While these kids were and still are financial morons these banks are a big part of the problem.
Yes, they really are. You can thank Jimmy Carter for the high interest rates on credit cards as well as their ability to kill you with mounts of debt there's no hope of getting out of except with bankruptcy.
Interest rates on credit cards is legalized stealing.
They also have a nice little scam with changing the remit to address all the time. Mortgage companies are jumping on that band wagon as well. They know many people bank online, set up payments to be paid automatically each month. They change the remit to address and all of a sudden, you have a late payment because you sent it to the wrong P.O. box.
We have a rent house and this has happened to me twice. I would open the monthly statement every few months just to make sure nothings changed. The first time I saw a late fee I called them and they said you sent in your payment to the wrong address so I went to the list history and sure enough it was two digits off. Thinking this was my fault, I paid the late charge and went on about my business. Then, it happened again 6 months later. This time I went back through all the statements for a year and low and behold, I did have the correct p.o. box number originally, they changed it. When I called them on it the second time, they said this was my problem, they send out the statement each month, they don't have to notify me ahead of time that they are changing the remit to address.
Pissed me off to no end. Now, each month, I open the statement, make sure the address is correct. |
