of places Donald Trump patronizes.  Why us?  Because is seems for the good or bad, our demographic doesn’t pay much attention to our money.  We’re funny that way.  We might make sure our 401K is being matched but we willingly hand over our debit and credit card numbers to any retailer – brick and mortar, on-line, or phone.  It might only be a $10 purchase but it’s usually $10 we don’t have in our pockets and pull out a card for payment.  Stop and think about it.  When was the last time you used real money for gas?

So using money might help to fix things.  If there aren’t cards being used then cards’ information can’t be stolen.  But what about virtual stores?  You can’t stuff a $20 bill into a modem.  We used to use things called checks.  We would order something, send in a check for payment, and the store sent us merchandise in return.  Just like with money!  So you had to wait a few extra days but it beats spending days on end trying to convince the good folks at your local bank that you really didn’t go to Barbados last weekend and spend $2,400 on Jet Ski rentals.

If you think you’d like to get in on this new-fangled thing called money you better do it quickly.  It seems a number of banks are considering doing away with, and some actually already have done away with branch offices.  They could soon be no bank to go to get money.  We’ll still have ATMs but they aren’t any more secure than the stores’ money systems.  In fact, banks have already been hacked.  JP Morgan Chase may be the most recent, and affecting 76 million households the largest, but it’s not the first bank to lose our data.  (See list below.)

Where do you shop?  Big box stores, grocery stores, on-line? This year’s retail “winners” in the data breach contest are the thieves who hacked into Home Depot, Target, Supervalu, Neiman Marcus, Michael’s, E-Bay, and K-Mart.  Where do you bank?  There are too many of them that have been lost to thieves to even think about.  And when you think about banking don’t just think about your debit card.  Where are your credit cards issued, processed, and billed?  Who holds your investments?  Do you have retirement funds sitting somewhere?  And who will be next?  Insurance companies or utilities?

A poll taken by the Travelers’ insurance companies in July of this year discovered that only 23 percent of those questioned worry a great deal about identity theft.  Even though the past year has seen at least a half-dozen major news stories on significant data breaches, this number is actually less than those who worried a great deal about identity theft in May of last year (31%).

So come on now.  Join us and join the folding money brigade.  Do you know where your cash is?

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

(To see our past posts on this topic please enter “Debit” into the search box at the upper right of this screen.  To see the real scary stuff, type in “Bank Data Breach” or “Retail Data Breach” into a search engine, skip the articles and go straight to the comments.  Scary, scary.)

The Top Ten Data Breaches per Bankrate.com (Data from 2013, does not include 2014 incidences.):

Target (affected 40 million card accounts and 70 million customer data for $1.5 billion)
Global Payments, Inc. (1.5 million card accounts for $90 million)
Tricare US Military medical insurance (5 million beneficiaries’ identities stolen)
Citibank (360,000 credit card accounts for $19.4 million)
Sony (100 million users’ identities stolen)
Heartland Payment Services, credit card processor (130 million card accounts for $2.8 billion)
Bank of New York- Mellon (12.5 million customers’ personal data lost during back-up transfer)
Countrywide Financial (17 million accounts downloaded by employee and sold to other lenders)
T. J. Maxx (90 million card accounts for $2.47 billion)
Veterans’ Administration (26.5 million veterans and active duty identities stolen)

And If You Order Now…Part 2

Michael Leave a comment

Some time ago we supposed, “We believe that with two you have a spare.  With three you have a collection.” (See ‘With Three You Get Collections,’ Jan. 9, 2012). Hold that thought.

When we last left our heroes, we were wondering how America has managed to create so many different ways of separating one from one’s money without leaving the house. And wondering beyond that if the trend might ever reverse.

We think we have some other trends that have to reverse first. Some time ago, He of We was at a financial seminar where the focus was keeping one’s money. One of the exercises the 30 or so attendees took part in was a card count. Not as in blackjack. As in credit cards. Not debit cards. Not insurance cards. Credit cards. With those 30 or so attendees there were 187 credit cards also in attendance. That’s at least 6 per individual. That’s a collection. If you add in the debit cards there were 245 cards hanging around in purses and wallets. If you run the math you’ll see that is more than one debit card per person. That might be a spare. The whole kit and caboodle is definitely a collection.

Let’s go back to January of 2012. We also said that collections are not rational and just a little obsessive. You might say that makes sense if we are speaking of coins or art or other objects of value and beauty. But credit cards? Yep, even them. Having six credit cards is not rational and a bit obsessive.   It is also empowers the marketers to continue selling to those who haven’t left the house.

The only way on-line shops, infomercials, magazine inserts, and television shopping networks work are if they accept something other than money. The ready availability of credit and debit cards is their ticket to your bank account. According to the Federal Reserve, credit card balances now total nearly $857 billion. With an average of just about 13% interest on that balance, Americans are paying just about $110 billion a year in credit card interest. And since we all seem to have a collection of them, once one is maxed out we can move on to another and never miss the opportunity to buy that $400 purse.

So there we go again with the purse. Is it so terrible that someone sells and someone else buys a $400 purse? No, it’s not. We’d just prefer to see that if someone is going to buy it for $400 that someone has to reach into her, or his wallet and pull out four $100 bills to pay for it. Then it will mean something. But that’s a different post for a different day.

If you too are concerned about the rollercoaster of remote shopping you too can do something about it. Break up your collection and get back to using money. If Capt. Kirk was able to figure out how to do it, you can too.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?