Vakkotaur

I got an ad from an otherwise decent credit card issuer today. They have a promo for July that issues two points per dollar rather than the usual one point per dollar... for certain categories of purchases, and only after spending $x at the one point per dollar rate.

Okkay, that's hokey enough and I can and will ignore the silly advertising gimmick. The irritating thing is the line "Your spending goal is $x" that implies they get to tell me how much to spend. Guess what? My total spending objective is $0.00. While I can't do that, I sure am not spending what some bank (or bozotic marketing company) tells me to, program or no program.

Dear Insurance Company A,

Your marketing folks might have thought that the plain envelope with a return address indicating rate adjustment and a letter with a big check mark by the word DECREASE rather than INCREASE would get my attention and get me to switch to you. They were half right. I now know you engage in deceptive practices by trying to pose as my actual insurer. You just landed on the fecal roster. I don't do business with places that start off by lying to me.

Dear Credit Card Company A,

You can stop trying to get me to get another card from you. I already have one. It's at a lower rate than you're pushing now, and that rate is a fixed rate. I don't need a 0% introductory rate or 0% rate on balance transfers. I don't have balances to transfer from higher rate cards. If I got the card you're pushing, it would be the higher rate card.

Dear Credit Card Company B,

You can stop trying to get me to get your credit card, or you can actually make an offer that's worth more than a warm bucket of spit. I have no need of high rate cards, let alone high rate variable cards, no matter what gimmicks and toys come with it. I don't need worthless points, as I accumulate so few on the fixed rate cards I do have and they all seem to only be good for items I consider to be worthless crap. That's not much of a reward. Oh, I also don't need airline miles, either. I neither spend nor fly enough for them to be worth anything to me.

Dear Credit Card Company C,

Calling a rate fixed and then revealing in the fine print (which I do read, unfortunately for you liars) that it's only fixed for a month at a time and varies from month to month is not being truthful. A fixed rate stays put for more than a month at a stretch. You get a place on the fecal roster too.

Dear Credit Card Company D (and others),

Enough with the phony baloney checks and "free" offers that if gone for enroll a person in an expensive program. The latest one, for a "free" credit report was particularly dandy. Unfortunately for you, I read the fine print. Oh, and in a few months I'll be able to get a free credit report that really is free.

Dear Mortgage Company Advertising on Radio,

Your "interest only" loan sounds good, except for the one huge thing you don't mention directly. Sure, the payments are lower, that's because it's interest only. What about principle? You don't mention that after all those years of low monthly payments the principle will be due in a huge balloon payment. But you want people to ignore that ticking sound, right? Why, at the end I suppose a person could refinance with another mortgage, and remain in debt. I, however, am not that person. My payments may be higher, but when they end, they'll end.

Dear Auto Dealership,

No, I'm not interested in buying a car when the one I've got runs just fine. I was even less interested in buying a car when I was still making payments. I am not interested in a lease, either; the payments don't stop. Oh, you say I get a new car every few years that way? Are your cars so bad they need constant replacement? Next time we meet we'll talk price and I'll be ready to walk out. Even if you were the only game in town, there are plenty of other towns. It's a mobile society, or did you somehow manage to forget that?

Dear Auto Dealership in Another State,

Stop wasting your time saying I'm entered in or can enter in some contest - which excludes people outside your own state. Just because you are stupid, don't expect everyone else to be just as stupid.

There. I feel a bit better now.

Some time back, I'm not sure when, perhaps it was the 1980s, maybe earlier but I wasn't paying much attention, credit card companies started pushing "Gold" versions of their cards. When that wasn't enough, there came the "Platinum" cards. I'd joked that someday some credit card marketeer should come out with a "Radium" card as a "glowing endorsement of your credit worthiness." (This was before the "Plutonium Card" jokes started.)

Since then I've seen the gold, the platinum, and when metals weren't enough, "Diamond Preferred" (what do diamonds prefer, anyway?) and things that are simply "elite" which I suppose is to work on snob-appeal.

Today I saw another one, "Double Platinum." I mused for a moment on the number of albums that would be, then looked it over a bit. A platinum card but with a "double" point (2 micropoints per dollar spent rather than one micropoint per dollar spent). The offer got shredded: Rate above 10%, and variable. The micropoints aren't worth the hassle. Besides, I don't use a card that often. I cancelled a card recently as, among other things, I hadn't seen fit to use it since January.

Classic. Gold. Platinum. Diamond. Double Platinum. Elite. What's next? Or what's missing? Silver seems to be. Well, silver tarnishes.

The rate request form mentioned in an earlier post arrived, as did notification of the new lower (but still higher than I care for) rate. They want me to specify a rate, and will reject anything not specific. They also say that any rate I then get under 19.9% will be variable. I don't need that crap. I'm still getting offers for cards with fixed rates well below that. The ones I don't shred immediately upon opening are for under 10%.

So I guess I'll be cancelling that card, after I look up the proper way to do it. Just phoning them isn't it, I know. I recall it should be a written letter, which a specific phrasing so that credit reports reflect that the cardholder, me, had it cancelled rather than the card issuer.

Huh. Just checked here and find out that a phone cancel isn't entirely a bad thing according to some. Still, I want a paper trail. It also mentions something different about how those looking at issuing a loan look at things. I'm not sure which is true. willowisp's followup to my earlier post said different, and the guy next to me at work had a similar experience - though my own has been that it seemed not to matter much. Oh joy, that same site has another article that contradicts the first one.

That's not really a big deal. I already have the mortgage and at a rate I don't expect to ever see again. Also, I don't have any plans to take out an auto loan anytime soon. If things go the way I'm planning, I hope to never take out an auto loan again.

The Good: The last transaction on my American Express account was one I made in August. I will be getting a new card.

The Bad: My card is missing. Probably lost it somewhere on the MNRF site. Which narrows things down exactly not at all. That card has now been disabled.

The Annoying: American Express wants the lengthy number of the card even to report it missing. I find that rather irksome and silly. The automated menu system has an option for reporting a lost or stolen card. It wants the number of the card you no longer have. When I finally got to a live operator (that it took a while for a live person to answer I can understand - that the automated system gives you another runaround AFTER being told a card is missing I find amazing - in a very bad way) he also asked for the number right off. Probably has to follow a brain-dead script, poor fellow. "The reason the number wasn't entered is that I no longer have the card - and the statements get shredded." Then things finally started going the way they should have from the start.