Saturday, June 07, 2008

Outrunning the Creditors

My vengeful creditors hate me.

I never spend beyond my credit limit. I pay exactly on time. I pay the full amount required in the statement. And the worst thing - I actually exchange my gift points for exorbitant purchases ( since the points regularly expire annually anyway! ). Definitely the nightmarish stuff that keeps their auditors awake at night. Certainly not the ideal shopaholic spendthrift that most avaricious credit companies would wish for.

You guys do know that the good folks in VISA and Mastercard would prefer that you live solely on revolving credit till breaching insolvency, right?

Of course, by rights it would make more sense to hand me a debit card instead. But since they tend to waive my subscription fees every year - and persistently raise my credit limit, I see no point in changing horses now.

Dangling
Serious. I'd feel naked without it!

And yeah, I never leave home without it.

So today the previously bickering credit card companies finally banded together in a common diabolical pact to take their revenge - by swallowing my card when I charged it for petrol. Can already imagine the partners in the credit card firm cackling mercilessly away as the card's inexorably munched up by the machine.

You can imagine my consternation. I doubt the petrol station manager has seen such hysterical dramatics ever. After all I haven't lived without a credit card since... my shockingly emancipated 18th birthday.

How times have changed from starting with being a submissive supplementary to a full-fledged member of the freely spending ( on credit! ) public. Never realized how desperately attached I was to a lifeless lil piece of plastic till I saw it being gobbled up into the depths of the unforgiving petrol machine. Hell, that card has been with me - in its various guises - through summertime in London to autumn in Beijing! Seriously, no sale could be complete without it.

Think the first thing I ever charged with my card were return train tickets to Brighton. Which actually landed me a rather good time with a lanky Brit fellow but that's another tale.

No worries for me though. After sending out a desperate cry for help, the credit bad boys have promised me a new card in the space of one week. Time to inaugurate a new card with a swipe.

7 comments:

Legolas said...

What did you do at the petrol station!

Anyway, blogspot is on again in China.

Anonymous said...

Interestingly enough, though, with debit cards being allowed an overdraft facility, I constantly find myself dabbling into that more often than not. Ends up just like a credit card, minus the high rise interest rates, of course!

But I'll try and abstain. Life as a student with a credit card is a damnation in itself. Haha

[danial][ma] said...

hej! paul...yeah, life without using credit cards are just seemed ok to me now...and i just got another two credit cards, mastercard and amex, both without annual fees but i won't used them, and prefer to use the debit card instead...so, what were you ended up in brighton? hehehehe...

__S.B__ said...

Happens to the best of us.
including me

Anonymous said...

You should have just bought a one way ticket to Brighton.

A Lewis said...

What? You're not one of those "I've got to spend it because it's in my pocket" sort of guys? Oh, Visa doesn't like you, do they?

savante said...

They changed their minds again eh, leggy?

Debit with an overdraft facility. Sounds like something I'd go for, paul!

Well I wanted to see Brighton, Danial :P Just happened to bump into a fellow passenger.

Thanks, sb!

But I wanted London too, anon!

Seems like I'm frugal but I'm not, trust me, lewis :P

Paul