DOUBLE-DAMN THEM!

Ok... Yesterday's post did NOT have to do with any "problem" I, personally was having with banks or Credit Card Companies. THIS one DOES.

BG: I very seldom use checks anymore. With the advent of online banking and bill payments, I do as much as possible online. I use a debit card most of the time, and a credit card for prescription payments, and maybe a few other things (literally... just a few). I've been a member of this bank for over 10 years, and had not needed the credit card until fairly recently, when another CC I had (the only one I was using at THAT time) got screwed up (ONCE!), and interest rates on it went to 33%!

Here's what happened.

Today, I got the bill for my credit card (yes... the ONE credit card that I use). Again, it's through my bank and I got it because the interest was low, and I needed to close out that other card. (This was a few months ago.)

Since that time, I have made MORE than the minimum payment, in some cases HUNDREDS of dollars more. The interst rate on old purchases went up to 18%, I called them and got that down to a promotional rate. The interest on new purchases started at 13% and has been creeping up, slowly, but was still well below 15% UNTIL THIS BILL.

I make my payments online. When I display my accounts, both my checking account and my credit card account show on the same page. Clicking on them shows the transactions. On the credit card account, there's a "Pay Now" link, which I use, transferring the money from my checking account to pay the credit card bill. To keep track of this (and because my parents did this in all their business and personal accounts), I write on the bill when I make the payment. I write the amount, the date, how it was paid, the check # (back in the day), and when, according to the payment manager, the check will get to the one owed. In this case, last month, I wrote that I'd made the "larger than owed" payment and date the transfer was to have been made (immediately) on the bill.

They never got it. My checking account does not show any payment and my credit card account does not show any payment. Now, I owed TWO MONTHS, a $29 LATE FEE, my interest rate for new purchases jumped from under 15% to almost 25%! This all made my minimum payment jump from $22-25 to over $100. So, I called the number on the bill to find out what happened.

Again, they don't show that I made any transaction, and it seems they don't give a damn! A bank I have been with for 10 years and more! Oh, the guy I talked to first says he "took care" of the late fee, and I made a $100 payment (did it online while he was on the phone) to cover the rest and "bring your account current", but he could do nothing else. He passed me off to customer service to see what could be done about the percentage rate.

Jason (who answered "Collections", but then, when I called him on that later, he said he was sorry, that he was with the bank's customer service), there, said there was nothing he or anyone else could do to authorize the lowering of the interest rate back down to last month's level. I asked what I could do and he said I needed to "keep current" for 6 months(!) and THEN they might consider lowering the rate back down. I said "Let me get this straight, the bank screws up my payment, and I get screwed, huh?" Let's just say he was VERY unsympathetic.

After I hung up, I pulled out all my credit card bills for this year, and looked them over, realizing that I'd made above-the-minimum payments since I got it (in fact, the first two bills' minimum payments were ZERO dollars, and I paid almost $500 on them!). So I called the number again, and found out that the ones I call are only authorized to handle billing disputes, and payments (late and otherwise). THIS girl didn't even OFFER to patch me through to customer service, not that SHE wasn't sympathetic, but still...

SO, a customer for over 10 years misses one payment (apparently through no fault of their own) and they are STUCK with a 25% interest rate for six (6) months on their credit card. Make sense to you?

BTW: I DID point out to the first guy and Jason that 25% was in the realm of LOAN SHARK percentages, and stated that I HOPED this was being recorded ("Your call may be recorded for ... " whatever reason), so that maybe someone else would understand the frustration.

Oh... And the first guy I talked to said he'd seen this happen a number of times, where people think they made the payment and closed the screen, when they DID NOT hit that last SUBMIT button.

So, if you use online banking and transfer money from one account to another, MAKE SURE that you hit all buttons correctly (which I'm POSITIVE I did), and, if you can, print off the screen showing that you DID make the payment. It may be the only proof you have.

Just one more indication that industry and financial institutions could give a SHIT about you.
-BS

DAMN CREDIT CARDS and Their Finance Charges

Isn't it amazing that Credit Card companies are complaining that more and more people are filing bankruptcies, yet they continue to use loan-shark interest if you are late on ONE FREAKING PAYMENT by ONE DAY? No. Not me, but I know people.

When interest rates were low a number of years ago, the "penalty rates", etc., were only a few points higher. When interest rates went to 18 percent, penatly rates went to 21 or 22%. NOW, interest rates are almost as low (if not as low) as they were before, but the penalty interest rates are 27-33%! WHAT THEY HELL IS GOING ON?

They will also raise your rates if you've been late on ANY (recent) payment that appears on your credit report. WHY? If you're not late making payments to THEM, why should they care if you were late to another to MAKE their payment?

It's absolutely ridiculous that your interest can jump from under 9% to 30% in ONE PAYMENT. It's also unfair that the finance charges you can incur equal or exceed your payments. There should be a limit (apparently it's over 30%!).

I've also known people who have actually filed bankruptcy. Sometimes they're told not to make any more payments (good for your credit score... of course, if you're doing so to file bankruptcy...) Others had to manage to save $700 (maybe by not makeing more payments...) or so to pay a lawyer for help in filing. Now, if you can save $700, why file bankruptcy?

The government regulates "price gouging" on various things. Why not credit cards? Limit the "penalty interest" to a ONE TIME RAISE of 5 points above what it was when you were late. If you continue to have problems, then they call (and not the nasty "collection agency" calls, but someone within their company who can ACTUALLY help you).

Credit Counselors may need to be regulated, too. I understand some will get your money, and there's no PROOF that they made the payments to the companies as they promised they would. If they will take your case, and deal with the credit card companies, THEY should get the calls, and be penalized, NOT YOU. (Many Credit Couseling Companies are PAID by the credit card companies to make collections... THIS IS NOT RIGHT.)

At least one site I saw recommends that to deal with the situation, you simply stop making the payments to the company, instead putting that money in a savings account. Let them call you a certain number of times, then ask if they'd take the money in your savings account to eliminate everything you owe them, and, according to the site, the majority of the time they will, basically "eating" 50% or more of the debt, just to get the lump-sum of the rest of it. (Of course, you need to make sure to get proof they've actually eliminated the debt, and that they've notified the reporting agencies that you no longer owe the debt, so can no long be late. AND, of course, he offers to help you through the process...) I don't know that 1) this is ethical; 2) not dangerous. The claim is that your credit score will "take a minor hit" during the process, but once the charge is gone, your score will start raising, again.

It seems there's no legal or ethical way to "get out from under" consumer debt. Unless you can fully pay them off, it seems like a mathematical equation approaching zero (1/n+1 where n starts at 1 and grows... You will NEVER hit zero, even when n is infinitely large... It's ALWAYS just out of reach.)

Just like gas prices, when the companies find out what the market will tolerate, you can never expect those prices to go back down to levels EVERYONE can live with. Well, when interest rates were 18%, the credit card companies found that the market would tolerate 21%+ penalty interest. When the rates went down, they DID NOT lower the penalty rates.

It seems that if the credit card companies will negotiate a payment of 50%+ LUMP SUM to eliminate the debt owed them, they should also be willing to forgive part of the debt on the card, without the debtor resorting to non-payment or threat of bankruptcy. (Suggestion, simply drop ALL of the accrued finance charges and start them over - ONE TIME OFFER!) AND, if a person has made payments regularly and on time, if they're late once-a-year (AND only for that company's payments!), it should be forgiven.

(Oh... And at least one of the people I know in these "straits" CONTINUE to receive credit card offers - some with low interest rates, some with high - even from the SAME company!)

It seems to me that if credit card (and other loan) companies don't want to play fair with the public, it's time for the government to step in and and MAKE them, and SOON!

Where've I Been?

Ok... So I'm not very good at "keeping up" as far as journalling my activities and interests go. Sorry!

I've been working on adding new content to and revamping Orange Frog Productions (my website.) I'm trying to do as much as possible in CSS and SSIs. Currently, the site uses external javascripts for some of the formatting, and this causes the warning bar to appear. I've worked out some problems (using divs, a class to indent instead of "blockquote" and other things), and am working on splitting the site into three sections (main, personal and scams/shams... ) with a link to my subweb, LYAO OnLine. It will take a while to convert all the current pages to the new styles (especially with working on other things), but I believe it will be well worth it.

Speaking of LYAO, I'm continually adding to the LYAO subweb... I'm revamping and adding all the old LYAO joke-letters to the site. So far, I've got between 60-70 from 1998 in there... a few more months of those and I can start on 1999! Then only 6-8 more years to go! WHEW! I didn't realize I'd put out so many of them! AND, after a hiatus, I'm pretty-much back to sending them out at least once-a-week.

I've also been working on some genealogy (distant cousins). I'm having problems finding my great-great grandmother (Florence Elizabeth Rawlings/Rawlins/Rollings/Rollins/etc. b:06/1860 IN, d:03/07/1920 Sheridan IN, m:12/18/1877 Hamilton County, IN to John Charles Freemont Emry/Emery b:1857 OH) ) with her parents in ANY census records (I use Ancestry.com.) My only conclusion at this point is that I have the wrong parents for her (Aaron and Hester A (Stephens) Rawlings/Rawlins/etc.?) Anyone have any ideas? (This and the following paragraph may appear in a genealogy category/section of this blog, too.)

BTW: Those of you with ties and/or relatives from around Sheridan, Noblesville and Boxley, Hamilton County, IN and Lebanon, Boone County, IN should know there's a great monthly newsletter put out by Barb Hiatt of Lebanon (formerly of Sheridan area). The site is www.sheridannews.net. The newsletter is called "Our Home Town" and past newsletters are archived. Barb gathers and posts information about the happenings in these areas, the obits and asks for "memories". I have found hundreds of items on family members (many distant and many not-so-distant) cousins and relatives in the archives. You can sign up for the newsletter on the main page. The archives are "passworded" (a simple password to remember) and there's a pretty good search engine used in them. Barb is "genealogically inclined", so tries to make sure there's family information in the obits. Check it out.

I'm STILL waiting to get hand-controls and other modifications to my van through Voc Rehab (see OFP, What's New(s) for more). I can't believe that it's taken almost three (3!) years to get to the point where at least we have the bids and are just waiting on a completion date from the vendor so authorizations can be sent out. I can "get out" now and then, when I have someone to drive me and help get my scooter out of the back of the van using aluminium ramps. (I can walk some, but if I will have to walk very far, I need to use the scooter.)

My son graduated from Purdue, May 12th, and because my wife works third shift and sleeps during the day, and because I couldn't ask my 70+yo father to help with the ramps, I couldn't go. (Ok... and because of the hassle of driving a scooter around Purdue with all the students and parents and...)

My uncle's girlfriend's mother and uncle - her mother's brother - passed away just a few days ago (within a couple of hours of each other) and, for the same reasons, I couldn't go.

Luckily (if you want to call it that - scheduled for a Friday, so my wife could sleep after it), I made it to my ex-wife's mother's viewing a couple of weeks ago. ("Ex-wife's mother?" you ask. Yes. I spent 15 years with my ex and had two boys. The divorce was between me and HER, not her family, and her mother was STILL my sons' grandmother... Right? Even if we didn't get along, I needed to at least "make an appearance".)

If my van was modified, I'd have at least had the option, the prior times. GEEZE!

And, of course, all the "good" television shows (as far as I'm concerned) have been running their season finales.

I don't know how well I'll do on "keeping up" here, but I guess we'll see. Check out those links (and the ones on the side.

Later

Mother's Day, 2006

I received an email today that prompted me to write. Be sure to check out my Writings section at Orange Frog Productions and especially Prompted by Email - I Love You.

There are plenty of other things to see at OFP. One of the more popular seems to be the Scams, Shams and Flim-Flams section, dealing with Infomercials, Fraud and Phishing and Rumors, in that order.

I put the main links and a few other "family" site links in the sidebar, here.

If you want to know EVERYTHING that's there, check out the OFP Site Map. Like I said, there's a lot of handy and (I think, of course) good stuff there!

New Blogger Alert!

And so it begins... I've never "blogged" before. However, since I started putting stuff on my webpage, and hadn't gotten any responses (despite views), I thought I'd try it out. I'm not sure how I will use this, so will have to see how this goes.

This will be my "main" section, where I will note changes to some of the websites on which I work, talk about what's going on in my life (for those interested) and... we'll just see. I will probably set up other blogs... Again, we will see.

I have various interests and my family looks to me to research some of the emails they receive. I help them out with step-by-step instructions that will probably (I hope) help others who use PCs and Windows (no flames from MAC or Linux devotees... They're what I've been using for years, so I know many of the programs they use.)