A New Way to Nickel and Dime Myself

Photo courtesy of ehow.com

As with many of my moneymaking schemes, this one started with an article in The Wall Street Journal some time in late August. The reporter said that the best deal for folks who don’t carry a credit card balance is a Charles Schwab Visa card. Why? Because you get 2 per cent back on every dollar you spend – deposited into your Schwab brokerage account.

Shortly before Labor Day, I used a lunch hour to march myself down to the Charles Schwab office in Boston’s financial district. The whole thing seemed simple – sort of. I needed to fill out the Schwab brokerage account form, write a check for $1,000, fill out the Schwab Visa application, and then mail all three items -- in one envelope provided to me by a pleasant young man, whose only office adornment was the requisite framed photo of people I assume were his wife and two kids.

Little did I know how much time and energy this would involve! By the latter part of September, I was feeling agitated about having made some online clothing purchases that involved just a plain old Master Card with no money back. And all because my Schwab Visa card had never arrived. When I began querying Dennis as to whether he had really mailed that envelope the pleasant young man at Schwab had handed me back in August, he grew testy and suggested that I talk to the folks at Schwab.

More time spent at the Schwab office, where a pleasant young woman checked the logs, determining the envelope Dennis swore he mailed had never been received. She suggested I put a stop payment on that first $1,000 check, to be drawn on my account at Citizens Bank, then write a second $1,000 check, and helped me fill out all new applications. Done!

While arranging to stop payment on the first $1,000 check, an equally pleasant young man at Citizens did his best to sell me on a Citizens credit card instead. The terms of that card are still elusive, but I vaguely recall that one offer involved money back on gasoline purchases and another promised money back on purchases from whatever category you spent most on in a given month. He waxed enthusiastic about both offers, saying one of his colleagues had already gotten enough money back to finance a trip to sunny Aruba. No thank you.

When Dennis and I checked the mail last night, we spied an envelope containing the elusive Schwab Visa card. Despite three tries on validation, always with a voice mail promise of being connected with a “customer satisfaction specialist,” I ultimately received a less hopeful voice mail telling me the party I was trying to reach was unavailable and that I would be disconnected.

This morning I finally validated the card. Meanwhile, I need to respond to a voice mail from yet another pleasant young man at Schwab calling on behalf of that pleasant young woman I’d visited earlier this month. She was at home sick, but wanted me to know that first $1,000 check I’d sent had somehow been discovered in Schwab’s office in Orlando, Florida. She promised I’d be credited for the stop payment fee, but I’ll need to call her tomorrow.

Wish me luck!