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SubscriptionsSites I Read
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| I just looked at my June Verizon Wireless bill, and noticed that it was about $7 cheaper than previous months. I thought that was weird, but then I remembered that last month I made a change to my account profile. That's a pretty big difference, going from $92->$85. Then I started to think that Verizon sucks because this change should've been automatic.
Anyway, this is what happened...last month, I was just looking at all my account info on Verizon's website and in the profile section, there's a subsection for "Place of Primary Use". I viewed that subsection and noticed that it listed my New York address, which I moved out of two years ago. You'd think they would've updated that when I moved and changed my address. So, I just changed this "primary use" address to be the same as my billing address, which is in New Jersey. And now, my bill is 7 bucks cheaper. I wonder how much cheaper it'd be if I put down Nevada(I believe taxes and surcharges are even cheaper there).
This is where my savings came from:
Verizon Wireless' Surcharges and Other Charges & Credits went from $7.56 -> $3.05
Taxes, Governmental Surcharges & Fees went from $9.87 -> $7.24
After looking in more detail, I noticed a "Gross Receipts Surcharge" for over 4 bucks, that showed up in my NY bill that didn't show up in my NJ bill.
Originally, I didn't think I'd be saving this much money. But, now, I figure Verizon owes me about $168 in overcharged taxes and surcharges...
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| I'm currently using a Chase creditcard that has 0% interest and I'm at the point where I'm approaching the limit. So, I call them to get a credit increase. My original limit is $7000. And the conversation went something like this:
CSR: What can I help you with?
Me: I wanted to try to get a credit increase.
CSR: OK. How much would you like to increase it?
Me: How much of an increase?
CSR: Yes.
Me: 8000.
<unimportant questions and answers>
CSR: The system came back and approved your credit increase. You now have $1700 in available credit...total credit line of $8000...
When she told me my available credit, I had a feeling she messed up, and when she told me my total credit line, that's when I knew we had a communication problem. And the system wouldn't let her request another credit increase.
I wish I had a recording of the conversation to see if I misspoke, or if she wasn't paying attention to what we were talking about.
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| I just picked up my car from getting the 5000-mile service. And as I expected, they washed it, and it was really clean. It now looks like a completely different car. It's actually shiny now. | | |
| Here's a good one...
I was watching tv and saw a commercial for the American Express One card. I wanted to see what it was, so I go online to their website and look at it. That turned out to be nothing too interesting, but I also saw their Clear card. I wanted to see what that was, so I click on the link, and it sounds like a great card. The site says "NO FEES OF ANY KIND" and "AUTOMATIC REWARDS", among other benefits. The no fees caught my eye. If it was true, I could theoretically charge up the card, never pay the bill and I could just carry the balance forever. Great, a loan I'd never have to pay back.
I click on the "learn more" link and again, the site says:
Clear from American ExpressSM
has no extra fees of any kind—no annual fee, no late fees, no
over-limit fees, no balance transfer fees, and no cash advance fees.
I look at the bottom of the page in the "terms and conditions" section and that's where I see the catch:
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| I guess it started last October. I enrolled for Amazon's free 4-month trial of their Prime service. It gave me free 2-day shipping, and discounted overnight shipping on all the stuff that qualified for Super Saver shipping. There was a slight problem where it didn't get activated immediately. I emailed them and it got corrected that day or the next I think. After that everything was great. I ordered a lot of stuff and got it fast.
Then I tried to sell a couple of used books through their Marketplace. A few days later, I get an email from Amazon saying that my application to accept Payments was declined. I send them a message asking why, and their answer is that they can't say because it's a proprietary process. I think about this for a while and decide to let it go. I end up selling the books on Half.com, which was pretty good.
Then at the end of January, I order one of those micro stereo systems from Amazon. And then the next day, I was no longer able to login to Amazon.com. I thought there was a problem with their site, so I just tried to login a few times over the next couple hours. I still couldn't login, so I call them and they say my account was put on hold and they say they'll fix it. I gave them a week, and it still wasn't fixed, so I called them again, and this time, they actually fixed it.
So, I send them a message asking why my account was put on hold. They send back their FIRST response saying that they forwarded my message to the "appropriate department" to reinstate my account. This isn't what my message asked for, so I send them another message, and their SECOND response was exactly the same as the first response, but this time, with a different "customer service rep" signature.
The THIRD response from Amazon was different but also effectively didn't give me any useful information. The FOURTH response was exactly the same as the first and second reponses. And the FIFTH response said something along the lines of "Be assured that your account isn't on hold".
The SIXTH response was finally getting somewhere. The "customer service rep" said my account was put on hold because I requested a password change and "sometimes" they put the account on hold for my security. Well, I only requested the password change because I couldn't login, so this wasn't the right answer...
I finally decide to call them again. I explain, the reason's not A or B or C, so they offer to send an investigation request to the "appropriate department". I wait a week and don't hear back. So, I call them again and re-request an investigation to the "appropriate department". I wait another week and still nothing. Another call, another request, and now I'm waiting again...
I think this "appropriate department" is just a codename for the dumpster.
Anyway, my 4-months of free Prime service ended last month, so I needed to cancel the service or else they'd charge me an annual fee. So, I go to their website and I click on the submit button to discontinue the Prime service. Then I go back to the Amazon home page, and to my surprise, I suddenly no longer have the pi/2 discount. It just vanished. I started to use their a9 search everyday, and it still hasn't come back. So, I know the disappearance of that discount was related to discontinuing the Prime service. What bastards...
In case you want to see Amazon's computer-generated customer service responses, here they are. They also included my message at the bottom, so you can see how they never really answer my question...
first message
second message
third message
fourth message
fifth message
sixth message
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