Diary * 主人札记

I re-watched God Father III recently. After getting duped by the Vatican on the Immobiliare takeover deal, Michael Corleone concluded: "your tactics are despicable."

That would be a fitting description for Saks credit card. Last December, tempted by those beautiful shoes on sale at the store, I applied for a Saks Mastercard. I got my beautiful shoes and paid off the balance immediately. For months, the card laid in my wallet without me ever touching it. One day, out of pity, I used the card to buy a ski jacket in Paragon.

As always, I tried to pay it off immediately. The bill did not come, so I called customer service to pay it over the phone, surrendering an extra fee for the service. Five months later, a letter from one of my other credit cards came, informing me that my credit line has been cut due to a delinquent payment.

It took half day of talking to customer service reps (usually preceded by conversing with a recording machine that made me feel super intelligent) to find out where the delinquent payment was from. So when I was paying off my ski jacket on the phone, the customer rep got my account number wrong and the transaction was never completed. But Saks never informed me of the failed transaction.

Adding to the complication is that Saks credit card has two credit lines, one with Saks Stores, another with Mastercard. Purchases within Saks stores is recorded on the Saks credit line, outside of Saks is recorded on the Mastercard creditline. One does not know what's going on with the other. It explains why the delinquent payment was never made known to me as I checked numerous times with Saks stores that my Saks card was "clean."

Because the fault was completely on Saks' behalf, a manager waived all the late fees and other charges relating to that delinquent payment. She also said Saks would inform credit agencies on the error. But this experience made me look at those beautiful shoes with a different light now. Was it worth the trouble?

Then mid-year sales came, and some really beautiful dresses went on sale at Saks. The pain was easily forgotten and I gorged on them, buying several Missoni and others. At checkout, the sales lady asked, would you like to put them on your Saks card for an additional 10% off? Why not.

It took me a while to figure out how this "despicable tactics" works. Several days later, when I went back to pay off the purchase in cash – as I was counting the stash of $20 bills, it dawned on me. Suppose I want to return any of my Missoni, I would not be getting back my cash. Rather, I would get store credit. In another word, Saks is locking in the revenue whenever I purchase with my Saks card. Aha!

This is such a revelation. We've all heard about 20% interest rate and secret fees. But there are so many other forms of …… despicable tactics. I've only learned one of them. Just think, the so called "reward" program, "give away" sales, coupons, gift cards…all those misnamed tactics to squeeze each dollar out of our wallet.

What can we do? Michael Corleone wasn't able to defeat those crooks dressed in red robes in the movie. It took one real priest for the Immobiliare deal to go through. And that one real priest was whom Michael Corleone confessed to. The salvation is within each one of us.

Quit shopping. Quit the temptation. Quit the vanity – At least until the next big sales comes.