Credit Card Companies Suck - My Rant

Flashback – 1992: I just graduated high school and have had a job since 1989. I get an appealing offer from Discover card; a Platinum Card, no less. I’m seventeen years old and back during this time, my parents always told me how tough it was for untested teens such as myself to establish credit. I saw this as my golden, nay… my Platinum opportunity to set my foot in the world of credit. I took the plunge and acquired my first credit card... at 12.00% interest.

The next thing I know, I’m charging stuff that I really don’t need, but my payments are being made every month… on-time. Life was good. Or so I thought. So, here's my first question: Would you give your clean-living kid a dime bag or a crack pipe? Well, unless you were just pure evil, I imagine not. Giving a seventeen year old kid a Discover card might not seem like the same thing, but folks, I had a $10,000.00 limit on this card.

That’s a whole lot of ammo to give to a kid who’s never fired a gun.

So, who made the charges? Well… me! Who bore the responsibility of paying for what he charged? Still me… and I have NO problem with that; I never have. I can even understand charging interest, though I thought that 12.00% was kinda high, given that, at the time, my parents’ mortgage carried a rate of just a smidge over six. Still, I rationalized that this was the price I had to pay as a teen with no prior credit and that, down the road, I’d receive better offers.

I’m 31 now… and only just recently paid what I thought was the full balance on my credit card debts. I officially stopped using my Discover card around mid-2005 and even prior to that, I had only used it maybe twice that year. My debt was steamrolling faster than I could have ever imagined. Why? Well, sh*t happens in life. We all know that. Whether it was me getting laid off at the beginning of 2006 or my mother dying in 2002 and leaving me with a ton of bills that I wasn’t yet prepared to handle, I wound up in a situation where my income alone was no longer enough to sustain the now very high monthly payments, plus mortgage, homeowner’s insurance, car payments, car insurance, oil bills, water and sewer, land taxes, excise taxes, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, and by that time, I also had a Visa bill to pay, too.

Again, nobody forced me to get these cards, but they sure as hell had no problem dangling the meat in front of me. It might be 11:00am and I'm feeling fine and not even remotely hungry, but if you let me smell some tasty food, chances are, I'm gonna wanna eat something. That's the way credit card companies operate. Targeting senior citizens and teens, both of whom are usually strapped for cash anyway, with offers too enticing to refuse. Plus, I always questioned the logic behind giving the rich card holders lower APRs, meanwhile completely ass-raping poor bastards like myself. I wasn’t necessarily poor by standard definition, but I was definitely heading in that direction.

Like I said, sh*t happens and, at times, my need to make an oil payment or, God forbid, a mortgage payment took precedence over a credit card payment.

I don’t have the exact numbers, mind you, but by the time I finished with this Discover Card, it had gone from 12.00% to a whopping 28.99% interest rate! That in and of itself is a tough-ass mountain to climb. But the charges didn’t end there. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say that the Leprechauns of Fortune and Stock Options recently smiled upon me, thus allowing me to pay down these two huge credit card balances, but that certainly doesn’t make this highway robbery right.

Consider this: My Discover Card balance managed to go from under $3,000.00 in 2004 to over $7,000.00 by October of 2006! Sure, I made minor purchases in 2004 and 2005 (mostly groceries and the occasional restaurant outing), but trust me when I tell you, they didn’t add up to anything NEAR $4,000.00. Not by a long shot. A good illustration as to how a credit card company like Discover can rob you blind just recently happened to me.

I got a Discover Card statement in September that said that my balance was just under $7,000.00 (like $6,992.00 or something). Now, all of the funds from my Leprechaun check weren’t made immediately available to me (due to its size), which meant that the best I could do was to make a partial payment of $4,000.00 and pay the rest off when the rest of the funds were made available to me.

Here’s what I did.

I sent a $4,000.00 post-dated check, stapled to a letter. The check was sent on September 30th and post-dated for October 6, 2006. The letter that I attached to the check said in big bold-faced f**king letters that they were not permitted to cash the check until October 6, 2006. I stated this like twice in a very laconic letter, yet they still managed to cash the check on October 2nd, which meant that not only was my entire paycheck obliterated, but I now had a negative balance of well over $3,000.00 and my bank was almost certainly gonna charge me an $39.00 overdraft fee.

So, I called my bank, told them they should not honor this check (as it still wasn’t October 6th) and asked them to credit this back to my account and waive the overdraft fee. To their credit (no pun intended) my bank did exactly as I requested. Fast-forward to October 7th. I have all of the funds available now, so I’m ready for Take 2 of “Pay Discover off and get them the f**k out of my life.” So, I said to myself:

“Okay, at 28.99% interest, the balance will be bigger by the time they get my check, so I’ll send $7.050.00. That oughta cover things well enough.”

Nope.

Apparently, I didn’t see Discover Card gearing up its $240.00 strap-on, ready to f**k me over just one last time. I swear they do this sh*t on purpose just to milk people of every last red penny they can get. They posted my check on the exact same date as the new statement was generated… and what’s funny is that it took them like six days to "receive" my $7,050.00 payment, where with any other check that I've ever sent to them, it's ordinarily taken them like two.

It just seems suspiciously like they held onto the check long enough to tack on all kinds of bullsh*t fees. I got hit with a ridiculous finance charge of well over $100.00, plus a late fee of $39.00 plus… wait for it… a $35.00 fee for my reversed payment! I got on the phone and basically b*tched out the person on the other line. I was like:

“Okay, so let me see if I got this straight. You ass-clowns took my post-dated check, posted it four days early and just did... what? Wiped your ass with my letter?”

Now, here’s the kicker. This grown woman told me that a machine processes these checks.

A machine?

A f**kin’ MACHINE?

Please, please, please tell me you just make a joke to try and get me to laugh. You truly can’t be serious! So, now machines can read people’s handwritten checks, figure out exactly what the amount is, what account it goes to… and cash it without it ever reaching a human’s eyes?

I said, “Okay, let’s say that I entertained this ridiculous notion that you’ve got, like, Johnny Five and the f**king Terminator in the mail room, pulling out checks and cashing them. Who or what was responsible for separating the check from my letter?”

Needless to say, straight (and believable) answers aren’t exactly the cornerstone of the Discover Card empire. So, I demanded that they reverse the $35.00 fee which the woman said she would do but that the change wouldn’t take effect for a few days.

So, they can cash a post-dated check in the blink of an eye, but when I need something done, I gotta wait a week. Hmm?

Okay. Close out my account then… immediately. “But, sir. Wouldn’t you like to take advantage of our new….”

“NO! F**k you and anyone who looks like you! Taking advantage of people is all you ever do and I’m done with you f**kwads… forever!”

Oh, by the way, I ended my Visa relationship in like fashion, having also gotten hit with the exact same types of fees for roughly the same reasons. Turns out their invoice generation date happens to coincide with the roundabout date that I sent my full payment to them, too.

Put another way, had both companies been able to cash my checks even one day earlier, it would have saved me about $500.00! And if you think that Discover Card’s interest was high, try Visa’s at 30.99%! Get this. I called Visa, spoke to some chick named Bhupinder or whatever the f**k it was and for her to even get my name right was an odyssey.

Now, if you’ve ever had to call a credit card company at all, you get their automated labyrinth that you have to navigate through very carefully if you want to avoid Johnny Five and get a flesh and blood person on the other line. Twice, I entered my entire sixteen digit account number, only to have Bhupinder ask for it a third time when she got on the phone. Fine. I give her the number and I wait patiently. “And what’s your name, sir?” “Bill” I answer. Long pause.

Then, she asked me for my date of birth, last four digits of my Social Security number and my mother’s maiden name. Then, she asked me if there was anybody else on the account. “Nope, just me.” Long pause. Then she asked if I go by any other name. I said, “Yeah, my last name, dumbass! Like most people who aren't Madonna, Twiggy or Cher.” I even spelled it out for her, but by this time, my patience was already dissipating. Another long pause ensues... then I hear it.

“Well, I’m sorry sir. I’m afraid I can’t disclose any information to you.”

By this time, it dawned on me that she might be confused because my credit card reads as “William” instead of Bill, so I brought this up to her. Now, she gets it, but still she’s apprehensive... because that wasn’t the name I originally gave her. I asked, “Are you not aware that Bill is a nickname for William?” She said no and that, in her eyes, it was nothing like William. I said, “Well, Bob is nowhere near Robert either, but people don’t seem to let that ruin their day.”

So, I get on with the purpose of my call, which I'll admit was partly to harass somebody because, at this point, my glass of Numbskull Tolerance juice is empty. I asked about the charges that I got hit with between September and October’s invoices, which were again mostly bullsh*t fees. I mentioned the exorbitantly high interest rate to which she nonchalantly murmured, “Um hum” like she's got on diamond shoes and gets her gold fillings bronzed. So I said, “Well, maybe in your world, that isn’t a very high rate, but from where I’m sitting, that’s a ridiculous amount of interest to charge someone who’s struggling to make minimum payments to begin with.”

Then, she goes off on me like, “What did you mean by that? In MY world?” Apparently, she must have thought I was throwing her into a race or creed category, so I stopped her flat. I said, “Look lady, don’t even attempt to try to play any bullsh*t race cards with me. I’m truly not in the mood.” She babbled on and on for a minute, then started calling me “Mr. William.” I reminded her that William was my first name, not my last... and she asked if I would prefer it if she called me “Mr. Bill.”

I was like, “Are you aware that we use prefixes like “Mister” with LAST names and not first names?” She asked, “Oh, well if you prefer “Mr. William,” that’s fine by me, sir." I was like, “SERIOUSLY, DID YOU JUST GET OFF THE F**KING BOAT AN HOUR AGO? Are you not getting enough oxygen down where you're sitting? Did you leave your helmet at home? Did something shiny distract you again? What is wrong with you? Are you that frickin' stupid?” Needless to say, I’m not gonna trust my money to somebody who can’t even get a person’s name right, so I closed out that account as well.

So, I’ll pay the $500.00 whatever in fees to both companies because at this point, I just want them out of my life... definitively and forever.

Words to the Wise, friends: You might be paying your credit cards along just fine now, but if you can avoid it, don’t use credit cards any more than you absolutely have to. Find other ways, folks. If you want it and its expensive, save up for it. If you can’t afford it, don’t get it. Because let me tell you something. Sh*t oftentimes will happen when you least expect it and it doesn’t take long at all to quickly lose control over even one credit card bill, let alone two or three.

Sure, the Money Leprechauns might have smiled upon me, but most others aren’t so lucky. Nowadays, I must throw away like 20 credit card offers a month in the trash, and if you're smart, you'll do the same.

Why?

Because somewhere in Wilmington f**king Delaware, there’s a major credit card company lubing up a large, stiff one just for you. So, do what I intend to do for the remainder of my life. Walk the other way and watch your ass.

Epilogue: In the weeks prior to me paying Discover Card off in full, they had literally saturated my phone with collection calls. I made a note of the date and times of some of these calls. Just look at how many calls I got hit with in a six day period and tell me how this can possibly be legal:

9/13/2006 @ 3:52pm, 5:08pm
9/14/2006 @ 9:30am, 3:49pm, 5:16pm, 6:57pm, 8:06pm
9/15/2006 @ 11:39am, 2:23pm, 6:29pm, 8:14pm
9/16/2006 @ 10:34am, 11:40am, 2:40pm
9/17/2006 @ 10:12am, 12:27pm, 1:35pm
9/18/2006 @ 10:13am, 2:36pm, 4:09pm, 7:13pm

Like... was I their only f**king customer?