Losing Chase MasterCard

You’ll be happy to know that I closed my f-ing Chase credit card account last night. The bastards also owed me money for starting a payment protector plan without my authorization. I was so annoyed when I figured out they were doing that. You’ll be thinking, how could it have slipped past your attention for so long? Well, I usually pay most of my bills online and so I neglect to look at paper statements. Chase’s un-user-friendly online bill stuff doesn’t show all the pertinent information on your home page. Since I wasn’t buying things with it, I never thought it necessary to check out all the details. And that was back when I didn’t think credit card fraud could happen to me.

They told me I authorized the payment protector bull-shit plan on July 30th. Guess what? I was on my way to Omaha on July 30th. I’d just quit my job in Logan, had moved back to my parent’s home in Farmington and we were driving to Nebraska to see my oldest sister who was going to have a baby. Chase would have called my mom’s house since they didn’t have my cell phone number. I know they were lying. And I was pissed.

So, rejoice with me, if you will. I have broken the bonds Chase MasterCard had around me*.

My advice to you: never sign-up for a Chase card. Never trust Chase. Down with Chase!

It wasn’t a fight, either, like it was when I tried to close my damn Capital One card. The girl at Chase asked why I wanted to close it, I said you’re interest rates suck, I don’t like your service (most of their customer service people have heavy accents and I have to ask them to repeat everything. It’s horrible. You’re already annoyed about the card and then you have to deal with a language barrier), and you put an unauthorized service on my account and made me pay for it. Incidentally, you now owe me money and I should have had it months ago. She said sorry, we’ll have that check to you in 5-7 days. I was surprised. So I told her thanks for you help, goodbye. Normally I would have taken the opportunity to tell Chase to go to hell and burn! But I didn’t because she was so nice and did just what I asked her to do.

Also last night Stoker and I went to the climbing gym. It was great. Stoker loved it and he’s a natural. He’s not one of those obnoxious meathead guys who goes into the gym the first time and tries to muscle his way to the top, oblivious to climbing technique, wanting to impress everyone with his bulging biceps (no one is ever impressed). Stoker moved rather gracefully for his first time and paid attention to balancing and moving efficiently. It was sweet.

My old friend Mike was there and gave him really good tips and paid close attention to us, mainly Stoker, and even spotted him sometimes. I was so glad they were getting along and that Mike gave us good beta and directed us to the easy climbs. The gym is massive and has a plethora (“Jefe, do you know what a plethora is?”) of routes. Finding an easy climb there is like finding a needle in a haystack, to use a tired cliché.

The best part of it is that Stoker loved it and wants to go more often.







*I opened this account during college. Every college student has this story, you know, the one about how college is so damn expensive and you can't afford to eat or buy anything and you're working but it's not enough because you can't work full time and go to college full time and have time to study. You're loans and grants aren't enough and you're parents aren't paying for school and you didn't earn $50,000 during the summer because you didn't want to go to Illinois to sell pest control products door-to-door.

So you get a credit card because it's a good idea to establish credit and up 'til now you didn't have any, but they still give you a $1,000 dollar credit limit and much to your surprise, the debt adds up and you've maxed it out. And you're not really sure how to live frugally because you've never had to, much, and so you buy a CD here or there and some Christmas presents because you like to give gifts.

Well, okay, probably most people didn't buy CDs here and there, but I did. Now I'm paying the price. But I think I've learned the lesson. Don't buy on credit. Pay your debt back. Live within your means. A debt free existence is priceless. Visa? Not priceless. Don't fall for their stupid commercial. Anyway, some debt is okay, like a mortgage and student loans. But debt for a huge-ass truck? Not really okay. Or a movie screen size, flat-screen plasma t.v.? Probably over-doing it.