Credit cards

I have a warning for you all. Before you sign up for a credit card, make sure that whichever one you sign up with, they don’t poke their nose into your checking account.  If you are signing up for a credit card that you have a checking account in the same bank they probably do that.

I have a credit card at the same bank that I have a checking account in.  Now, I can’t do anything without it going on my credit card. I pay my bills on line. I’m charged for it. I use the ATM with the card of the same bank and it goes on my credit card. I pay for my prescription with my credit card and when my statement comes in at the end of the month it was marked charges for Health and Education but not the amount.  In other words, it's all a tangled mess.

I called them and I asked the woman that answered about the Education and Health item, and the answer I got was 'well you paid for a prescription'. She sounded like a real jerk. I’ll just say that with her tone of voice she shouldn’t even be allowed to answer the telephone.  It wasn't a good experience for me as a customer.

I always give my statements to a friend of mine who is a bookkeeper for a couple companies so that he can check them for me. I also give him all my bills from the purchases and when even when I just take cash from an ATM.  Hopefully he can make some sense of these issues for me, or at least help me with knowing what to say to the bank's call centre staff so that their job is easier and maybe they'll have less of an attitude.

I realize with the internet there are not as many people going into a bank to pay their bills as there used to be. Now if you notice when you go into a Bank there is not has much traffic as there used to be and yet those people that are working in those Banks have to be paid, so the credit card companies have to get money somewhere to pay those people. The only thing they can do is scrounge as much money from their customers as they can to keep up. When you get your statement there's likely to be something suspicious on there.  Maybe it's right, maybe it's a deliberate overcharge to make that money.  But mistakes can happen too. The best way to protect yourself is to have your statements checked by an accountant if you’re in doubt. Just make sure you keep all your receipts.

My advice would be this: If you can get along without taking any credit cards do so.  

By the way what I mentioned above doesn’t imply that I always mistrust their calculation, but mistakes can be made unintentionally.