Bad Consumer Smith finally paid off her American Express Optima card after 14 years, but couldn’t believe that Amex tacked on a $0.19 finance charge to her last bill. Smith summoned her lesser angels to work out a fitting response. Here’s what she came up with:
I sent AmEx two checks for a penny each, one for two cents, two for three cents, one for four cents, and one for a nickel.I didn’t want them to accidentally drop one, and I was still in a bad mood, so I folded the first check up. Then the second. Then I realized I could fold them all up… around each other.
Topped off with the billing slip, with “stupid bill” written in green marker on it.
Hit the jump for Amex’s response.
Smith writes:
Since at least 1994 I have had an American Express Optima card.We finally paid the darn thing off.
I waited patiently for my final billing statement, and sent in the payment electronically the next day.
Except AmEx doesn’t believe in Grace Periods, only Average Daily Billing.
So, AmEx decided my final bill of 340 odd dollars was an average daily bill of $23. So they sent me a bill for $.19 interest.
Unfortunately for all involved they sent me that in the middle of a really BAD week.
I thought about this.
What is the most evil way I can pay this thing?
If I do 19 payments of one cent each through my bank it will just go to the AmEx computers. That’s too easy.
I started to send in $.19 from my desktop piggy bank.
Then I realized I wouldn’t know they received it, and I really don’t want a LATE bill for nineteen cents.
So I started to send a check for one center and 18 cents cash. (I have sent in $1.00 or similar checks before with paper forms to other billers— then I know they got the damn thing).
Decided I didn’t want to pay for the postage to mail a nickel.
Realized my bank gives me unlimited checks, unlimited check cashing for free.
So I tear out a chunk of checks.
Realize that if I’m the person processing the check, 19 checks for a penny each is pretty easy.
So I sent AmEx two checks for a penny each, one for two cents, two for three cents, one for four cents, and one for a nickel.
I didn’t want them to accidentally drop one, and I was still in a bad mood, so I folded the first check up. Then the second. Then I realized I could fold them all up… around each other.
Topped off with the billing slip, with “stupid bill” written in green marker on it.
It just might have taken less time to wait on hold and be transferred 17 times trying to get them to waive a bill for $.19, but I have my doubts. AmEx has call centers in India just like everyone else.
Am I a bad consumer, or just sick of bull hockey? How hard would it have been for the computers to be programmed to say, “bill amount is less than cost of mailing, cheaper to waiver bill?” I have one medical laboratory I deal with who doesn’t bill below a threshold — it’s cheaper to eat the bill than send out and process a bill for some minimum.
Stupid conglomeramegacorporation.
-Bad Consumer Smith
Amex cashed the checks. Each and every one of them. We can’t say we’re surprised, but we do commend Smith for her creativity.
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@maestrosteve: @sncreducer:
@JKinNYC: @Roxie:
Seems to me that the douchbags are the ones complaining about what the OP did.
It always degenerates into a blame the victim scenario.
And fuck the underpaid workers who had to unpack the envelopes.
@Dobernala: You’d think so, but Target put me in collections for $0.14, even going so far as to phone me early one Saturday morning to demand payment.
I’d hate to be the parking attendant if you have a bad meal at a fancy restaurant. Way to take out your frustrations on the wrong person.
—
Here’s some help for you next time:
-Pay the bill
-Cut up your credit cards from this company.
-Call to cancel your credit cards from this company, when they ask you “why,” calmly explain your reasons.
-Since this bothers you so greatly, never do business with them again.
-Voila! Action which actually “punishes” the company which has policies with which you disagree.
Good for her. At least she’s having some fun with her 19 cent bill. Props on the creative payment method.
@Buran: Starcraft Siege Tank in siege mode. Truly a work of art.
@TexasBelle: Boo hoo. I’m betting the clerk got a kick out of it. If the only thing I did was cash checks I know it’d brighten up my day.
wow. WTF is this person’s problem?
I have an AMEX card. I pay it on time, before it’s due. I’ve never had a problem with them.
I use their coverage on rental cars when I rent them. $15 per rental for total coverage. The last time I was in Canada, I had a claim for $400 made against me. Amex paid it. No problems.
I purchased a phone from a ripoff vendoe on line. I called Amex. The charge was reversed immediately. No problem.
So tell me again why I’m supposed to be impressed by this childish stunt?
@itsgene: Yeah, bad consumer Smith should’ve done this by writing yet ANOTHER 2-cent check, then calling and demanding everyday for a refund check due to overpayment. LOL
All kidding aside, I’ve yet to have a problem with American Express, and their Costco-branded TrueEarnings card is exceptional (unless/until you are delinquent, obviously).
Wait a minute…. people still pay bills through the mail?
For the past 4 years, the only paper check I’ve used is for apartment rent, and I’m still on check #60 for that account. Pay the bill online and be done with it.
Amex is a big corporation with complicated and highly automated billing systems. The bill for 19 cents was created because of their policies. No automated billing system will ever be created with the ability to waive charges, not without human oversight.
If you feel the bill is wrong or useless, then call customer service and talk to someone with the authority to help. The billing system is programmed to bill you. Also, yes you probably stuck to the guy who’s opening the checks but checks are checks to him, not like he really cares.
To me the only person who lost is the OP, wasting a huge amount of time for a pathetic reason.
@manithemoneyman: I pay bills through the mail when my credit card charges me a $7 fee to pay online. Call me crazy.
Ok listen people…
Because of all the fine new financial auditing that is now enforced by criminal penalties, this is how billing is going to be.
If their system says you owe them 2 cents. They have to send you a bill, put a stamp on it, and hope you pay it. Then when you send in two checks for a penny, they HAVE to cash them. The gov’t wants to know about every transaction.
What’s a couple cents? To you? Nothing. Some guy in accounting wants to skim $100k, and hides it on the books by saying it was 10 cent rebates to 10,000 people? That’s enough for a lot of people to go to jail over.
I really wish these “OMG Company X billed me/sent me a check for some amount less than a dime” stories would die. Welcome to the post Enron/WorldCom world.
I’ve opened letters AND processed payments (for separate institutions), and I think origami chequemaking is a hoot. Much better than whaling out some CSR on the phone!
Congrats, Smith, you’ve won today’s “Blame the Victim” trophy.
Way to waste your own time. You must think the CEO of American Express is walking your checks to the corner bank and standing in line or that some guy with a green eyeshade is meticulously penciling in your balance in a ledger book. The guy who opened your envelope must process a thousand checks a day. Why should he care if the check says 1 cent or $100? He probably had a little chuckle and then forgot about it five minutes later.
@surreal:
Hmm I’d say its time for a new credit card. $7 to be able to pay online?
All of my cards gave me a (tiny) discount in fees so they could get me to pay online.
I have two refund checks from pay fones back in the 70′s from Ma Bell for .05 and .03, they’re too damn cute to cash!
AmEx has saved my gluteus maximus several times over the years when I dealt with merchants of questionable ethics. I’m always happy to complain, and their overseas reps frustrate me, but I have to admit I’m happy with AmEx.
@t325: Then everybody’s going to underpay their AMEX by 41 cents, or whatever a first class stamp costs this week. BC is still a joker, but unless the account is being closed, the 19 cents stays, IMO.
@JKinNYC: When I got stupid checks from stupid patients we would all take a minute to laugh at the stupid stupid patients’ payments. So it was good times. Broke up the monotony. Same for when I got payment checks for $.01 from the stupid insurance companies.
excellent. this made my day.
I don’t understand. If you owe 19 cents then pay it and shut the fuck up.
A farmer once decided to finally pay a disputed debt, but instead of sending in a regular check, he wrote the check on the side of a pig and delivered it to the debt holder, who promptly declared it invalid. The farmer refused to pay any other way, so the debt holder took the farmer to court.
The ruled that the check written on the side of a pig was an acceptable form of payment and sided with the the farmer.
if the checks even went to amex, it might inconvenienced someone at the LOWEST level of the company. however, it probably went to a lockbox of the bank amex uses, and just been an inconvenience of the lowest level of employee at an entirely different company.
@jlayman920: Sounds reasonable until you factor in the fact that credit card companies are ruining this country (though GW is sure doing his part).
@homerj: The guy in your scenario would get caught for sure. 10,000 rebates at 10 cents each is only $1000. Surely he will have to account for the other $99000 he stole.
@WV.Hillbilly: Hey, dumbass -
How exactly is the OP a “victim” here? She signed a contract. Amex billed her according to the terms of that contract. Even the OP doesn’t dispute the validity of the charge itself, she just got annoyed because it was so small. Where’s the victimization? I question your reading and reasoning skills, son.
Wow. And you have the nerve to call other people “douchbags”? Look within, fella. The OP is a whiny crybaby, and you are too.
Is it just me, or do the checks pictured look like they have been filled out with a felt tip pen? The kind of pen you’re not supposed to use because scammy types will be able to wash the ink away and then fill in any amount they want to? That’d be somethin’ if that happened with these checks…
@Michael Belisle:
Yeah she was too dumb to realize it was nineteen cents and made a big to-do about it
@Angryrider: Yup and that guy knows how evil his employer is, cost of selling out and working there, isn’t it? There’s likely another call center across the street…
@sncreducer:
Get a clue SNC, this .19 cents is obviously a ploy in hopes of having her ignore it out of pissed-off-ness mode so they can rape her for the $35 late fee and ejaculate….don’t you know how credit card companies work now? Glad she didn’t give them the satisfaction..
@surreal: Hmm, my reaction, a lot more fun, is to call up and punish someone on the phone for punishing me with a fee for what should be free, and then punish their manager, etc. etc.
If that doesn’t work I send them a bill for “customer service incompetence fee”, “customer inconvenience fee”, etc. for the same amounts I object to. Of course they won’t pay it, but it makes some people think again…and gives them a story to be falsely indignant about with their mindless little friends at the water cooler…
If it had been me, in addition to the origami, I would have gotten one of those demagnetizers and demagnetized the ink on the bottom of the checks just to piss them off even more, just in case they aren’t photo-based in their processing center.
@Consumer007:
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because she owes Amex 19 cents in interest?
so the OP has an ornery sense of humor. at least there are other people who see it that way.
The irony is, if I had been paying down my credit yard for 14 years, writing that last check for .19 would have given me so much pleasure…
I may be biased, because AmEx’s rental car insurance saved me lots of money once.
I’ve had CC companies waive balances of up to $2 (Amex, MBNA are two personally I’ve dealt with). Weird that they would bill for the 19 cents. However, since this card had been in repayment for so long, perhaps that’s why the system didn’t detect the piddling-small change left on the balance.
@JustAGuy2:
Nooooooooooooooooooo, that couldn’t be. I’m sure someone at AmEx specifically targeted this person for this sort of thing just to be hateful and improve the company’s chances in the next Worse Company EVAR competition.
not impressed. a better response would have been to pay a designer $1500 to create letterhead that reads “F U AM EX” along the left margin, spend $120 to have it printed, then blow $5.00 for a $0.19 money order, and then another $43 to overnight it via fedex. but i guess some people
this is just another example of someone taking the easy route.
Isn’t it pretty standard for you to get a credit card bill every month regardless of balance? Wouldn’t you be concerned if you DIDN’T get a bill one month on a revolving credit line? I have a couple accounts open but I never use the cards — I’d be very suspicious if I didn’t get a bill one month confirming my zero balance. I don’t see how this is any different.
Heh, did you attempt calling their customer service centre? Honestly, AmEx has usually been amongst the best credit card companies I’ve ever dealt with, and they’d most likely take that charge right off.
Capital One attempted to bill me for $0.15 because I recently paid off their card. Their representative from India wanted me to pay, but his supervisor simply removed the charge.
For me, the satisfaction of not giving anyone a cent they’re not due is more than making a CSR work to process a payment.
However, very creative!
@TheRealAbsurdist: I’m glad everything worked out for YOU. Too bad this article is about how AMEX treated SOMEONE ELSE.
Q: ‘So tell me again why I’m supposed to be impressed by this childish stunt?’
A: after 14 years, but couldn’t believe that Amex tacked on a $0.19 finance charge to her last bill.
What a bitch. The customer, I mean.
WaMu pulled the same shit with me, wish I’d have though of this.
I find it funny that the granny who went to Comcast with a hammer in hand got more sympathy and less crap from the commenters than someone who was creative and non-violent with their annoyance. The bill got paid so why is everyone attacking the OP?
I would have sent an extra $.01 so they would have to spend the labor and postage to mail you a $.01 check. Damn the man.
Why so much hate? Amex got their money, and the OP got some entertainment/satisfaction out of a frustrating situation. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.
And as someone who’s worked a number of dreary jobs in his life (albeit not one as a check processor for a CC company) I imagine that the office worker that everyone’s so up in arms about was probably amused (and worst case scenario simply “not amused”) by this.
To the OP
Amex uses the Bubba and Guido Collection Service.
Don’t be surprised one day when Bubba and his cousin Guido show up on your doorstep to collect the ounce of flesh still owed to Amex for your childish prank.
How old are you? Three?
@Angryrider:
This is the kind of thing that gives customers a bad name. You reap what you sow.
should have used half cents
@Consumer007:
I don’t suppose you have any proof for your theory, do you? Or do the aliens just beam these ideas directly into your head, right through the tin foil hat?
What I want to know is where does Bad Consumer Smith does her banking to get free checks and check cashing?
Dumb.
A computer issued the bill not a human. Even if the amount is dumb she still owes it a