I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

Archive for the ‘vent’ Category

You ever do something you thought was a great idea at the time, but the hassle made you rethink that decision over and over again?  I’m really starting to feel that way about this whole $50 gift card for using your new credit card operation.  Ugh.

The charge at Walmart from Saturday finally posted to my new credit card account this morning.  I logged in and tried to pay it online on the credit card’s site, which of course meant registering my bank account with them.  I chose this method because paying through their website means the payment will post the same day and I am a huge fan of instant gratification.

I get done registering my bank account, then the site tells me it will take 5 business days for the bank account to be approved so I cannot make a payment until August 15th!  The bill is not due until August 30th, so no worries there, but I had to add the credit card to my list of bills to be paid just so I make sure I won’t forget, and generally, it made me grumpy.  I didn’t want this one purchase thing to take up so much of my emotional energy, I just wanted to do it and be done with it.  I’m starting to think it was so not worth the $50 gift card.  But it is too late now so I must forge on.  I’m so itchy to do the balance transfer and be done with it, and now I need to wait even longer.  With all the extra time this whole thing is taking that I never accounted for, I may only be breaking even by the time the balance is transferred.  Lesson learned I guess - don’t bother with rewards when you are trying to stop the interest accruing insanity.

I did also earn 9 “Thank You” points (their reward program) for my purchase.  Must put “Check out Thank You Points program” on my to-do list.  Since I know I will be receiving 6000 Bonus “Thank You” points for my making my first purchase, and that is equal to a $50 gift card, it seems the “rewards” back are less than 1%.  Whoopee.  This won’t be a card I will be using to make purchases to get rewards once we’re not in debt if that remains the same, I can guarantee that.  Maybe it has a great airline rewards or something.  It seems like the card would need to have more competitive rewards to stay in the game.  Unless their only game is balance transfers.

~J

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The Consumerist is reporting Capital One raising interest rates for consumers across the board. I haven’t gotten any notices of interest rate increases yet (in fact the only white envelope that I’ve gotten recently from Capital One told me about my interest rate decrease from 10.9% to 9.9%), but that doesn’t mean it is not coming.

Figures. I finally do this and then it becomes immaterial anyway. Heh.

Of course, I might not get an interest rate increase. From reading the comments to the post, it sounds like not everyone who has a Capital One card has had an increase (yet). And also, hopefully I’ll be transferring this balance pretty soon to a more favorable interest rate, so then it won’t matter at all unless I start using it again.

Which I won’t.

But still. If it does increase, this is my favorite ironic financial moment thus far.
~J

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Why is there still lead paint being used at all on children’s toys?

A short while back there was a recall issued for a number of Thomas and Friends wooden trains because lead paint was used on them. I don’t own any Thomas trains, but still I was outraged. Lead paint on a children’s toy? What? Who would do that? I chalked it up to an idiotic isolated incident, but now I am changing my tune.

In breaking news, Mattel has issued a recall on a whole host of toys for the same reason - lead paint. I’m in shock. How does this happen? Although we do not own any of the toys manufactured in the questionable time period (roughly May to July 2007), we do own some of the toys on the list (from an earlier manufacture). My 9 month old regularly chews on every toy we own. Do I trust that the lead paint was this specific isolated incident? Do I remove all the toys that are on the list regardless of manufacture date? Or do I let my kids keep them but keep my daughter from chewing on them (yeah, right, okay then).

I’m outraged. I’m shocked. How does this even happen? Lead paint. Lead paint on a children’s toy. What? This is the height of stupidity.

~J

Edited to add another link for the newest recalled toys because the traffic to Mattel’s inhouse list exceeds what their server can handle. Although if you might have one of these toys please try the Mattel link again later because there are pictures there of every single toy (if you click on the “I might have these toys” selection to help in identification.

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Well, after my son’s soccer practice this afternoon, we all got in the car to go home… and the key won’t turn.  We jiggle the wheel and jiggle and jiggle and try my spouse’s key and… nothing.

:sigh:

My spouse got a ride back to our house with another soccer parent and came back with his car, we transferred the carseats and took the kids home.  I called my dad to ask for advice during all this because he knows a wee bit about cars, and he said to call a locksmith first before getting the car towed.  So I did.  The locksmith gives me advice involving WD-40 and says if I can’t get it to turn, call back and they would come out first thing in the morning.  Apparently locksmiths handle this type of stuff.  I had my doubts.  Never doubt your dad ;).

I log into my bank account online and the check I deposited today — still marked as pending.  Not having any idea how much this all might cost in the end… I transfer $350 from our savings account.

Best laid plans and all that.  But, at least, this does qualify as an emergency.

We all pile back into the spouse’s car and go back to my car, and much WD-40 and jiggling and turning and such… no dice.  Car still sitting in parking lot, with a nice cheery note on it now that it won’t start and we are moving it in the morning, promise.

So, tomorrow morning I’ll be getting up bright and early and meeting a locksmith.  I can only hope they can fix it and it doesn’t cost too much.

I had every intention this morning of not touching the savings account.  Then life happened, but at least I had a savings account to touch.  And I haven’t spent it yet… well, I did buy WD-40 and we got french fries at Sonic to mellow out the boys who hadn’t had dinner yet during all of this.  And a chocolate shake. I needed the happy pills in chocolate ;).  That’ll all get classified as miscellaneous in the budget I think.  Hopefully I’ll have money to transfer back to savings after this mess is sorted out.

Did I :sigh: yet?

~J

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I wish I still didn’t know.  And I wish I knew how they knew about me.

Yesterday in the mail I got a letter from a company called Certegy forwarded from my old apartment address.  It looked like junk mail but lucky for me I opened it anyway.  Inside is a letter telling me that one of their employees stole data from them possibly including my name, address, and/or bank account number and sold it to a bunch of telemarketers/direct mail people.

Um…. WHAT?  Who the hell are you and why do you even have this information?

Apparently Certegy provides check authorization services to a bunch of retailers.  What I don’t understand is… I seriously CANNOT remember the last time I wrote a check for something at a store.  Like… never.  Is using a debit card the same?  It doesn’t say anything about debit cards, and the last four digits of the account at the top of this letter is definately my bank account not my debit card.  Is this from online banking?  That’s the only thing I can think of although I’m not doing online banking with Walmart or Home Depot.  But I do pay several of my monthly bills online.  But again, I don’t have monthly bills to a retailer.

So seriously…. why does Certegy have information about me?  Why don’t they tell me *that* in the letter instead of useless garbage about how they think my information is not being used for identity theft but instead to send me more junk mail.  I had to research Certegy online to even figure out why they might have any information about me at all.

I’m confused.  I’m not sure what to do either.  Anything from closing my bank account to just watching for activity.  I may put a fraud alert on my credit report but I am afraid that will mess up the credit card we recently applied for to transfer our balance.  I will say this though:  if I figure out how Certegy got my information, that’ll be the first place that will lose my business completely.

My last name is rather unique and hyphenated, and seriously every junk mail peep does something else stupid to it.  I haven’t gotten any junk mail recently with Certegy’s version of my last name.

Oh, and Certegy says they were “victimized”.  Um…. no, that’d be ME you idiots.  Save the violins cause I am sure I’m not the only person pretty mad right now.

~J

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