Yesterday I went to watch a movie with a friend and the thing was he pre-purchased the tickets ahead of time and got a cheaper deal since there were a few of us. For myself I usually always want to use the credit card and was anticipating in purchasing it through those machines that are in the theatres now. As a result of this though, I had to pay him back in cash.

Unfortunately, all I had was $20 bills and the ticket was only about $7. So at fist I told him to just keep the twenty dollars since no one had any change. His reaction was interesting as he said if it was $10 that would be different but there is no way he is taking $20 as that is way too much. Therefore, he scrambled for some change in his pocket to give back to me. It wasn’t even still, but he definitely didn’t want to take so much.

This happens a lot and usually in this situation everyone simply remembers the times where the person spent more than necessary so that if a situation comes up in the future where there is a bill again then you can factor that difference into it. Of course, the other way around would have been for me to simply not give anything until I got some change and saw him another time. But then I would have to be the one to remember it right? lol

There was a conversation today where a group of people were saying how dumping the credit card was the key to getting out of debt for them. As it turned out, every time they introduced the credit card back into their lives they ended up getting into some kind of debt.

With that thought the topic then swayed into a talk about credit in general and how you it forced them to learn to be resourceful without it as many of us grew up as if credit was the way to acquire your needs in life. I personally always did view credit as a privilege and not some kind of essential. Though, I personally use items like a credit card constantly and make a profit out of it because of the rewards.

I was trying to think of what was the hardest thing for me in life if I didn’t have say a credit card. Overall, it’s the sheer convenience of not having to carry so much cash all the time and that certain vendors, like an online store, is dependent on that payment method. If your answer is something like you can’t afford a certain item without it then you know your habits needs fixing. The key thing is to not be dependent on it first and foremost.

What a surprise this was when I checked my blog comments today. As you all know, I was having trouble canceling that hosting account and had to initiate a chargeback. From the looks of it, the owner of the company replied to the post and mentioned that they have credited me back.

I thought the comment showed a lot of interesting business topics though. While maybe I interpreted it the wrong way, the comment came across to me as if he was trying to place the blame on me as to why that account wasn’t cancelled in a timely manner. In some ways I felt this way too because I specifically read a comment from another person where he felt the same was done to him.

Even if that wasn’t the case, that is one thing that is important I’d say in a customer service oriented business where it is important to try and not place the blame on the customer rather than helping them understand why the situation occurred in the first place. I am actually interested in hearing a reasoning for it as from what I read many have experienced the same. Hopefully that helps them too.

You know what the other thing I was thinking about too? Was action taken in crediting me back promptly a direct result of me contacting the company or because of the post I made in sharing my experience with others? I never actually did get a callback for the record. In general many times that is true where you will get a cold shoulder response from a business until the story is made public. Does that mean you should write about every little issue? Course not, but it’s an option I suppose.

So, glad I got my credit back. Actually, there is another service in that account that was to be renewed as well in the later months that I requested a cancellation for as well. Wouldn’t that be funny if I get charged for that in the coming months.

Past Post Reference:

Part 1
Possible Chargeback Initiation

Part 2
Credit Card Chargeback BlueFur Web Hosting

Part 3
Credit Card Chargeback BlueFur Web Hosting Part 2

So you may have remembered a little over a month ago where I gave this hosting company a cancellation notice where it wasn’t until mid this month that the service was set to be renewed. Since I had no use for this particular vendor anymore, I decided to cancel it and gave them a lot of notice.

I also read all the horror stories and sure enough I received an automatic e-mail the other day saying that they have successfully billed my credit card. Funny thing is my cancellation support request ticket has been sitting unanswered since that time and I even replied to their billing e-mail about this.

Because of those horror stories I did indeed document everything too. I did take a peak at my statement online and the charge has not been posted as of yet and so I can’t initiate anything. The annoying thing about these is that you still have to pay the credit card bill and then wait for a possible month or so until you get reimbursed (Assuming everything is successful).

My credit card actually has an online form for it too which I haven’t really tried before. The last time I had to do something like this was almost 8 years ago using the traditional phone method. Will be an interesting saga unless that company fixes everything beforehand.

Kind of a neat topic this was that I heard of today. Essentially there were two polar opposites of the way one views finances and success in life where the debate revolved around what one has to show for their successes financially. In one corner you have the person that doesn’t have any debt such as outstanding credit card balances. In the other corner you have typical guy that has thousands of dollars in debt but at the same time seems to own a lot.

Now in the debt man’s way of life he has everything one would normally expect while using credit to buy various goodies. In the other person’s side he is more cautious where he doesn’t buy what he can’t pay off immediately and therefore saves a lot of his money and only buys when he feels when he really needs it. In fact, he is still using the home that was purchased by his parents and so technically it is not his.

Now visibly if you look at it the debt guy looks way more successful in life. He has his own house, a lot of high end electronics, etc. Whereas the other person seems like he has nothing in one of those “Still living in the parent’s basement” type of scenario. The main distinction is that his bank account is way bigger than the other person’s.

That made me think. The first was I personally don’t think you can judge financial success necessarily by what you have. Example, a large business that owns a gigantic office while swimming in thousands of dollars in debt doesn’t necessarily mean it is better than the guy who is in his little home office while still using things like a rotary phone. In those specific case it comes down to who is more profitable

Although, which direction is more sensible? Like with the debt example, the guy with the big office can continue to live the big image life with all the fixings until say the bank says “No more”. Or, you can be the debt free guy that just keeps strolling along while never really getting those bigger things that most people would relate success with.

If you think about it, there is a possibility too where with the guy who was running mostly off credit could just begin selling off all of his assets which can possibly put him in the same position as the debt free guy if he wants to get out of that cycle. The main difficulty I’d say is maintaining the lifestyle since he is more used to the lavish one and most likely wouldn’t last as a result. At the same time, you can argue that the debt free guy could always just convert to that lavish lifestyle mode too by racking up his credit. Was an interesting debate about financial direction in life I thought with no real one size fits all answer to it.