Jefke.com

right so you all know of my little problem with the purchase of our new car. I’m happy to say that subaru of america came though and have treated me very well in this whole thing. i got a call today saying that i should schedule my appointment to have the bumper replaced and to give SOA the details and they’ll take care of it. all in all they have been very classy since the dealer went to shit. so i’m giving them credit and my loyalty (well unless the car starts to suck or something)–as the interweb is a tool that can be used for good, evil or to look at nekkid barely legal women, I will go on record to say, that while my purchase experience with russell subaru was fucking awful. my ownership experience with subaru in general has been great, and i have nothing but warm fuzzies for them.

now, on the downside.

i’m having some serious issues with credit card companies people.

firstly let me make a couple of declarations. I have credit card debt…not as much as some people, a hell of a lot more than other people. fuck, i lived in new york city in 1999, it was the go go dot com era, i was over paid for what i was worth, and i spent twice as much as i was paid. i was an idiot. it’s ok. i have some, but not many hazy memories to look back upon.

so that said, i have always enjoyed excellent relations with credit card companies. mainly because i’m ideal to them….i spend too much and always make my payments. i’m never late, so they can’t hit me with late fees or those penalty interest rates (well we’ll talk about that…) but they can depend on a steady, reliable pay till the end of time kind of income from me. and we both seem happy with that.

well something has changed…last fall i took a new (well old) job that paid more, so i buckled down, and stopped using my cards and actually started paying them down. not off mind you, but down. i seriously think that they have noticed this..because…

1) all of a sudden last february, chase, who bought bank one, who bought some other company that I had a dell credit card from since 1998, suddenly reviewed my account and jacked up my interest rate to 28%. now i had a small balance on this card that was locked in at 2.9% for the life of the balance. so one day, i bought something i have no recollection what, and put it on the visa, thinking: "well i know they apply money to the lower interest rate first, but hell what’s 100 bucks or so. well at 28%, that’s it’s a fair amount of money after a while. so i called them up, and they said that they had done a review of my account, automatically and they decided to up my rate. "for a customer that has never been late and has an excellent credit score?" "well, you do have a great credit report, sir–if you feel this was in error, please write this addresss……." "btw sir, remember that your effective interest rate is still very low, based on the balance transfer you set up, which is a fixed rate" fuckers.  so they’re trying to make their money back, great–so i thought…i’ll show them, i thought.

2) so i’m fucking around at amazon, and i see this chase amazon card, you get points for shit you buy and you can redeem them at amazon…seems like a good idea. plus they have a balance transfer deal. ok, so i sign up. they tell me i have to wait for a written reply, which is not very promising.
—so i wait, and a letter comes rejecting me. so i call them. "oh you have several late payments, over 90 days…"  "oh fucking REALLY?" so i freak out, i’m thinking identity fraud and shit. so i get my credit report, and it’s clean, as it should be. so i call again. and the bitch on the phone gets all uppity at me. "well the report i’m looking at is not clean..what about your mortgage…you never paid in May"  the fuck i didn’t. so i callup the mortgage company. "no sir everything is fine, in fact, great–if would you like our credit card?" 

so back to chase. i have a letter of good standing from the mortgage company…so now what do you say. "it must have been an error…we can resubmit your application, but they’ll pull your report again, and actually that can damage your credit score…"— ‘you know what..fuck it i dont’ need the card then’.

3) so last week i get my discover card bill. and i notice the finance charge is almost triple what it should be. so i call them up. "oh yes sir, that’s wrong, i’ll remove it".

—’that’s wrong?’  ‘you’ll remove it?’ fucking A you will, and well how did it get there? would you have caught it if i hadn’t said anything, do you just throw that shit on there for people that don’t look at their bills? double fuck fuckers.

so i’m seriously thinking that the companies don’t like that i’m not adding to my balances and actually paying them down. now we all know i’m a bit of a conspiracy theorist, and well totally paranoid, but it would actually be good business for them to try to punish the people that are making them less money. hell we’ve all heard stories of people that go for a loan but have never been in debt before, so they don’t have a credit rating. how fucking bass ackwards is that? "oh sir, i see you have self control and never got your self in debt on 13 dollar martinis and banana republic chinos…i’m sorry we just can’t take a risk on you with this car loan. you should get yerself about 11k in credit card debt and pay it back over a few years. oh sure you’ll loose some money but you’ll be able to borrow 60k for a new car…which you’ll never be able to pay off".  seems to me like there’s a little bit of a conspiracy here.

so kids, moral of the story: look at those bills every month, and if you’re like me, don’t sign up for electronic delivery, b/c an email telling you that your bill is ready, just isn’t the same as getting a piece of paper each month that you can review whilst sitting on the can…hmm to much information huh….

just watch those bills people. THEY’RE OUT TO SCREW US