On the Whole Foods front, they recently implemented a employee discount program that gives “healthier” employees a larger discount than their “not as healthy” co-workers. Articles abound with all angles of spin, but I think it safe to say it is being received with mixed responses.
This is happening at a lot more companies then just Whole Foods. My wife works for a major corporation in the health benefits section and we discuss this all the time. I still don’t get how they can get away with it, but according to her they can.
As for credit card companies and the like, they do change around their policies at their whim it seems. I got a letter back in November that my credit card would be jacking up my fees to 24.99%, if I missed one payment it would go up to 29.99%. Of course I could opt out of that one, which I finally did, but then they said that any charges already on my card would be kept at the same rate, which over the years went up 10% slowly but surely. However if I put anything new on my card then it would go up to the 25%. I made sure to put nothing on my card after the first week or so of December. Low and behold they held out on one charge for $100 until just last week.
In the past they would hold payments, even electronic payments, for days or weeks. My wife’s card started, but seems to have stopped, charging $15 for using the electronic payment if you wanted to pay on the due date, so you have to pay before the due date? WTH, why even have a due date then?
I finally said fuck it and went with the credit union, 9%, will not go up and I have the same protection as my other card. Up yours Citibank or whatever the hell you are now a days.
The Narrative.
Once upon a time, bankers competed for the deposits of the rich and the well-to-do. Since interest rates are regulated, there wasn’t much they could offer, but offer they did. And it was a poor proposition, as the wealthy would move their money in an instant for the merest advantage, and move it again whenever. Then came Clever Fellow.
Clever Fellow said “This is foolish. Don’t beat your brains out trying to suck in the deposits of the rich and upper-middle, bring in the lower, working classes!”
“But they have no money!”
“They don’t have much money, but they have a little money, and there are millions and millions of them, squandering money on food, rent, and transportation, money that could be yours! Offer free checking! Offer them money for opening an account!”
The bankers black hearts spasmed in horror…
“Give them money!? Our money! Are you mad, sir? Security! Security!..”
“When you bait a hook with a worm, are you giving away worms? You make up the money with services and courtesies! These people will overdraw their accounts, and you will offer them the courtesy of paying, so they won’t be embarrassed, the poor dears. Then you whack them with the courtesy charge, say, $35-50 dollars each.”
“Doesn’t seem like much, once in a while we get a little something…”
"Beauty part. You set up your accounting so that the largest charges are accounted first! Say Poor Dumb Shmuck has $120 in the bank, and racks up 5 charges: one of $110 and ten more of three dollars each, that occurred earlier. So, he’s overdrawn $20. But if you account for them the wrong way…that is, in the order they occurred…then you only get one courtesy fee, the last charge of $110 nets you the courtesy fee. (Remember that word: “courtesy”…you’ll be using it a lot…).
But if you do it my way, 6 of the $3 charges will each net you a fee of $35, generating a couple hundred buck for doing nothing at all! Free money! For you!"
“But what about usury laws and regulations?”
“Its not a loan. Its a courtesy fee. You got a problem, call your legislator.or simply pull his head up out of your lap, and tell him what you want. Just be sure to remind him that its all about personal responsibility, these charges teach valuable lessons in personal responsibility!”
“Oink! Oink!”
“And remember what Jesus said.”
“Who?”
“That guy. When you go to church?”
“Oh, yeah. What?”
“The poor will always be with you.”
“Praise the Lord!”
I now only use CC where I can pay at a branch and get a receipt on the spot Chase, US Bank, Wells Fargo.
I have to admit I have a love-hate relationship with credit cards over the last 20 years or so. As a real estate agent my income varies quite a bit, and there are times that the ability to use a credit card line of credit has made all the difference in my ability to get by. I have several cards with very large limits, but I usually have only one or two in play. I carry a hefty balance on average and my credit is (so far) golden. The saving grace is that I have my balances on some very low interest cards, but I had to shop around to get those rates. Sometimes CC companies will run “specials” on rates just like any other retailer trying to move their goods.
Over the years I dutifully mailed in my checks. I brain farted one or two over the years in the 90’s, but the card companies let it slide re jacking up rates when I called them and asked for a break because I was a good customer. All that changed coming into the new millennium. I started getting letters from card companies jacking up the rates on fully paid up accounts, and unilaterally closing some cards that had been out of use. It became clear the game had changed, and was closer to Bricker’s calculated game of chance than a financial service that valued customer satisfaction.
If you use credit cards these high risk, no forgiveness days you are begging for a financial ass raping (IMO) if you are relying on writing paper checks and mailing them in. Online banking with automatic payments is the only way to go, where you set your automatic payment to go out at least 10 days prior to when it is due, and you always set it to pay a good chunk more than the minimum payment. Trying to skate by on minimum payments and making payments close to the due date is a game you will eventually lose and the penalties are often quite dire.
The game is nicely summed up in this A A Milne poem
LINES AND SQUARES by A.A. Milne
Whenever I walk in a London street,
I’m ever so careful to watch my feet;
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, “Bears,
Just look how I’m walking in all the squares!”
And the little bears growl to each other, “He’s mine,
As soon as he’s silly and steps on a line.”
And some of the bigger bears try to pretend
That they came round the corner to look for a friend;
And they try to pretend that nobody cares
Whether you walk on the lines or squares.
But only the sillies believe their talk;
It’s ever so portant how you walk.
And it’s ever so jolly to call out, “Bears,
Just watch me walking in all the squares!”
Paid off the balance to close the Chase account last month. Once final payment had changed hands, we called to confirm that the account was dead, no further balance due, nothing that was going to bubble up after the fact, etc.
Woman on the phone said the only things left were from the rewards systems we had on the account. She said they’d be sending us checks for the unclaimed rewards. The checks arrived a couple of weeks ago.
Then today I get yet another “Your Chase payment is due in 5 days” email, so I call them to make sure it was just some last artifact of automation that still clung to life, since obviously there was no payment due of any kind per our last conversation.
I punch the card number into the phone, then our zip code…
“This account is closed. The balance on this account is $232.27…”
See red, mash the zero key with prejudice, ask unlucky phone-jockey man for an explanation: Interest accrued prior to final payment being received.
“Why was this not discussed when we called last month, specifically wanting to take care of any residual charges that might come up, and when we could have applied our unclaimed rewards toward the balance due?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Once we pay you this $232.27, the account will be closed, paid in full, and we will never hear another peep from you again?”
“Yes”
I’d joke about anyone wanting to take odds that there will be interest charged on the $232.27 of interest, and I’ll be right back in this thread fuming about a $5.38 balance next month, and another for $0.005 the month after, but at this point I would not be surprised.
Hahahaha, I was with my Dad over 45 years ago when he had this fight with a poor clerk at Sears. They charged him $0.05 interest on a bill he thought had been paid in full. After chatting/fuming with her supervisor he slammed a nickel down, shredded his card (I think with his teeth:p) and pulled me out of the store. I have never had a Sears credit card and never shop there*. My kids don’t either. Hope they appreciated the nickel.
*mrsin does buy tools there, but that’s on him. Heh.
That is good that you would not be surprised. I paid off and closed a Citibank card a few years ago that had a couple of thousand charged on it. Got a statement like you the month after it was closed for $20 or $30 dollars and called. Interest that had not been charged yet. So I paid it. And got another bill for a couple of dollars the next month. :dubious: I called and let them know I was not paying them more money for an account that had been closed and paid off 2 months before. They kindly offered to just wipe the charges and I told them I didn’t care one way or the other, they were not getting anymore money from me.
Guess who got a bill for $1.50 this month? :rolleyes: At least the agent I just spoke to says she took care of it and wrote it off. We’ll see if those 150 pennies are like gremlins…
Sometimes breakups take a while to sink in. Think of it as letting them down easy. Mammoth financial conglomerates have feelings too, you know.
I know! Fucking bastards! All of the reasons I banked with WaMu and not WF, BofA or, oh, Chase are now gone, and I don’t have anymore options. When Chase first ruined WaMu I thought, well maybe I’ll go to Wachovia, and then… :mad:
I liked Wamu too. 
Once they changed to Chase I carried a small (perhaps $200) balance on my card for a single month, and Chase cut my credit line in half, using the excuse that I was using too high a percentage of my available credit or some BS. I hadn’t paid late or anything, I just got flagged in their system “person carried a balance that doesn’t usually carry a balance!” and the axe came down.
I had a credit card company (bank) a few years ago that cheated me. I sent a payment in on time and they charged a late fee. When I called to bitch , they explained I had to consider the time to process it. So the next month ,I sent it in earlier. Same result. I actually sent a payment in 2 weeks early and got hit with a late fee. The message was clear. They would defiantly cheat me and dare me to do anything about it. I paid them off and have never done business with then again.
Perhaps I did not see the clause in the microscopic information sheets they included in the loan, that they would determine when a payment was late. Must have been my fault. Banks are good organizations that do no harm.
Is it really too much to ask that the companies you do business with not try to fuck you over? The attitude that it’s your fault for trusting businesses to be decent is letting them off way to easy.
Indeed… except in the case of credit cards, apparently, it’s often profitable policy. Most customers who have their rates hiked or are charged fees don’t cancel those accounts. The OP thinks they won’t get another bit of interest on his account? Yeah, maybe. But even if he sticks to that, they’re still making money every time he swipes the card.
I’m a she, and the point of closing the account was to ensure that my interest dollars go elsewhere.
I’m sure Chase doesn’t mind. Quite likely, there’s a new Chase customer leaving the bank you’ve chosen to take your business to – for similar reasons.
Yeah, but that still doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote with your feet and your money. Since when did it become acceptable as a matter of course that we should be treated like shit by the companies we do business with? Treat me like shit once shame on you, do it twice shame on me.
Oddly enough, I closed out my little savings account, and my even littler checking account, with Chase today. They were charging me $12 a month service fee for a checking account that never had more than $50 in it. (I’d only been banking with them out of force of habit, having opened an account many years ago when I worked downtown and a Chase branch was across the street.) I opened another little savings and checking account with M&T, they assured me it was free. If they pull any funny stuff, I’ll close that up and just use Mr. Sali’s credit union. Though I really would like my own account, elsewhere.
Meh. I don’t subscribe to the mindset that Chase enforcing their clearly laid out rules means they treat people like shit – even if “cutting someone a break” would be the nice guy thing to do.