Closed that account did you? Think again.

These days we are hearing a lot about "credit", lending, banks, ponzi schemes, unscrupulous financial institutions, etc. Well let me share my own little tale that recently brought a fine bit of sunshine into my life. A while back I got a new credit card from Juniper/Barclays bank. Good rate, etc. Not long after the relationship began I got a statement telling me that APR had been jacked up into the stratosphere. Apparently they had discovered a sixth-grade detention Ms. Moose gave me (yes, really - Ms. Moose...) and the bank felt it was reason enough to treat me as an international flight risk. The bank also used the nefarious shifting cycles, whereby a month never was a month, maybe 26 days, maybe 32 all in an effort to catch me off guard and hit me with a late fee, which would be a reason to raise the APR even higher. Within just few months of opening the account, I said - like a Saturday afternoon UHF feature movie - "forget you", paid them in full, closed the account, & received a letter confirming that I had closed the account (they hate when you close the account, it is supposed to reflect well upon you , but banks are scum and they hold it against you)
So flash forward to 6 months later to last week when I get a statement from the usurious bastards "New charges on your account are $34.95, due date is...blah, blah, blah". My reaction is a predictable "WTF?!"
Turns out that last year when my child was "selling magazines" as a fundraising mechanism for her school band (sidebar: I will write another post the disgusting practice of companies using local student bodies as their extended sales organization, usually under the guise of "charity"), anyway... my wife used the credit card number in question to purchase a magazine. The magazine companies take these opportunities to set you up for automatic renewals that you must opt out of. Sound scummy? It is. So here we are months after I've closed my account, and the credit card company, not wanting me to miss a single issue of the magazine, authorizes the automatic renewal ON MY CLOSED ACCOUNT.
Now I've been and seen the person standing in line, checking out of a store, who is saying "that's weird, I'm not over my limit, I wonder why it won't go through.." to the cashier who is holding a suspect credit card that refuses to authorize.
So what is going on here? My account is closed, but they put a transaction through?
Gee, they wouldn't charge me extra fees and interest while this is all getting sorted out, would they? And any "sister" institutions wouldn't use this silly misunderstanding as a red-flag "troubles" reason to apply more aggressive terms to any relationship I have with them, would they?
So I call the handy 800# "HI, there has been a mistake, you authorized a charge on my closed account". The response from the CSR? "Oh, you'll have to call the magazine company, I'm not authorized to do anything...". Me - "let me speak to your supervisor". The Girl from Ipanema keeps me company for a few minutes until the CSR comes back on - "We don't have any supervisors here right now, they are all...not...uh...here right now, you'll have to call the magazine company and we can put in a DISPUTE on this charge".
Me - "there is no dispute, I didn't do it, not me, not authorized, no account any more, no balance, me no pay you any". CSR - "we'll put it in dispute and you can call the magazine company". AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Is there any wonder why we're sliding down the shitter these days?
So, I call the magazine company. Get through the menus, and eventually get a live person on the line. "Hi, yeah.. mistake, etc". CSR - "OK, well we'll pro-rate a refund since you received some magazines", which would leave me owing $5 to the credit card company. Me - "Uh no, I didn't buy anything". CSR - "Well they shouldn't have authorized it". Me - "duh. I'll send your magazine back, even pay for postage". CSR - "we can only credit the pro-rated amount". I will say, I've dealt with many-a-CSR and I feel sorry for most of them. They have these awful jobs where you know they only deal with angry people all day long, but this one, she was good - she liked arguing, you could tell, and she was good at it, she revelled in the "power" of throwing roadblocks in front of any logic I tried, she stayed professional, but you could hear the MEAN in her voice "ha ha little man, dance on my string". I'm no psychologist, but I'd bet that she takes a whole lot of hell from someone outside of her job. So I take my pro-rated credit and move along.
Anyway... Flash forward to today. I get a letter from the lovely bank card people, which basically said "well, thank goodness we figured that out, you now owe us $5." Fortunately for all, the dog was out of kicking range. Argh, argh, and argh. 800#, menus, girl from ipanema, and live-CSR named Tammy (always write the name down and use it back when talking to them, I always try to get them off "script" also). Me - "look, I didn't do this, I don't have any account, you shouldn't have authorized anything, etc". Tammy - "well, these automatic ones can be forced through, even when the account is closed, it is part of the deal Mastercard and Visa have set up". Me - "I want my account zeroed out, I am not paying for this, and I apologize at my tone, I just find this whole thing to be scummy". Tammy did not like that I called her bank scummy. Tammy does not like how little $ the scummy bank pays her. Tammy does not like that she has to work on Xmas day for the scummy bank. Tammy wishes she could close her own account with the scummy bank, and Tammy does not like being asked "is this your dream job, did you grow up thinking: I want to be a CSR for a credit card company?", but a question like this make Tammy get coldly professional and aloof "that is not relevant to the conversation, we will credit you the amount, we do not normally do these kind of things, but will in this case". I again apologize for my tone, wish her a happy holiday season. I really meant it, what a shit job to have - and to have some angry jerk throw it in her face like that - of course, she also seemed to know that it is only because of the bank's unscrupulous practices that such things happen. She wouldn't even have her shit job if the bank wasn't so damn scummy.
I can only hope that Barclays is heavily leveraged in the credit-default-swap market and they are about to go under (and they have some vengeful IT personnel who'll delight in, ahem... "database alteration" as their last measure of compensation.)
And perhaps a band of disease-borne chimpanzees will escape from the zoo in Wilmington, Delaware and somehow find their way into the homes of senior banking executives and board members, delivering a holiday payload of parasitic organisms to the truly deserving.
I'll let you know if I get a statement next month for some kind of "fee". Just let me know if you've seen the keys to the chimp cages...