Debit Denied

I'm mad. That is certainly not how one wants to come home from a spectacular vacation but I'm mad just the same. I'm old enough to remember the days of stopping to get traveler's cheques before going overseas and having to plot where the nearest American Express office was to convert them at the best rates of exchange. Only fools and the rich used cash advances from their credit cards while overseas while the rest of us relied on cold, hard cash and the hotel safe. Today's traveler can use their debit cards for safety, convenience and attractive exchange rates but therein lies the problem and the reason for my anger.

In the ever evolving world of "fee-basing" I discovered upon returning home that an "International Transaction" fee was assessed each and every time I used my bank debit card. From as little as a 30-cent minimum to nearly $8, the fee ranged on the monetary value of the sale. The additional insult was my bank claimed innocence in the matter, that it was merely a pass-through from the local bank in the country I was visiting who assessed the fee in support of converting the currency values. They wanted a commission, basically, for electronically converting currencies at the point of sale. Please.

The additional mud in the eye was the fact that the "International Transaction" fee said no more than that. There was nothing tying it to the actual transaction for me to trace and either accept or challenge later. I mean, I used my debit card just to buy soda and popsicles at a convenience store - who keeps the receipt for something that simple and even if I did, how do I know which fee went with it? Not knowing about the fees before I departed exposed me to nearly $50 of unplanned charges against my bank account upon my return which, thankfully, I had funds to cover. Still, my blood boils at the thought of even one of those fees resulting in a $35 NSF fee from the bank. I was gone three weeks and used that card at least 4-6 times per day - do the math.

The real anger, though, came something like the third day in to the vacation when my card was suspended. You go on vacation, you make sure you have money in the bank to cover your expenses right? You go out of the country, however, and that suddenly flags as a major departure from your "normal spending pattern" which triggers an alert at the bank to shut the card down as a safety precaution. I checked my funds before I left, the card and account both were in good standing, I'm over 8,000 miles from home and have been suddenly cut off from my financial lifeline?

A few aggravating and agitated long-distance calls later and I've reached my bank, verified my identity and location and had the card reactivated. I'm good to go for the rest of the vacation. I accept their apology for the inconvenience and thank them for looking out for my financial security...but I'm still mad. And I've got an idea how to fix it, too.

Gotta go.

Popcorn, Bacon and Shoes

You've just worked a hell day on the road. It's the last day in town with an early wake-up call at the hotel to check-out, cram the luggage in to the trunk and make it to the office at a decent hour for the final round of meetings, seminars and conference calls. The suit isn't as fresh as it was four days ago but it will hold for one more use until you can tame the beast at your favorite cleaners back home. The new Stacy Adams or those high as the moon Louboutins that only needed a little breaking in are taking their good sweet time molding to your feet, especially the one that is a half-size too small and "minor discomfort" has morphed in to out and out pain. They have to serve, however, since they're the only pair you brought with you to save room in the luggage.

Day is done, car is returned, boarding is completed and now, finally, a well deserved chance to - NO, DON'T DO IT - kick your shoes off for a well earned stretch of cramped toes, itchy soles and blistered ankles. In this day and age it is all about you and your individual comfort and convenience and danged if you don't have the right within your space on the plane to get as comfortable as possible. Except the obvious reality is that air of any kind, fresh or foul, does not stay within the confines of Seat 15D. Air moves. And it telegraphs the sounds and smells of everything, from the most savory of cooking smells wafting from kitchens and backyard grills to some of the worst offenders in human society: popcorn in the office or bacon in the morning to a fart in church and bad feet on an airplane.

Airplanes are equipped with extremely powerful air filtration systems for both comfort and good health. There is no rolling down a window for a passing breeze at 550MPH and also no escape from whatever contagions other passengers might be carrying. Stale air in an enclosed environment? Not good. The trouble is, with an air "exchange" often advertised at once every three minutes it simply amplifies the stronger smells wafting through the air on their way from the source to the outflow ducts. That means those bloomin' onions rising from your bunions are blowing right past the noses of everyone within at least a five row zone around you.

On any domestic flight I leave my shoes on no matter if it is the first flight of the day and I'm fresh out of the shower or the last flight of the night and even my shoes are tired of my tootsies. On international flights where I'm going to be on board for the next half of a day the shoes are definitely coming off but I observe a few simple preflight rituals before introducing my Size 14s to the rest of the cabin. The feet are thoroughly washed, dried, then massaged in lotion and cooling powder before a fresh pair of socks finish the ritual. Some airlines still offer cabin socks in all classes which are then worn over my own and, lastly, to guarantee maximum comfort as well as odor prevention, I bring a very thick pair of cotton "cushion" socks to wear on top of the other two. If the airline doesn't offer cabin socks in my cabin then the cushion socks are still worn over the first pair I put on at home.

After eight hours in the air the cabin floor is very hard and often cold, to say nothing of the nitrogen swelling the feet endure at high altitudes. Why add odor to the rest of the discomfort? After being mummified for up to 18 hours of pure flying by the time I get to the house or hotel there is most definitely a sweaty sheen on the piddies when the wrappings finally come off. But the doors are closed, there's no one around but me and after that pre-flight ritual, the bouquet is hardly noticeable.

On top of all that, after nearly 24 hours since I last experienced hot water an extremely welcome hot shower is less than 10 steps away.

Gotta go.

Jeans and Gasoline - Credit and The American Teenager

Virtually every teenager with a job earns money solely for the sake of good times and good clothes. “Good” being a relative term, of course, but revolving almost exclusively around jeans and gasoline. Their parents have long given up buying clothes for them as teen fashion evolves and gets ever more expensive so they tell their progeny to go forth and employ themselves if they simply cannot live without hundred-dollar pairs of denim, two-hundred dollar Jordans and some “to die for” shirt that matches the cost of a week’s groceries. To top all of that off most families at least insist they pay for their own gasoline as a “compromise” between the expense of fuel and car insurance.

Such is the life of most teenagers in America as well as the extent of financial planning. The “B&A” crowd (brains and athletes) don’t worry about college as they fully expect grants and scholarships all the way up to a full ride at the schools of their choice. The rest go the student loan or 2nd mortgage route along with perhaps a healthy mix of work-study to BEGIN the introduction to the true cost of adult life in western society. Literally overnight most teenagers go from fast food and fast, care free living to thousands of dollars in debt racking up every semester while still living relatively carefree lives for at least the next four years.

Their “out?” As long as they stay in school the six month time clock before the first payment comes due is put off: stay in or go back to school, add on a ton of MORE debt ostensibly to better the self but also and critically to avoid paying off the debt already acquired. It is certainly a time-honored strategy for those who do have higher aspirations to serve but also for those who hoped to enter the job market with no decent prospects in sight. This subset go back to school to wait out the economy and come in with even more credentials to go along with enough debt to keep them nervous for the next 15 – 20 years.

One day while walking up to the Student Union, the “Rat” or other primary gathering place students find a ton of folding tables set up in the foyer with banners mounted overhead or behind on the walls. Every retailer in America just about is on hand vying, pushing and shoving for the attention and hopefully lifelong business of the assembled future of America. Student oriented “products and services” are all dolled up and hawked with aggressive fervor to open new lines of credit and consumer accounts. The parade of new customers runs all day, human lemmings mindlessly racing to the cliffs of financial acumen or abyss.

Imagine the number of students at colleges and universities with little financial education prior to arriving now suddenly faced with a smorgasbord of the biggest houses and names in business, American Express, Sears, Visa, Bank of America and Home Depot. Open an account with us, they scream! You need us to get started, they claim. All of the hippest people have our Blue Diamond Amethyst Card, they cry. Sign up now! Usually one of the first "purchases" with this new found clout and show of prestige is a night on the town. Some of the more frugal and long-suffering might splurge on new bed linens for the dorm but most of these early charges are long forgotten items and events like dinners out, bar tabs, sports tickets and all such things one expects the young and newly credited to buy.

Ask yourself truthfully if any new member signs up for all kinds of “free and easy” credit and then not use it?

The dirty rotten secret is the financial companies really can’t lose. Using the “spaghetti test” approach to new customers, the good ones that stick are actually counter intuitive to what one might think. They are actually the bad customers who wind up delinquent and trend towards defaults. They create years of bad credit history and thus years of higher interest in the sub-prime market (anyone with less than a 650 credit score). The larger financial institutions eventually charge them off and have little further to do with such deadbeats. The bottom feeders, however, make huge amounts of money on fees, late charges and high interest on accounts as small as $500 because they know it takes less than a minute to max out a card like that. Given all kinds of statistical data, their "borrower" will be on the hook for years to come, especially if they only make the minimum payments with interest AVERAGING 29%. Think about it.

The ones who generate good press are those who pay on time, have excellent credit and so on but they’re also the worst customers in terms of profits. They pay low interest for tons of credit if they pay over time at all. They have to keep something going in the way of revolving credit just so the reporting bureaus have something to track but by and large they carry very low balances and everyone knows why. They can afford to pay in full and/or they know better than run up monster tabs that can't be paid off in less than six months. The lenders all look at this group and say "Uh, yea, thanks guy, really appreciate ya. You’re not the money maker we wanted, actually, but your room mate who can’t keep a dollar in his pocket and is in hock up to his frizzy red hair to you, his parents and everyone else who doesn’t know any better? Send HIM over!

Your mortgage and your car are the only two things that should be on installment plans past three years. Anything outside of that, furniture, electronics, appliances, clothes, etc and you'll have paid far more interest than the original price, certainly at least more than the items are worth. THEY know that, shouldn't you?

Gotta go!

Something Unique - Paris

There is no such thing as a forgettable trip to Paris. From the novice overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the experience through to the jaded regular who probably maintains an apartment in the 7th arrondissement all have their reasons to love, hate or tolerate the city. All are in agreement that, rich or poor, cynical or optimistic, traveling to Paris is never anything less than a big deal.

I used to enjoy wrapping up a trip to Paris by shopping for one thing the French create like no other culture in the world: toiletries. Just like the endless selection of French wines, cognacs and champagnes there is an equally bottomless supply of authentic "French milled" soaps, cosmetics, perfumes and colognes. Shelves overloaded with exotic sounding names, brands and fragrances stretch through entire departments at major stores such as La Samaritaine just along the Seine and directly across the Pont Neuf Bridge from the island of Il St. Louis.

The current building has stood since 1933 although the company itself first opened in 1869. Not simply a retail department store with a killer location, Samaritaine is also famous for its the rooftop cafe that every local knew offered views of the city few tourists knew about. Through eleven floors was the kind of luxury merchandise taken for granted by Parisians and coveted by every once-in-a-lifetime tourist in town.

Another retailer that used to be elusive in the United States but is now seen just about everywhere is Sephora. The flagship store on the Champs Elysees when it first opened was simply a must stop of the kind that had to be seen to be believed. It was never a "big box" retailer in size. Sephora drew part of its fame from the number and variety of fragrances for men down one side actually matched the number and variety of fragrances for women on the other side of the store. The real treat was seeing all manner of new and established products not available back home.

The ultimate highlight of the store for me was the central area that held dozens upon dozens of bottles and vials of pure oils, elixirs and essences of everything on the planet that had a beautiful smell. The idea was, if it were possible to not find something you liked from one of the major brands then you could design your own fragrance from the selection of goodies on hand. Right alongside the essence of virtually every flower known to man was every fragrant wood, citrus fruit and aromatic grass you could think of; men were not overlooked in the effort to find something unique for the unique individual at Sephora.

It's been a while since I've been in Paris. Samaritaine is closed but supposed to reopen this year. I'm told that Sephora no longer offers the create your own fragrance station. Certainly their exclusive cache has become as common as a suburban mall, too, sadly, going so far as to partner up with JC Penney! One thing I found, though, that neither Samaritaine or Sephora ever carried is a very unique cologne indeed. A friend discovered it in Amsterdam but it is tied to a major jewel house in Paris by way of Russia. It is only available at their store in Paris that I have found along with one retailer in Hong Kong. I've seen ads for it on offer through Amazon but please. Seriously?

No store I have ever gone to has the slightest idea what I'm talking about and, though it is challenging to keep the cologne in stock, I like it a lot that few other people have the slightest idea how good it is and what they're missing! Find it if you can!

Gotta go.

Not The Best Day At Best Buy

I needed a new computer. My first home computer was a Compaq Presario, a gift from family to support my aspirations in becoming a published writer. It had Windows ME for an operating system yet still lasted eight years. The laptop I bought to replace it died over a month ago with maybe two and a half years under its belt. I set out shopping.

Recently my employer sent me on a marathon three week business trip around the country. Trying to find the sweet spot of sales tax and bargain pricing I shopped a dozen retailers across half a dozen states from Wisconsin to Florida and back by way of New York, California and Ohio, learning and researching what I needed in terms of processor, graphics card, memory and even optimal operating speeds and temperatures. By the time I made it home to Dallas I knew what I wanted and promptly set out to hesitate from cold feet at the last moment!

Bargains were all over the floor since the hard-driving "Back to School" buying season was winding down but we're still talking a decent sum of money here. I didn't care if it was on "clearance" since any machine would be "obsolete" within six months but still automatically better than the dead one on my office floor.

I found the holy grail at a third Best Buy in Southlake, Texas. After literally thousands of miles across the country and more than a few indifferent experiences with Best Buy I ended up staying with them simply because of the sweet price that I had found on a Gateway tower and not the Toshiba laptop I had traveled the country hunting down. Go figure!

I could have been hustled in to an inadequate machine or a grossly over-powered one anywhere but the Best Buy deal tossed in the 23" monitor virtually free at only $100 over the cost of the base unit. That killed every other option on the spot, including a custom built machine as suggested by two of my more computer savvy friends in Arizona.

It was all nearly ruined at the cash register. The apparently new girl overcharged my credit card and left a large sum of money suspended on my account that no amount of phone calls or yelling by her supervisor at my credit card company could fix. I would have to wait 48 hours for the charges to clear from one system to the other before I could get my machine.

Not. Fuming, I went home, resigned to my fate and intending to firmly but politely rip in to my card company. Surprisingly, they sent me back to the store, all charges reversed as if nothing unusual had happened at all. My package of products was right where I'd left them 45 minutes earlier and the bug-eyed supervisor who'd tried her best couldn't believe I was able to get something done that she, the retailer, couldn't.

They say the last best impression of any service is often at the door on the way out of the establishment. With a massive choice of retailers within 15 miles of my house it is entirely within my prevue to decide who gets my hard earned money either across different companies or different stores within the same corporation. Best Buy was going to get my money because I still couldn't beat that price. I went back to the Southlake store to give them a chance to redeem their register screw up entirely because of the hard work and stellar service I'd received on the sales floor.

Gregory is his name. He knew his business, cared about me as a customer and taught me a lot all at the same time. And I love my new Gateway, too. The only thing he messed up was not being at work the day I bought the machine like he said he would!

Gotta go!