Window Shopper

I told you before that I hate moving. Frankly, it seems that I hate doing anything to change stuff. Even if it would make things better, I just hate to change because it means that my ordered world is in flux. Does that make sense? Probably only to me. But that’s all right. There was a time when everything was new and exciting. I think I was 6 years old. After a while, I did not want to change anything. Too much work? Probably. And then I figured out that it was going to take time to learn the new whatever. That was the problem. Its always a problem for me. If nothing changes, I can live in my nice little world and relax. If things change, there is no relaxing. Okay, I am very lame here.

So you can see what kind of difficulty it was when we started changing banks. We had checks from the old. We had to order checks for the new. New tellers to meet, new accounts to start. Getting known at a new bank when you are known very well at the old. It was all about getting the balance transfers done with as little problem as possible. I know. You are thinking, “What the heck is wrong with this woman?” She acts like the world would end if anything changes. That would be sort of right. I enjoy things staying the same. That’s a world I know. The unknown is out there but I want someone else to go look at it first. Captain Kirk, I am not.

Recently, I came across a phrase that I had not heard before, fee harvesting credit cards. What the heck is that? It’s quite simple really. It is a credit card that has all sorts of fees and interest tacked onto the bill for every little reason. For instance, you could have a fee for starting to use the card, activation. Then, there would be a monthly fee for HAVING the card. In addition, you might get late fees if you are even a day late with a payment. And so on and on. The fees will be there whether you like it or not.

I talked with a friend of mine who believes that she should pay everything on the credit card bill because it’s the honorable thing to do. I agree that if you incur bills that you should pay them. I agree that if there is a balance on a card, it should be paid and on time. I agree with all that. HOWEVER, I do not agree that your money should be poured down a rat hole just because some unscrupulous company decides to milk you for all you are worth and then get more. That’s what a fee harvesting company does. The whole thing is in a very technical language that you will not be able to understand, sometimes even the lawyers do not understand it.

Now, this friend has a credit card bill that is so far above what she and her husband could pay that she will drown in the debt of it if something is not done. Before you start to judge this person about paying for things bought, I should like to let you know that the couple in question has no income other than social security. I wonder what type of credit card company would be willing to give a card to somebody who has no more income than that? And you should know that they were needing some type of way to pay their bills. This was not as cut and dried as it may seem. One more tiny thing here. These people scraped and put together $500 a month to pay it off and still did not dent the balance. COME ON!!! That type of credit card, legitimate one, is simply not possible with their income.

The end result here is that they are piling up interest and fees on a very low balance. And after a number of years that they had not been contacted because the company was sold to another and then the credit card bill sold again….all the while, fees and more fees, interest and more interest being put onto an already inflated bill and you have a mess that will likely NEVER go away. EVER! There are only a couple of ways this will be resolved. ONE, they find a lawyer or mediator that will make the company drop all fees and interest and pay only on the principle of the bill. TWO, go file bankruptcy and hope that this company doesn’t sell the debt again. If they do, the nightmare will likely continue until the people either die or change their names.

So the answer to the above question is NO, NO, NO!!! NO WAY will I get wrapped up in that mess of credit cards and the ripoff companies that hand them out. There is a word for these people, GREEDY!!!!

The problem I have in our neck of the woods is that the banks do not always have what some of the larger banks in bigger cities have, namely the little extras in those accounts. These are usually very valuable and are sorely missed in our area.

WaMu has those little extras that you look for in a bank and a checking account. It is, of course, free checking plus free checks for life. I really liked that feature. Then you can have free ATM withdrawals all over the world. Hey, I love that idea. I’ve been in places where I needed funds but the ATM didn’t want to work with my card. I also like the idea of the free gold MasterCard debit card. Very nice. The big word in all of this is FREE!