The Check Is In The Mail

That nice mail man ... errr.... person ... ummm..... postal delivery agent? Anyway, that postal service employee brought us a wonderful bounty in the mail yesterday. Just wanted to share some of the treasure we received. I knew it was going to be my lucky day when I saw no less than THREE checks from Citi. I was a little disappointed when I discovered they weren't going to add up to quite enough for me to retire early.

Like a kid opening gifts at Christmas, I ripped open the first check. Three dollars!!!! Woohooo! Breakfast at McDonald's. I ripped open the second check. Four dollars!!!! Alright! I like the pattern that's forming here. Finally, I opened the third check. I could hardly contain my excitement when I saw that it was -- DOUBLE DIGITS!!! TEN DOLLARS! Oh, yeah! Jackpot!

Hmmm. I wondered if maybe it was a little strange that Citi would be sending me all this bounty for no apparent reason. That's when I decided to look a little closer.

Cashing the first check amounted to an agreement to enroll in "Watch-Guard Premier", a service which allows me to register all my credit cards, and if I lose my wallet, make one call and have all of my cards canceled. It also provides me wth "ID Theft Expense Reimbursement" and credit monitoring. All this for only $6.95 a month! To quote Eddie Murphy from his Saturday Night Live days: "What a bargain! What a bargain for me!"

The second check would enroll me in the United States Auto Club. Sounds very patriotic! Heck, maybe its a shadowy government agency! I always wanted to be in the CIA! Well, turns out it's just your basic roadside assistance service. But only $7.95 a month!

Finally, the big whopper double digit check. I can join Shoppers Advantage. For only $8.99 a month, I get the privilege of ... buying stuff from them! What a deal!!! They have low prices on quality products and all kinds of good stuff like that.

And the best part of all ... these offers will be "conveniently billed to my Citi Card account each month"! Ahhhh, how sweet!

Now each and every one of these organizations may be offering fabulous deals at unbeatable prices. But this is such a slimy, underhanded way of doing it. I wonder how many folks think "ooooh, a check" and just don't bother to read the fine print? How many others read the fine print, figure they can just cancel and keep the money, and then promptly forget about the whole thing? Only to notice several months later all these recurring charges on their credit card statement, and find it a big hassle to ever get these services canceled. On general principle alone, I won't use any of these services.

Fortunately, there was mail from other folks who didn't try to sucker me with checks. They were merely offering me convenient reminders. Like the company that sent me a "bill" for renewing my domain name. Except, it was not the company that I'm currently registered through. And the cost was about 3 times what I pay now. Again, I wonder how many people fall for it? Especially businesses. Looks like a bill, they know what it's for, so they pay it without ever giving it a thought. Meanwhile the company laughs all the way to the bank.

Finally, I got a renewal notice for a magazine. Trouble is, I just started subscribing to it. When I say I "just started" I mean that I haven't even gotten the first issue yet! Read the fine print. Yup, it's not even directly from the magazine publisher. It's from a "third party magazine clearinghouse" who offers "discount" prices. Only problem there is that their price is over double what I paid for my original subscription.

All of these under-handing bordering-on-scammer people need to be horse-whipped. But I'm not bitter.