Oh, excuse me, I'm doing some deep breathing exercises to calm myself down.
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!
Alright, Howard Beale's rant aside, I just realized I'd been swindled by one of my credit cards and the worse thing is I WAS TRAINED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS!
As I so memorably mentioned here on this blog many times during the months I worked at Chase, I was taught to screw people and was expected to keep a Disney-esque smile on my face while doing it.
One of the biggest scams the bank had was the ol' residual finance charge computation scheme.
It works like this:
You as the unwitiing customer pays off your credit card (or at least you THINK you do...more about that scam in a second) but because you paid it down to what seemed to be zero after the start of the next billing cycle (of course it is since you don't get your statement until the commencement of the new cycle) you are going to be assessed a finance charge on the average daily balance of the entire billing cycle, including the few days you had a balance on the card prior to your payoff. So, you are understandably confused when you get your next statement and it has a finance charge on there.
But wait, now for the real mind fuck...
If you are like me and just pay the amount on your end of statement balance online you are still going to get another finance charge based on the tiny fraction that was on your account as of the payment date in addition to the amount on the statement. For this amount, you need to call the bank and ask for the total amount to pay in order to "pay off the account in full". Say it like quoted lest the rep pretend to misinterpret you and give you only the statement balance. They're not the same!
Like some shim-sham sleazy telemarketer who tries to get you to agree to something without you even knowing it by either twisting your words or acknowledgments or requiring you to utter phrases in a rigid context, these banks are running a freakin' shell game on you.
My bank in question...let me call them out: Credit One Bank (I know, I know, one of those cards. But I had a poor credit score back in '06 so what was I to do?) They actually, it would seem from the conversations I've had today with 2 reps, train their customer service personnel to tell the customer that they are charged a finance charge on the annual fee which is broken down into monthly payments.
Now, of course that's not actually accurate. If it were it would be a total violation of the Credit CARD Act of 2009.
But wait a minute...
I just checked Wikipedia's article on the Credit CARD Act and it says even though it's law currently, it cannot be applied retroactively. That is, if I agreed to the Terms and Conditions of my credit card PRIOR to the new law's effective date of February 2010 (which is the case for me since I signed the agreement back in 2006) I could be victim to practices that are currently illegal!
Now I'm pissed at the government!
How can a law not apply across the board?
Why are there so many fucking loopholes and why is it the little guy gets screwed by all of them?!
Excuse me, I have to go now and find out where the nearest "Occupy" protest is going to be held so I can join my downtrodden, unwashed masses.