Chase and Chimps

I'm gonna blog about a discussion I had with my credit card company. I was composing it in my mind...... and then read my e-mail. I feel like I need to clear the air a bit, concerning yesterdays bloggie. If you go read it, you will see at NO point am I insulting or rude when referring to people who have moved to my area from NYC. They were called "transplants" when I was a teen, and it stuck. I do not see that term as derogatory or mean spirited, just literal. Also, I have nothing personal against ANY transplant, whether they are known to me or not. I believe I said that some transplants have enriched my life far more than I could ever hope to enrich theirs, and I meant it. The friendships I have made over the years, the support and caring when the going got tough, Hell, ......aside from Steve and my kids, the greatest gift that was ever given to me personally....my passion for, and the education to play my cello, came from a transplant who is a friend to this day.
I did not "indict" a whole group of people. *I* spoke from my heart about what happened to me.....which is one of those pesky things people DO in a blog. I am sorry if anyone was hurt by that entry. I meant what I said, I HATE having to leave my birthplace. I DO have choices...we could continue to rent from an unscrupulous, lying, cheating, sociopathic landlord, and live right ON the NYS Thruway, and I could go slowly mad from the noise. Or, we can buy our own home. We chose the latter.
The SECOND we buy our Love Shack, you will HEAR my keyboard before you see the blog entry! I'm upset that I have to leave my home to get my hearts fondest material desire,.....our Love Shack..........but nothing is perfect.

And now, what-was-in-my-head-when-I-sat-down-but-then-I-got-sidetracked-by-e-mail........


Oh, I am so PISSED! Steam coming out my ears and all!!! I just got off the phone with Chase, as in Chase credit card. I was a WAMU customer, and Chase bought WAMU, and all their credit card accounts, hence my being a Chase customer now.
I do not carry a balance on my C.C. I use the c.c like a debit card, and pay it in full every month. I've never paid any interest on my card. So, I get my first billing statement from Chase, and want to see the APR I've been assigned by them.......please sit down, you might hurt yourself.........they want to charge me a 24.24% APR !!! ME! I thought that was a mistake, I mean, they must have had millions of accounts to service when they bought WAMU, right? So I made:

Mistake 1: Call Chase
"Thank You for calling Chase, my name is Ignorant, how may I not help you today?"
"Hi, I am a new Chase customer, and I believe there has been an error made in my account. I just received my first statement, and it says 24.24% APR!
"Yes, that's your APR, and isn't that Purdy! "
"OK, I need a lower APR"
"There is no lower APR available to you right now, you can call back in 6 months and ask again! [ I SWEAR I heard Tumble Bees, a Pogo word game, [and one of my favorites]in the backround,but this dame doesn't speak-a de eeengleeeesh well enough to play that game]
"Excuse me, this APR is simply too high, and I would like to know what steps I need to take to lower it."
" You can't, we decided that, and we don't have a lower APR for you. Where's my tunafish sandwich, I know it's here somewhere. Oh, not you, my sandwich. I have notheeeeeng for you."

Mistake 2: Your Supervisor

"I'd like to speak to your supervisor, Thank You."
-12 minutes, and a missed call from Steve later-

"Thank You for calling Chase, my name is Curious George, WHY would you waste you time calling us? That's your APR, and we don't have any others for you, no other numbers at this time I mean, yes, that's what I mean" [ @@ ]
"I do not understand...we are in the process of buying a home. I KNOW my credit history, and I KNOW my FICO, and they do NOT support this interest rate, I need a much lower rate"
"Well, when Chase took your account, we did you a favor. We Know you have a good credit history, because if you didn't, we would have cancelled your account when we bought you from WAMU. [@@ ] But we still can't give you a better APR, you can call back in 6 months" [sounds like the Crazy 8 Ball]
"Would you please explain how Chase arrived at the APR assigned to my account then, because I'm sure there's been a mistake made"
"We know things, and use those thing to decide these things. We don't make mistakes, the computer does it all" [ @@ ] I can't tell you why, but I CAN send you a letter. Would you like a letter? Because *I* can send you a letter !"
"The APR for this account is unacceptable to me, and I need some assistance in adjusting the APR. I understand if you can't help me, I'll need to speak to

Mistake the 3rd: YOUR supervisor
-17 minutes and 2 chocolate covered cherries later-

"I'd like to speak with your supervisor please"
"Thank you for calling Chase, the sixth of the lower bowels of Hell, this is Maria, head of C.S. We cannot offer you a lower APR. We here at Chase have a negative credit business...in other words, you have to prove to us you are credit worthy. That is a process."
"Aren't my FICO and credit history sufficient enough to prove that I'm credit worthy?"
"Not necessarily. We do see your Fico, but that's not all we go by, we have high standards, and we use THEM. And computers, they tell us what APR to give you, we dont do anthing. Oh, and we likes to roll 'de dice too, but you didn't hear that from me."
" OK, can you tell me what I need to do to meet Chases criterion for a lower APR?
" That is proprietary business information,we cannot divulge that to the consumer! [!!!! @@ !!!! ]
"So how would I go about getting a lower APR?"
"Oh,you can call back any time. If we're not rolling 'de dice."
"Why would I do that if I didn't know I could actually get a lower rate? How can I get this rate lowered?"
" I can't tell you that, it's........
" I know, Proprietary business info, yeah, I dig that. When should I call back?"
"Oh, you can call anytime, but that's no guarantee that you'll get a lower APR, or that we will listen, or indeed that we would even have a human here to answer the phones. Sometimes just for kicks we let trained chimps answer the phones. Bet you can't tell the difference! "

"I'll bet you're right."

My phone says I wasted 37 minutes yapping at Chase. Or a chimp, I'm still not sure which.



March 26th:
-Make Up Your Own Holiday Day

~There ought to be a better way to start the day than by getting up in the morning.~