Credit Card Paperless Payments BEWARE

Today you get a new credit card and it is great!!! You have done so well maintaining your credit by always paying on time. The new Credit card company lets call them Merrick Bank emails you and offers you a paperless plan which means you will receive an email each month letting you know that you payment is due and you can actually click on a link and pay the card easily. Wow is technology great a company that will always remind you that your payment is due. Everything is going well and then what happens when you for what ever reason start relying on that email and you don't get one will you remember to pay that bill. The odds are against you because we are all human and quite honestly need the reminders. Now let’s say everything is going well for six months and on the eight month you get an email and your minimum payment has really gone up so you check your transactions and you have a $39.00 late fee applied. You think this can’t be possible you check your bank account because every email you have received you have made a payment. Well after checking you realize that on the seventh month you did not make a payment. After checking your email history you can’t find an email from the credit card company. Now you are furious you call the company and the only explanation is we are sorry please make sure to add their company to your address book because your spam or bulk folder may have caught the seventh email. What a crock because one through six and of course the eighth email came through just fine. Now let’s look at the numbers what would happen if for some reason 10,000 clients of this credit card company were paperless and just 50% of them relied on the email reminders. That means an additional ONE HUNDRED NINETY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS PROFIT. For that company I’m sure it is a lot higher. I am now back to receiving a paper bill each month and I highly recommend you do the same.

Net Neutrality

How much can we take? Big business is controlling just about every thing we see and hear on the TV, Radio and read in the Newspaper, now they are going after the only source we can use to find the real answers our INTERNET. If you have never been to a foreign Country you have not been exposed to the infringement on this right, Some Countries restrict certain sites that are thought to be not suitable to their beliefs. The Companies that are now trying to and lobbying to control our Internet are winning and our Leaders are letting them do it. In the very near future unless you get involve your internet will be controlled not only by access but also content. I ask you who are they to say where and when I get to visit a place on the internet. I am not saying that I condone any websites I am just saying I should have a choice to visit any site I chose as an American. We need to wake up and get involved and to be honest I feel lost and abandoned by the people that we expected to protect our rights.

Stuck in the Box

Each day we go through life in our own little box. We really don't keep informed on matters that will affect our children or our grandchildren. Until recently I considered myself as one of you. Today if seems like I have had an awakening and people I really don't like what I see. Our Country is out of control we are paying as much as $3 per gallon for gas, our food and basic cost of living has our Grand Parents making choices on whether to buy groceries or buy medicine. I know we hear about how much petroleum is in Europe and have been called spoiled because we are paying less, but these Countries that have those prices have National Healthcare and we don’t. By the way a gallon of gas in Kuwait cost 78 cents. Why have our leaders letting Big business control our economy? We have larger Companies buying all of the small companies or some call it a merger. I live in a City that has one convenient store chain that operates at least 21 stores. What is amazing is you can drive 38 miles to a city within the same state and gas is 20 cents cheaper per gallon. The Convenient store chain controls the price in our city, if they go up in price the other convenient stores will go up to within 1 cent of their price. We call this price fixing they call it competitive pricing.

Rebates from Manufacturers

Rebates from Manufacturers

We all see the great Price!! buy this 32 inch Television for $349.99 and in small print after $150.00 rebate. The problem is our brain keys in on the $349.00 not the $499.00 price tag. We also don’t look close enough for the expiration date or associated purchases that are required to meet the Rebate requirements. Okay now we have all the documents required to claim our rebate so we send in the original Proof of Purchase from the box or wrapper with a copy of the receipt. We wait and wait because of course it may take anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks for our rebate check. Then we finally get a response apparently we were supposed to send the original Proof of Purchase seal, but wait we did send it. Now we look for the box and remember when didn’t need it anymore after we cut the Proof of Purchase out. So we decide that it is too much of a hassle. We have just completed the cycle that millions of Americans are facing each year.

New Rebates to Customers courtesy of You

I got a letter from my bank recently that suggested that I use my debit card as a credit card at my local retailers and they would rebate some of the purchase price to me. Wow what a deal right!!! Well it seems that it is such a minimal amount for the hassle. I decided to just try and figure out what was going on. Apparently the Retailers only pay a small amount to the Credit Card Companies when we use our Debit card as a Debit i.e., .39 when we use it as a Credit Card that have to pay between 1.5% to 3.0% of the charged amount to the Credit Card Companies. I just want to know what happen to the idea that debit cards were more secure because we had to enter our Pin number. It seems the Credit Card Companies are trying to make a Buck and not considering the hassles we have to go through when someone swipes a stolen Debit Card as a credit card without having to have any knowledge of the Pin Number. I guess if you want to see higher prices at the checkout then go ahead and get your nickel rebate while the Credit Card Companies make Millions while jeopardizing our security