Ordinary Gweilo

I got a phone call the other day to remind me that I had forgotten to pay one of my credit card bills. That’s funny, I thought, I don’t normally use this card. It turned out that there was an admin charge of HK$60 for their “free” dental coverage. To this they have added HK$100 as a ‘late charge’, and nearly HK$700 in ‘finance charges’. Yes, that’s right, more than ten times the overdue amount!!

I think it’s time to cancel this card.

I have to admit that many years ago, when I was first issued with a credit card, it seemed like free money. I could spend up to my credit limit and only had to make a small monthly payment. No problem! I then discovered that if I used my card and made regular payments they would increase my credit limit – more free money! What’s not to like about that?

Eventually, of course, I had to stop deluding myself and take a more sensible approach. Making the minimum payment each month means that you give a lot of money to the credit card company but never pay off the debt. Not such a good idea. So these days I pay off the full balance every month, and don’t pay any interest. Well, normally – if my “foolproof” system for filing away bills and paying them a day or two before the due date doesn’t descend into an untidy pile of paper. Which it normally does, but give me 10 minutes and I can normally dig out the statement on the due date. If I remember, of course.

I think it’s fairly obvious that these companies make their money from these charges, and not from people who use their card and then pay the full balance by the due date. In fact, when you think about it, the whole credit card thing is subsidised by people who use their cards to borrow money (deliberately or accidentally). By and large, that means that the poor and the feckless are subsidising the richer and better organized. Which, I have to say, seems a fairly agreeable state of affairs – just as long as they cancel those nasty charges when I forget to make a payment. Which seems to be what they do (if you ask nicely), so at least the story has a happy ending.

They’re still weasels, though.