Dec. 6th, 2002 08:55 am
Credit rant
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muckefuckThis morning, I saw a bill for my MasterCard® socking me with a late fee for having an overdue account. I was pissed. I don't get monthly bills for that card, only when I have a charge, and I hadn't used the card since early August. I had never received a bill for this charge--had no way of knowing that I hadn't received a bill for this charge--and now I had to make myself late for work explaining this to some underpaid undertrained moron in another state.
It turned out both better and worse than I had expected: They readily promised to cancel the late fee and the interest. The charge was my annual fee. I'm now able to get cards without one, so I told them I intended to cancel this account. The woman said she had to send me to a "specialist". Turns out, her "specialty" is reading some printed disclaimer. I was caught off-guard. With my previous card, the "speciallist" pleaded with me not to cancel and eventually waived the fee. I expected a similar opportunity here--that's why I didn't cancel the account earlier. I had planned to wait for the bill for the annual fee, call them, and negotiate. Now I have to pay an annual fee on a card that's no longer active.
I hate credit. It's a game with confusing rules that I never learned. I don't like playing it and, what's more, I suck at it. But I'm forced to if I want anything more than a rudimentary existence. My father boasts about how good he is at managing his credit, maintaining an excellent rating even during prolonged periods of insolvency. Bully for him--but what did he ever teach his children about handling credit? Diddly.
My mother is hopeless when it comes to credit--or finances in general. One weekend not too long ago, I visited her to help put her house in order. Sorting through the hummock of accumulated mail, I was appalled at the number of unpaid bills and threatening notices. Since Mom was the only one doing much parenting when I was younger, I was brought up so naive that I arrived at college with travellers' checks and didn't get a card because I didn't need one. No one told me they fling cards at you when you're an undergraduate and then they totally dry up when you actually have a job and can afford to buy things.
So I ended up a young adult with no credit rating (having diligently paid off my student loans ahead of time--no one told me this good behaviour dropped off your credit report after a number of years). When I finally decided I needed a card for practical purposes like making reservations and online purchases, I was subjected to a humiliating series of rejected applications. This was a few years back when desperate companies were absolute showering new applications upon customers already buried in debt and here was I, someone with a good income and no credit problems to speak of, and I couldn't even get a fucking department store card. Fortunately, I was spared with incredible indignity of getting a secured card and therefore lending money to myself. But I couldn't do any better than having to pay exorbitant application fees an other usurious charges.
The MasterCard® was the last relic of that dark era, and good riddance. At least I hope it is. One of the reason's I've been dragging my feet on getting pre-approved for a mortgage so I can start house-hunting in earnest is that I'm paranoid the bank is going to find some stupid thing in my credit history that I knew nothing about, but is a total red flag to them, and put me through the goddamn wringer.
Credit where credit is due, however: Many thanks to Nuphy and Monshu for holding my hand through this. They've both mastered the game and have their own tales of woe--especially Monshu, who came out of the Society with no assets and no credit history. He had an ugly odyssey, culiminating in a year-long search for an apartment he could actually finance. (Nuphy had his own problems due to a rapacious ex-wife.) The fiscal responsibility and incredible generosity of my grandparents puts me in a much better position when it comes to financing my own place.
Let's hope I don't screw it up
It turned out both better and worse than I had expected: They readily promised to cancel the late fee and the interest. The charge was my annual fee. I'm now able to get cards without one, so I told them I intended to cancel this account. The woman said she had to send me to a "specialist". Turns out, her "specialty" is reading some printed disclaimer. I was caught off-guard. With my previous card, the "speciallist" pleaded with me not to cancel and eventually waived the fee. I expected a similar opportunity here--that's why I didn't cancel the account earlier. I had planned to wait for the bill for the annual fee, call them, and negotiate. Now I have to pay an annual fee on a card that's no longer active.
I hate credit. It's a game with confusing rules that I never learned. I don't like playing it and, what's more, I suck at it. But I'm forced to if I want anything more than a rudimentary existence. My father boasts about how good he is at managing his credit, maintaining an excellent rating even during prolonged periods of insolvency. Bully for him--but what did he ever teach his children about handling credit? Diddly.
My mother is hopeless when it comes to credit--or finances in general. One weekend not too long ago, I visited her to help put her house in order. Sorting through the hummock of accumulated mail, I was appalled at the number of unpaid bills and threatening notices. Since Mom was the only one doing much parenting when I was younger, I was brought up so naive that I arrived at college with travellers' checks and didn't get a card because I didn't need one. No one told me they fling cards at you when you're an undergraduate and then they totally dry up when you actually have a job and can afford to buy things.
So I ended up a young adult with no credit rating (having diligently paid off my student loans ahead of time--no one told me this good behaviour dropped off your credit report after a number of years). When I finally decided I needed a card for practical purposes like making reservations and online purchases, I was subjected to a humiliating series of rejected applications. This was a few years back when desperate companies were absolute showering new applications upon customers already buried in debt and here was I, someone with a good income and no credit problems to speak of, and I couldn't even get a fucking department store card. Fortunately, I was spared with incredible indignity of getting a secured card and therefore lending money to myself. But I couldn't do any better than having to pay exorbitant application fees an other usurious charges.
The MasterCard® was the last relic of that dark era, and good riddance. At least I hope it is. One of the reason's I've been dragging my feet on getting pre-approved for a mortgage so I can start house-hunting in earnest is that I'm paranoid the bank is going to find some stupid thing in my credit history that I knew nothing about, but is a total red flag to them, and put me through the goddamn wringer.
Credit where credit is due, however: Many thanks to Nuphy and Monshu for holding my hand through this. They've both mastered the game and have their own tales of woe--especially Monshu, who came out of the Society with no assets and no credit history. He had an ugly odyssey, culiminating in a year-long search for an apartment he could actually finance. (Nuphy had his own problems due to a rapacious ex-wife.) The fiscal responsibility and incredible generosity of my grandparents puts me in a much better position when it comes to financing my own place.
Let's hope I don't screw it up
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You probably know this already, but you can look for obvious red flags by getting copies of your credit report from various services (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion are the ones I've heard of) before you try to get pre-approved. We were going to do this, but we were too damned lazy, and everything worked out fine anyway. In fact, the whole mortgage-application process went a lot more smoothly than I expected it to, possibly because the amount involved was so small. (By real estate standards, that is. It sure seemed like a lot of money to me!)