Friday, March 8, 2013

Hey! Where's the Rest of Me?!?!?! And Corporate Stupidity

I'd say there's something missing; something called having enough horse sense to get out of the snow and rain! That's my crazy Maggie, standing around bored and wet, wet, wet. Here's the missing part:

Maggie is just here as a "cute" (if soggy, smelly, steamy horses with large noses can be considered "cute") diversion.
Anyway, now that I have your attention, I'd like to present today's sermon: Corporate Stupidity. I know; this topic could take us well into the next millennium and beyond... I may as well begin.
Banks: we all hate them. I mean, they're supposed to guard our money, and yet if memory serves me correctly, we (the American people) needed to bail a few of them out because they couldn't seem to manage their financial houses. And Bank of America is the worst. I have addressed this problem previously and assigned them the new moniker of "The Devil". Let me explain.
Bob and I have a credit card from Working Assets. This entity used to donate a portion of their fees and monies to worthy, lefty causes. It was all warm and fuzzy and supposed to make you feel good about buying things because you were helping disenfranchised, vegan, artistic lepers from Guam who wanted to marry their pets. (I was always glad to help!) And you could even cast votes for whatever organization or cause you deemed sexy. Until Bank of America swallowed Working Assets.
And it's all been down hill. No more votes for good causes or democratically motivated spending. I don't know why we still have the card. Then this came; our most recent statement:
Can't read that? I'll insert a blow up of the balance on our card:
That's right! Bank of America isn't too big to send out a bill for $0.92. Not too big to be stupid! And I am assured that if we don't pony up before the due date, they'll charge us a $35 late fee.
So I called them. I was thinking that they obviously want their $0.92 but that possibly I could just have that balance transferred to our next statement as the writing a check or calling to do a telephone transfer to cover that amount would certainly generate more than $0.92 worth of paperwork or hassle. But do you know the operator that I (finally) reached after a positively Byzantine computer driven phone loop tried- and failed!- to push that balance forward. The famous refrain of, "Once it's in the system..." was the reply.
I rest my case. How stupid was this exercise? I'm not entirely sure how I left a balance of $0.92 on our card, as I try and pay the balance off every month. I am guessing that I accidentally left off the change on last months statement. But BofA ("Bofa" does have a certain ring- like a buffoon) is really in the basement as far as I'm concerned.

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