Stupid Credit Card Companies

My lovely wife and I eliminated all but one of our credit cards. That one is truly only for emergencies. 

It didn’t take long but we just got a preapproved credit card in the mail. The terms of the card were awful, combining a yearly fee with a high interest rate. One of the reasons we got rid of the credit cards in the first place was due to a jump in interest rates. 

Now we are running on debit cards, cash and checks. Yes, checks. I’m a boomer. Some people think having to deal with a check is a hostile act. That’s cool. I actually write checks to one company knowing they hate to have to deposit them. It’s one of those companies I have to deal with but don’t much like. 

I’ve no payment apps on my phone. Last year my PayPal account got hacked. It was soon straightened out, but that’s all I needed to eliminate them too. 

Actually, I do a lot of “business” in the barter and gift economies. It’s a win for the little guys and doesn’t leave a paper trail. 

Money is something for use outside of one’s tribe.

-Sixbears

Fraudulent Charges

The call came in New Years day at eight a. m.. I was contacted by the fraud protection team for a card issued by my credit union. 99% of the time they call for no good reason. This time was that 1% good reason. Someone had put a $104 charge to my debit card. I told the fraud people that the charge was not valid so they put a stop to it. Good thing. When I checked my account on-line there nine of those $104 charges.

The fraud people should shut the card down, but that's it. I'll have to get hold of customer service to sort everything out. They'll also have to issue me a new card. Good thing I'm still at home. It's been my bitter experience that I have to either get a new card mailed to my house or pick one up at one of their branches. That did me no good at all when my card was shut down when I was traveling in Florida. My credit union only has branches in New England.

This is not the same financial institution that messed up my home escrow account last week. Of course, then it was tough to sort out because of the Christmas holiday. This time around it's the New Year holiday. Splitting up my finances gives different institutions a chance to mess up my financial life. It's good that the fraud people caught it, but what an annoying way to start the new year.

I'm starting to think that I probably shouldn't use my debit card when traveling. Security experts recommend against it. Credit cards have better protections. The thing to do is to use a credit card from a national bank. When the bill comes in I can pay them with an electronic check. When I lost my wallet in a shipwreck in Florida, it was a good thing I had a card through a national bank. They had no difficulty with shipping a replacement to a Florida address. We used that card to get back home. The best my local bank and credit union were able to do was to mail me some temporary checks. Who takes checks these days?

I should be able to sort this out later in the day -assuming the customer department doesn't place me on hold forever. Worse come to worse I could always stop by in person. That's usually effective as I'm too freaking big to throw out.

-Sixbears

Economic Depression and You

Anyone want to bet on the economy? Anyone?

Funny thing about economic downturns. The kinda sneak up on you. We tend to think the start of the last major depression coincided with the collapse of the stock market. While in hindsight that was a major turning point, the average Joe at the time didn't feel it. Some folks were impacted right off, but others didn't feel the pinch for a year, two years or even longer. A minority actually prospered.

Even most of those who lost big didn't get feel the full brunt of the downturn immediately. It took some time for savings to be exhausted and debt collectors to catch up. Some folks limped along for a while selling hard assets at fire sale prices. There are families who's tales of the depression are about how they had to let most of the servants go. Yeah, times were hard on them.

There are a couple of ways to deal with a downturn in one's economic situation. One is to limp along trying maintain as much of the old lifestyle as possible. Middle class people will probably try and do that by living on their credit cards. The idea is that when their situation improves they'll make good on all that debt.

Another method is to not wait for things to get better. Instead you assume things won't, at least for a long time. With that in mind a person's lifestyle is ruthlessly cut back. Expenses are reduced to reflect one's downsized income.

Personally, I've used both methods at the same time. That's not something I recommend, but I had some reason to expect a monetary settlement that would eventually cover most of the debt. While it worked for me, it was a near thing. The stress level is pretty high so if you can reduce your expenses and still live a reasonably comfortable life, that might be better.

Most people think they are in pretty good shape if they have the resources to survive a year. Yes, that's good, but economic depressions don't last just one year. If you can radically downsize maybe that cushion can last much longer. The time to prepare for a down turn is before it really impacts you.

On a personal level I was fortunate that I had my own well, some solar electric power, and a woodstove. Those resources were extremely useful. However, after four years I was about to lose the house for nonpayment of the mortgage and taxes. Even if the house had been paid off, I would have been unable to pay the taxes. That's something to keep in mind. They will take your house away and put it up for auction.

Now is a good time to figure out how to deal with a depression. It might be a world wide economic downturn or it could be something personal like a job loss, medical expenses, or other problems like legal issues.

Don't let your problems pile up. Have a plan. The last thing you want to do is ignore approaching disaster.

-Sixbears

Doesn't stay fixed

A couple weeks ago I laboriously set up a way to pay my bills on-line. The process was unnecessarily complicated by my old credit union being bought out by a much bigger fish.

Today I discovered that the payment system that worked well last week wouldn't even let me into the system. That's how it started.

Not having time to deal with that , my lovely wife and I went into town. After treating her to lunch, I learned my debit card would not work. It took a while to get through to the credit union on the phone. Eventually, the problem was sorted out and the card ran just fine.

Soon after my lovely wife walked into the local branch to change the pin number on her debit card. There was a very long line. Apparently, when they transferred the old accounts to a new server, they entered then in such a way that every single account was in default. No wonder the card would not work.

It didn't matter if it was a debit or a credit card. Nothing worked. Imagine trying to buy something at the store. Your debit card is refused. Then your credit card from the same institution is also refused. That's what happened to a lot of people.

It occurred to me that a person would do well to have access to accounts from different institutions. Local accounts for day to day use, and then maybe a card with a national bank for emergency use only. Operator error crashed my local accounts, but it could have been a natural disaster. Being able to tap into funds from across the country could be a good thing.

Of course, I took out a good wad of cash before leaving the credit union.

-Sixbears

My activities look like fraud

According to the credit card companies, my activities look like fraud.

We don't use credit cards all that much, and when we do, the banks panic and freeze our account. Back in February, my debit card stopped working. I never could get that straightened out over the phone. It had to wait until we got back from vacation and I physically walked into my local bank. Even then, there was some confusion on how to make the problem go away.

Since that card froze up, we ended up using a credit card. Using that card a few times was enough to get it frozen too. We never noticed, as we discovered my wife's debit card, on our joint account, still worked.

Well, today, cash being a bit tight, my wife tried to use the credit card again and was refused. (She had a backup.) Turns out it's been frozen since we bought some nice sheets back in February. I guess sheets with a decent thread count are way out of my normal buying habits. Not that we've used that card enough to get a track record.

Now a lot of what the big banks are doing looks like fraud to me, but who's going to cut them off?

-Sixbears