Owned By A Bank

There is not much that annoys me more than when business and government misuse the language to (usually) mean the exact opposite of what they are saying. I am usually wary of anything that starts out with "for your convenience..." or "for your protection..." because usually that means I'm about to get something that is neither for my convenience or protection.

An elderly relative recently had a charge for $12.99 appear on her bank statement. This is a person who lives on a fixed income, and whose account balance is usually under $1 by the end of the month. Luckily, the charge was caught before it caused her account to be overdrawn. She had no idea what this charge was for, so we called the 800 number listed on the statement.

It turns out, it was for "identity theft protection" which was endorsed by her bank. So I asked how she incurred this charge, and was informed that she would have filled out a form and returned to them. So I asked what type of form it would have been, thinking it was probably something that looked like a sweepstakes entry, free gift, or a rebate check. Oh no, they assured me, it was clear what it was and that if she did not cancel within 30 days, there would be a charge of $12.99 a month. She has no idea what she would have filled out and sent back, and they could only theorize the type of document it would have been. Since she lauged and asked why in the world she would need that, it obviously was not clear what it was.

My guess is that it was completely confusing and mislabeled. I know you have probably received an offer like this: "For your convenience, we have automatically enrolled you in our new [fill in the blank] service, ABSOLUTELY FREE!* To accept this offer, just verify your current address and you will be enrolled immediately!" Finally you are able to locate what the size 4-point asterisk points to on the back of a different sheet of paper, also written in 4-point type which at the end of a five paragraph exercise in legalese says that free does not really mean free.

From my experience, our older generation has no concept of this type of marketing. Logically, free meant free. Free now means free after trial, free after rebate, or free after [fill in the blank]. If a product is good enough to warrant buying it, you tell people about it and they purchase it. Seems straightforward enough. I do not know when we reached the point that you had to be tricked into buying something, while at the same time they say - with a straight face - that it was a perfectly clear offer. The fact of the matter is people do not fight this kind of crap. They accept these unethical practices and move on. Every time I am confronted with this kind of nonsense, I demand my money back and complain to the authorities if necessary.

Which leads me to a sub-rant: Technical processes aside, why is it that someone can charge your credit or debit card, deducting the money almost immediately, but to get a credit takes days or weeks? It is just one of those things that we have allowed to happen, not demanded that a credit happen as quickly as the original charge.

It seems so much of my time is spent just making the business that I deal with do what I am paying them to do. You could probably ask just about any person you know about an experience with phone companies, banks, insurance companies or these other entities which take our money and I would wager they have a horror story, if not several.

If you are one who just lets this happen without a fight, I encourage you to join those of us who complain and make a fuss. If enough people refused to accept this level of service, I really believe change would come. But now, if one company can get away with it, they all try. Fight back, find ways around the nonsense, and take control at every opportunity.