I’m very strange (as you know) but even more so when it comes to money. There are many inconsistencies in how I handle and deal with money.

I don’t make large purchases without thinking them to death. What constitutes a large purchase varies (and the logic probably makes no sense):

• Clothing and shoes: anything over $50, unless it’s a coat or a dress
• Candy: anything over two dollars unless it’s the largest bag of candy in the universe. And to be honest, I refuse to buy the average bag of candy if it costs more than two dollars because you can always get it at Wal*Mart for less than that
• Electronics (cell phone, digital camera, mp3 player): anything over $200, although you can bet I’ll debate the pros and cons of buying it to death even if it’s under $200.

So that’s good, right? I’m not an impulse shopper when it comes to “big” ticket items, hence my lack of a car and house. Let me loose in a dollar store or chain store with notoriously low prices, however, and spending $100 or more is suddenly ok, as long as I don’t exceed the limits above for each class of item.

Another thing I’m very good at is keeping my receipts. Having worked in retail for over eight years, I know my rights with respect to returning something I buy (that is unused) if I change my mind about it. I also know that having my receipt makes it easier to do returns and/or exchanges, so I keep them. I tend to pay for most things with my debit or credit card, and save cash for small things or trips to the dollar store. Every few weeks, I gather my receipts, separate them by the card I used to pay for it, and keep the receipts safe in a box until I get my statement (VISA) or check my receipts against my bank account (debit cards). This works well for me because it gives me a chance to see how much I have in my bank account and adjust my spending accordingly.

I got my VISA statement today and I noticed a suspicious charge ($35) from Register.com, from last Tuesday. This company sells domain names and I do have a domain name I want to register but I know I didn’t register it last week, nor have I registered a domain since August 2006. I immediately called my credit card company to see if they could give me more information about the charge, and they pointed me to the phone number beside the charge. I called the phone number. It disconnected the first two times, then the third time I was transferred to the billing department, then put on hold for 19 minutes (I timed it) and then I explained the problem to the man who was assisting me.

He asked if I own any domain names, and I told him the names of my two domains. He checked them and said they were registered by the company that I bought them from (ie, not Register.com). I knew this of course. He asked if I had any other domains registered and I told him I didn’t. He asked for my first and last name to look it up on their system to see if I had registered something. He couldn’t find anything. But then he said he saw that a transaction was processed on November 16 (whereas my statement says the transaction occurred on November 20). I told him I had never dealt with their company and I wanted the charge removed.

Then, he asked for my credit card number so he could look up my account. Immediately, I got suspicious: if I had bought a domain from them, why would they file it under my credit card number and not have my name on file? Also, he said he saw something processed by me on November 16 yet it didn’t have my credit card number or anything attached to it? It didn’t make sense. After I told him I wasn’t going to give him my credit card number, he asked for my home phone number, to look up my account with that, and that made me even more leery. I told him I wasn’t going to give him that either, that instead I’d cancel the charge with my credit card company. He said he’d put a note on my file indicating that. As I said thank you and hung up, I wondered how he could put a note on my file when I didn’t have a file with them according to his searches with my name and last name!

Anyway, it’s all very suspicious—could this card be cursed? I called my credit card company back and the guy I spoke to this time around tried to talk me out of disputing the charge, saying that I may have forgotten that I registered a new domain and what a hassle it would be if I suddenly remembered later. While he has a point, I thought my slightly frazzled explanation of what I just went through with this guy who gave me the creeps would alert him of the urgency of this. He kept saying “I understand ma’am, but what if this is a purchase you forgot about?” and he encouraged me to deal with canceling the charge through the company.

So, I decided to call them back. I waited and waited and got disconnected again. That was it for me and I called the credit card company back to dispute the charge and change my credit card number.

It was 11:17pm. They close at 11pm.

Guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow morning?

The good news is it’s a good thing I check all my credit card statements because $35 would have been totally under my radar.

Update: I canceled my credit card and the credit card company will be going through the process of handling my charge dispute. I feel much better!

Filed under: Money, NaBloPoMo by jummy