Home Depot's promotion

[spirits]

Happy New Year everyone. I talked my husband into taking me for a walk at the local mall this morning IF we would be out by noon Kept my promise but we needed to go to Home Depot to pick up some logs for our timeshare fireplace next week. One thing led to another and we picked up a new kitchen light fixture. "Hey, HD has a new promotion where you get $25 off your purchase with a new HD credit card. Since the new light was $50 he thought he could save $25. Smooth move but he is so not a TUGGER. I really wasn't paying much attention but finally noticed that the sign said no interest with purchases over $299. Since we do not own a business most of our purchases are around $100 when we shop there. I just happened to ask what about purchases UNDER $299. He had the decency to admit that interest is charged from the DATE OF PURCHASE. Well we ripped up the application and thanked him for his honesty. As we were paying for our purchase at the teller I asked how much interest was. 28%. It's not what is advertised but what is left out. Thanks TUGGERS for making me look for what can go wrong with a purchase.

 

[DaveNV]

Amazing how things like that creep up, isn't it? I was snookered into opening a Dell "instant credit" card account several years ago. I have good credit, so didn't pay attention to the finance rate numbers - I figured they'd be about average to what I was used to.

I got the card with the charged balance on it, and about had a heart attack when it said I was being charged 29.9% interest! What a shock! What's worse - the "grace period" was so short, by the time the bill arrived, the next month's finance charges were already outstanding, so it'd be impossible to ever pay off the account. I called Dell FInancial Services and got a to-that-date payoff, wrote a check for the full amount, and paid it off. I haven't used the card since.

I love that Dell periodically sends me junk mail inviting me back because I'm such a good customer. Yeah, right!

Dave

 

[Cathyb]

Our story of woe is with Kohl's Department Store. We were Christmas shopping and noticed signs all over the store that you can take ADDITIONAL 20% off any merchandise if you sign up for their credit card at the cash register. Since we had $150 worth of gifts, we thought why not. Well, you get there, fill out the application and the register gal calls their office and then they tell you 'sorry, we have to check further' -- so now you use another credit card, pay the 20% extra and we lose.

Doubt we will even shop there anymore.

 

[falmouth3]

That's strange about Kohl's. I got my 20% on the spot when I signed up for their credit card, but that was several years ago.

BTW, I saw a story on the local news about credit card interest rates. They had people call their cc companys to ask for a lower interest rate. Almost every person they showed got a reduction. I think the range was 7-10% reduction in rate. And they said if the first answer is no then ask to speak with a supervisor and if the answer is still no, ask for a reduction for a few months. I guess it can't hurt to ask.

 

[spirits]

Credit card interest

On this note I have had mastercard for many years. My husband uses visa or a debit card. We always pay our balance each month. One day last year I noticed an unusual interest amount at the bottom of our statement. $12 approximately. I Looked at the previous 6 months and noticed a small amount on each one. Between 1 and 3 dollars. Usually I just check the transactions for any unauthorized charges and never noticed the small amount tacked on at the bottom. I called Mastercharge and they looked over the statements. Apparently 5 months ago we were a few days late paying my bill. On well, I will pay interest on that month's statement I had thought and that would be the end of it. But oh no. I needed to pay interest on the next 6 statements as a sort of penalty for being late that one time. The only reason I noticed it was that 5 months after that one late payment we were upgrading all our appliances and had an unusually large bill that statement. Each time you are late you incur interest on the next 6 statements. Your fine print doesn't exactly state it that way but if you read it with that intent it becomes clear.

 

[pjrose]

Kohl's

Our story of woe is with Kohl's Department Store. ....
Doubt we will even shop there anymore.

That's strange about Kohl's. I got my 20% on the spot when I signed up for their credit card, but that was several years ago.

Cathyb, definitely give Kohl's another chance. We find the best deals there. When you have their card, they send frequent little cards for 15% off, or fliers with a peel off for 15, 20, or 30% off. That is in addition to the sale or clearance prices. Sometimes they also have "Kohl's Cash" - basically a $10 coupon for each $50 you spend - in addition to the 15/20/30. You spend the Kohl's Cash about a week later, and it doesn't have a bunch of restrictions - it's just like a gift card. They also have no time limit on their returns, and can look it up on your account if you can't find the receipt.

The ONLY problem we had is that they have a fairly short turn-around between getting the bill and the billing date, and if you miss it, it's a $25 charge - we missed it by a few days twice, and each time called and they reversed it. Now we just pay online.

 

[pjrose]

On the subject of "it doesn't hurt to ask", today I called CitiBank to say that we would have to cancel our MasterCards because of the $85 annual fee that was just billed for our second year (the first was fee-free). Presto/changeo, no fee.

Every year or so we call about something along those lines, and they always offer us miles (e.g. 3,000 or 5,000), once it was quintuple miles up to 20,000 total, and/or they waive the fee.

 

[dukebigtom]

pjrose - I agree. My experience with CC fees is that a call will almost always yeild elimination of the fees or some benefit in return for staying with the company. They want to keep your business. I would think that right now, with the changes in credit taking place, that CC companies would really be anxious to keep you if you use the card and pay on time. They really aren't too excited about people like me, because I always pay in full and never carry a balance so they don't get any interest from me.

BigTom

 

[pjrose]

They really aren't too excited about people like me, because I always pay in full and never carry a balance so they don't get any interest from me.

We also always pay on time so they don't get interest from us. However, they do get a cut from the merchants - I don't know the percent, but obviously not as high as interest rates.