I may have mentioned before that I am not in favor of borrowing money to buy stuff. Life is so much easier for me when I have no payments.
From time to time, I lose my mind and get one of these 12 months, no interest deals. I almost always regret it and wind up sending in the full balance after just a month or two. You think I would learn. You would be mistaken.
At Christmas time I was in the Best Buy and was roped in by a super duper deal on a flat panel television. There was some sort of promotion involving having to use a Best Buy credit card, with no interest for like 24 months or something. Against my better judgment, I went for it. The total purchase was $2000 or there abouts.
In January the lovely Mrs. Sneed sent the creeps that back the Best Buy card $900. Then on February 18th she sent another $300.
Last Saturday, March 10th, I was reconciling Mrs. Sneed's checkbook online and noticed that the check for $300 hadn't cleared, even though it had been sent 20 days earlier. I made a note to check the Best Buy web site online and see if it had been received. When I checked, I found that it had been posted to the account on March 8th, meaning it took 18 days to get to them and be posted to the account. I figured that it was strange, but no big deal.
Yesterday we got a statement from Best Buy showing a $35 late charge. I called and the moron in the Best Buy credit card call center, and he tells me that they got the check on the 8th and that he can't help it if the mail is slow. After some wrangling and a lecture from the moron about the importance of sending payments on time, he said he would take off the late fee just this once, and as a courtesy. He was emphatic that it was a courtesy.
I sent the remaining balance today and vowed once more to never do this again.
Dave Ramsey said the other day that credit card companies are making more on late charges and fees than on interest. I have no doubt that the credit card guys have a number of steps in their process to delay posting payments to garner late fees.
I may or may not have learned my lesson.
In work-related news, today was a pretty good day. My coworkers were both out, one sick and on at a meeting away from the office. I love not having other people around work. They attract all sorts of undesirable character, like the boss or the salespeople. Me, I can't attract flies. Well, maybe flies, but small ones. Besides flies are less annoying that a lot of people.
Speaking of the boss, I was trying to tell Randall Bing something yesterday, when he got a very, very important call on his super cool Bluetooth earphone telephone thingy. I know it was important because he answered it in mid-sentence and whispered to me that he had to take the call and would be right back. Since it has been 2 days, I'm guessing he forgot. Too bad, he needs my information and just doesn't know it yet.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
Tag: Daily Life
Personal Finance
Humor
