Is it a Rewards Card?

Assumption is something which we all do. According to me, assumption doesn't always end up being true. Certainly there are some exceptions to it. Like: Corolla owners do not know ANYTING about cars. Paris Hilton has her brain replaced by a make-up kit, which is also worthless. Russians are idiots. Any Desi in the US who starts up a conversation with another Desi is from Quick Star/Amway. And, are morons. AT&T sucks, and I'll stop right here before I offend the rest of the world.

Actually let me mention one last assumption. If you are a Desi working in the US, your Desi colleague will always always assume you are a consultant. When, that colleague himself is a consultant i.e. I have always been asked how long my project was with my current company. I would respond saying I'm currently on three projects, and which one is he asking about. To which his response would be, "Oh, you are working with three clients? Triple billing rate? How did you manage that?". At this point I just start walking away.

I don't blame him either, as there are thousands of Desi consultants here. A good number of consultants live a different lifestyle. Fly out on Monday, live in a nice hotel till Thursday and fly back home on Friday. Wash, rinse and repeat. Except in the second cycle, the destination will be a different city. All this is done without spending a dime from his pocket. All the expenses are covered by the company.

The untold benefit is, in the personal credit cards that the consultant uses for all the expenses, to get reimbursed later. The points which are collected. So he can buy personal air tickets and other things he doesn't want using these points. One of my friends has been a consultant for over 4 years and till now hasn't paid for a single air ticket, rental, hotel and a million other things. In fact he doesn't value an item by the dollar anymore. Ask him how much milk cost him? He'll say 1500 points.

There are too many credit card companies and the benefits are great, thanks to the competition. In the first four months of this year, there were 10 million credit cards issued. If your jaw dropped for that, then read this. That's only half the number of the cards which were issued last year. Today there is more plastic than leather and paper in your wallet/purse. I know a person who has credit cards in all colors possible.

We have seen ads which say with one of these you can buy the world. Certainly. I can, you can, everyone can. The only problem is paying it back. This is similar to the problem a man was facing this week. He had a 17 figure bill to pay. $23,148,855,308,184,500 to be precise. And he definitely didn't buy the world at Walmart. All he bought was a pack of cigarettes. Must be an expensive one, though. With that sort of money you can build the Earth. Twice.

He almost passed out when he saw the statement and went to the gas station to ask why they overcharged him. Overcharged is an understatement here. By the time he came home, there were people waiting at his door. Namely GM, Citibank, Air India etc asking him to bail them out.

Fortunately for him the bank said it was glitch in the system. The article said they waived the $23 quadrillion charge and the $15 overdraft fee. What the article didn't say is about the 23 quadrillion points he would have accumulated. In common man terms that would ideally be $235 trillion!

Credit Cards - The necessary Evil

BRUTALITY FACTOR: Low

At anytime our wallets carry at least three credit cards, our Drivers license and not more than $20 bucks. If you do have more than $20 cash, its because we withdrew thinking we don't have cash. Even if you worked for more than a decade here in the US, tell me a time when you have seen more than $1000 in cash. You would have earned more than 1000 times that but still wouldn't have seen it. Well, why do you need to? We have our credit cards to pay for us.

This is the only form of plastic that sticks with you for a couple of years. And all of us have a Visa, MasterCard and American Express for sure. And it is so bloody convenient. I always have the ability to buy anything and not avoid it since I didn't carry enough cash with me. I don't have to tip a penny more, since I didn't have the exact change. And in the end of the month, when my bank says my balance is $0.01. I can just log into my credit card account and see where I blew all my money. It will put up a nice graph and tell me how much  I spent on gas, groceries and the strippers. Or else I'd be wondering what on earth I did.

I was a student when I applied for my first credit card. The credit card rep asked me what my yearly income was. I said negative $30,000, since I didn't earn any and my folks were paying for my tuition. I was outright rejected. So much for speaking the truth. I applied again and told them I was earning $80,000 even though I was a student. Boom, I get a flashy card the next day. I don't understand their logic. Why would they believe that I am saying the truth without any proof? Just send everyone a credit card regardless. It's an income for them anyways.

Every card has an option to be signed in the back of it for verification. The problem is that, no pen would ever write on the damn thing. Not even a dot. So the only option left is the marker. Sadly no, since the tip is wider than the space given to sign. By some miracle, I did find a pen which did write and I managed to sign on it. I was so happy and used it excessively, and now the signature paper strip is all worn out. (The signature verification boggles my mind, since the sign on your credit card will be in English and the one you put on the stupid LCD thing will be Chinese.) Now for every purchase I make, I need to show my ID that has a picture where I look like a dork. For security purposes, that is. And what am I buying? A pack of gum. If I did steal somebody elses card, I would be at the designer stores or a car showroom and not buying gum for heavens sake. 

Discover is the most pickiest credit card company among the lot. If you have one of theirs, means you have stellar credit. I was keen on getting it at one point of time, but they kept rejecting me. Now they keep offering me one and I keep rejecting them. Thanks to the big heart of all the credit card companies, I have enough credit cards to fill my boot up. American Express offered a no limit credit card. So that means I could just go today and buy a Ferrari. Drive it for a month. When its time to pay for my monthly payment. I'll just crash it and the let the insurance take care of it.

The first time I got a balance transfer check from one of the banks, I saw the low 2% APR and immediately used it. But I forgot to see the print in the bottom of the paper which had a font size of minus ten. It said they would charge me a 10% transfer fee. It also came with a dictionary sized terms and conditions book, which somewhere said they could take my wife and kids if I didn't pay them.

They make your life easy, until you make one small mistake. Then its pay back time. They charge you a late fee and then your interest rates shoot up to a 100% percent. On the credit report the damage looks like an equivalent of rape and murder. You are pretty much doomed after that. People tend to think just because they have a $10000 limit, they can use it all up without thinking how to repay it.

All this convenience doesn't come of any use in a desi store. The minute you show your credit card to pay, the cashier has a frown on his face and points you to the sign which says "Credit card accepted only for purchases of $15.00 or more". If you say you don't have cash on you, he points you to the ATM machine they installed just for you. For which, you pay the ATM a $2.00 fee and your bank a $2.00 fee for the $1.00 Dairy Milk chocolate you wanted to buy. What am I doing with no cash in my wallet? I have three credit cards. Remember?