credit cards.
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Here’s one that took me by surprise. I received a credit card bill the other month, and there
was a finance charge for $19.62. Now,
I’m pretty consistent about paying my bills on time, so I figured there
must be some kind of mistake. I called
up the credit card company and asked what the deal was, thinking maybe my
check had been late somehow. They
told me no, they had received the check just fine; the big finance charge was
because I hadn’t paid off the entire balance. huh. I had done some traveling that month, so my balance was $2801.36. I was in a hurry when I wrote the check, so
I made it out for $2800 even, figuring the interest
on the extra $1.36 wasn’t going to kill me, even at the exorbitant rates
that credit cards charge. It turns out
that this particular card, which I only got recently, charges a finance
charge for every month you don’t pay off the entire balance. I admittedly hadn’t read through all
eighteen pages of the cardholder agreement, but this struck my as pretty
lame. To their credit, the company waived the charge this time,
and from now on I know to pay this particular card off every month. But man
– on top of the criminally high interest rate and the flood of junk
mail clogging my mailbox, a $20 fee on a $1 balance really seems like
overkill. It’s enough to make you appreciate that last scene
in Fight Club, even after 9/11.
Where’s Tyler Durden when you need him? |