I must be the most naïve 62-year-old consumer on the planet! I just discovered a “neat” little trick the credit card companies have introduced called “minimum monthly purchase”. If you know what this means I’m glad, but I fully admit I’m a dumb ass, even though I am now tuned into the racket.
Let me start at the beginning so that this rant makes a little sense. My girlfriends are always busting my chops about not returning merchandise and paying full price for goods and services. Geez isn’t it enough that I finally got a smart phone; now I gotta use Groupon? Anyway, I recently started searching for a lightweight, women’s, multi-pocketed vest. NOT a fishing vest, but a somewhat stylish garment that would be cool and practical. (Cool in the temperature sense, because if I’m wearing a vest with pockets, there is no chance in hell I could ever be described as a hip kind of cool because I’m wearing a fricking vest with pockets!)
As most women know, our clothing is notoriously free of pockets and backpacks and purses are heavy when you’re trekking thru Georgetown and exploring new areas in Penn Quarter. (NO! Don’t’ even go there -- “Fanny Pack” – might as well wear a sign around my neck that reads -- “I’m old!”) In light of this, I begin my vest search on line at L.L. Bean, scrolled thru Lands End and REI, and finally hit the jackpot on the Eddie Bauer site.
Eddie Bauer had exactly what I wanted – a dark colored, multi-pocketed, not-too-boxy, lightweight vest. But, here’s the rub it’s $120. Ouch, am I cheap or is that a lot for a vest made of nylon with pockets and an interior drawstring waist? I want it, but could I just get a bit of a discount? Thus begins the scam. Eddie Bauer’s check out page woos me with the promise of 20% off by merely signing up for an Eddie Bauer credit card. I get the price down to 80 some dollars and free shipping! That was the “Gotcha” moment. Even though my thought was, go ahead, send me that charge card, I’ll just toss it, pay my bill and have my bargain! No brainer, right? You’d think so.
The vest arrives and I’m pleased. The credit card arrives, I don’t bother to activate it, cut it in two and trash it. The bill arrives, and here is the part where I may have made a tiny mistake, I set it aside for a moment and forget about it. A week or so later I come across it and its due that day! I quickly put a check in the mail, thinking well, it can’t be that late and if it is, what could a late charge on $80 be anyway – maybe a couple of bucks? No, the late charge is $25. There is also a mysterious line item on the bill that says “Minimum Charge -- $2.00. I don’t even know what that means.
Well, never one to balk at talking my way to a solution and out of a late charge. I call Eddie Bauer. After a 10-minute menu of options and a strong & oft repeated suggestion that I visit the web site to resolve my issue, I finally get a service rep and I tell her my story. I’m ashamed to say that the discussion devolved quickly and I requested she connect me with a supervisor. It seems that when you sign on for an Eddie Bauer credit card, you are also saying you will pay a “minimum purchase” fee of $2 a month, unless you purchase something that month. WTF? That sounds like a fee to me and I know that Macy’s, Kohl’s, etc. don’t do that. Plus, what kind of interest is being charged when a late payment fee on $80 is $25? My shaky math skills tell me it’s about 30%. When did late fees become so exorbitant? When did clothing store credit cards start charging $24 a year for the privilege of having their credit card? And worse, just because I cut up the card and tossed it and thought I had not activated it, did not mean that Eddie Bauer thought so. They didn’t care what I did with the card, they had my info and they were going to keep charging me $2 a month for as long as it took my dumb ass to realize what I’d done. Sure, I could have bought something else every month and had no $2 charge, but how many multi-pocketed vests does a girl need?
Well, without benefit of a supervisor and to her credit, the Eddie Bauer service rep wiped my account of the late charge and the minimum purchase fee and at my insistence – closed the account. So what did I learn today? That it’s been a long time since I’ve opened a new charge account and most importantly I learned that I’m just not the kind of chick that knows how to work the system. My little foray into trying to beat full price, cost me just enough aggravation to convince me not to try again. So girlfriends, I’ll just keep on paying full price and not returning those shoes I bought on a whim, if you keep reading my blog.
I’m just saying…
