Irene Smith

Is it Saturday already? No?

Actually, today is Sunday and I messed up. Hence the title of this week’s post. If you are shaking your head in confusion at this point I don’t blame you. Let me explain…

Normally I work at home on Friday. My boss is away on vacation this week. She is out of reach by phone or email. I had to be in the office on Friday in case something happened that couldn’t be managed long distance. That little change in my routine threw off everything. To make matters worse, I took two days off earlier in the week to visit with friends from Seattle. I have absolutely no sense of what day it really is.

At least half a dozen times yesterday I thought, “It’s Saturday, I have to write my post.” Then I promptly became involved in programming, writing, or any number of less productive things (like farming on the Facebook app Farmville) and forgot all about it. Don’t worry, it’s just a minor setback. We’ll be back on track next week.

This little error made me think, however, about how much of our lives we spend doing things without thinking about them. Sometimes this is good. For example, the fact that you drive to work the same way every day (if you are unlucky enough to have to drive) means that you don’t have to concentrate to hard on the how of getting to work. You know where to turn, where the traffic lights are and you automatically slow down for the spot where the policeman always hides behind the billboard to catch speeders.

On the other hand, when there is construction along the way, it is extremely difficult to change the route, even if by going a different way you could avoid the delay. We all face this trade-off between habit and thought. And, unfortunately, advertisers are counting on habit winning the battle. This isn’t new. As long as there has been advertising, advertisers have counted on the fact that, once they have won you over, they’ve got you for life. Once they have convinced you to buy, they want you to continue to buy automatically. They don’t want you to think about it.

This type of message is usually reasonably subtle but some aren’t. Lately WalMart has been running an ad on television lately where a woman says (as well as I can remember it), “Luckily WalMart checks the prices of all its competitors so I don’t have to.”

They’re counting on you to do the same. They want you to assume that the WalMart price is the best price, turn on the automatic pilot and shop at WalMart for everything. With our economy in the shape it is, we can’t afford to do that anymore. We have to check out the prices, even when it takes longer. Don’t assume that anybody is the best. Check it out.

By the way, I am not advocating that you not shop at WalMart, I am just saying that you need to compare before you buy.

Case in point I recently bought a new computer. Before I did, I went on the Internet and looked at Best Buy, WalMart, Tiger Direct, and Sam’s Club. I found what I thought would be a good deal at Best Buy. Then I hit the stores.

My husband said, “You should look at Staples too, while we’re out.” I walked in and found that they were having a sale. For less than the price Best Buy wanted, I was able to get a computer with everything the Best Buy computer had plus it had a larger hard drive and for just $20 more than the 2-year warranty, I was able to get a four-year waranty that covered parts, labor, and surge damage.

I nearly bought it on the spot. Then I looked at my husband and I realized that he was going to hold me to my promise to look at Sam’s Club, WalMart, and Best Buy as well. So we did.

Then we went back to Staples and purchased the computer I wanted, confident in the knowledge that we had gotten the best possible deal. We compared features, prices, and service and settled on the best computer for the least money. I ended up saving over $100 and got a more powerful computer than I would have if I had assumed that Best Buy (or WaloMart or Sam’s Club) had the best quality and price.

Will I buy my next computer from Staples? Maybe. If they still have the best computer for the best price, of course. But I am not going to do it out of habit.

In the first Lethal Weapon movie, there is a scene where Riggs (Mel Gibson’s character) is shot by Gary Busy’s character and thrown through a plate glass window (as I remember it.) He stands up and says, “Now I’m pissed.” For some bizarre reason, after all they can talk about being pissed off on the network channels, when the movie is run on TBS, “Now I’m pissed,” becomes “Now I’m miffed.” Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post…

As I said in the title, “Now I’m miffed.” And that’s putting it mildly. Back in May I pre-ordered a DVD. The total cost of the transaction was just over $16. On July 15th, the day when the movie was to be released, I checked in at Amazon to see when I would be receiving my order and discovered that there had been a “problem” with my order. It seems my credit card had been declined. I checked the credit card company’s web site to see what was wrong. According to the web site, I had more than enough money to have bought ten or twenty copies of the movie if I had been so inclined.

I called to see why they declined my card and discovered that the account had been closed. They claim to have sent me a letter saying so, but I haven’t gotten it yet and even now, several days later, the web site says I have several hundred dollars available. Am I pissed off that they cancelled the account? Not really. I was considering doing so anyway because I had already received a letter from them telling me that the interest rate was going to be raised sky-high. No, I’m pissed off because I made what I thought was a perfectly legitimate purchase and they made me look like I was trying to pull off a fast one. Fortunately there was no surcharge because the card was declined but I suppose there could have been.

I opened this account about six years ago. It was originally a Paypal credit card. Then it became a Providian credit card, was sold to Washington Mutual, and then was purchased by Chase. During that entire time, I have never missed a payment, never been late with a payment, never gone over my limit or even paid less than the minimum. In fact, I have always paid the bill early and the payments were always considerably more than the minimum. This is true of all of my credit cards. It is also true of the fixed monthly payments as well. My mortgage, my utility bills, and all of my other bills are always paid on time or early.

Now here is what I think. (Not that what I think seems to matter a lot!) I think that by closing this account, Chase has deliberately tanked my credit rating. Furthermore, I think it is irresponsible on their part to take an action that is likely to further damange not only my credit rating but my pocketbook. After all, how long do you suppose it will be before this closed account will set off an avalanche of increased interest rates and/or closed accounts? And if the companies don’t close my other credit card accounts, how long do you suppose I have before they threaten me with interest rates so high that I will be forced to close the accounts myself?

By the way, in doing research into this, I found that the new credit card bill will require companies to give you 30 days notice before they can close your account. Had Chase allowed me this courtesy, I wouldn’t have been so embarrassed or so… um… miffed.