Pink and Undecided: credit cards

Is This That Blog That's Full of Complaints?

Hi, peeps!

I've been bombarded with (trivial but yet still annoying) matters lately, mainly with credit cards. While b*tching about it with some friends via BBM, Oline was like "Write it on your blog, cc!", and i replied "Errr, this blog is so going to be known as the Complains Blog, wouldn't it?" to which she replied "Isn't it the truth though?". LOL. Instead of being offended, i think it's true but i should totally clarify something (before launching on other complains, which will come up shortly). I know #Undecided and i are very loud, opinionated people and we do use this blog as a platform to voice our words. Read this entry that she wrote about standing up for ourselves or forever being other people's pushover, and we REFUSE to be pushovers.

I know that some bloggers are afraid to write bad things that happened to them in fear that people will label them as b*tchy bloggers and brands won't want to collaborate with them (this is mainly true for beauty/fashion bloggers), as for us? We never set up this blog to receive freebies (which if comes our way will be welcomed wholeheartedly of course) or being sponsored (it's a bonus! Not the main goal), more over we actually strive to be WRITERS. So if being ourselves meaning this blog will forever be our private (but what's so private about a blog that's been hit for 500-800 times a day without any proper advertisement other than the odd posting in various bloggers community's Facebook groups?) playground so be it. We do receive invitations, collaborations offers, business proposals from this blog anyway, and that's already more than we planned when we first started this blog.

That being said, i want to thank each and everyone of you who keeps on coming back to read our b*tchy little blog and even sweet enough to leave comments. You should know that while getting the "Ohhh, you're so cuteee" "You look gorgeous" "You're so pretty!!!" comments gave us mood and confidence boosters, it is the "I love your writing!!!" "I find myself reading your blog nonstop!!!" that truly gave us real sense of accomplishment and propel us to write more, and made us casts our self-doubts (mainly if we need to market ourselves as less opinionated, more company friendly blog. Yeah, that's not gonna happen).

And guess what? Standing up for yourself WORKS, that travel insurance agency? They decided to re-investigate our case, we received personal (from the agent) e-mails (and from the agency itself) apologizing about the outcome and explaining how she already tried to help, hunny even received a phone call regarding the investigation this morning-which is already a lot more than what happened before (they didn't even bother calling us to ask how the story went). Regardless on how the end result would be, i am ensured now that if you think you're right, it's never wrong to take matters to your own hands and fight for it. At least now they actually take us seriously instead of casting us aside like some stupid, clueless people they seemed to see at the first place.

Now, the point of this blog entry (actually this started as an opening to another totally unrelated post but it went on and on so i decided to post this as a separate blog post, that's how horrible i am! LOL), can i start complaining? This is not just a complain but also a warning for YOU to be careful with credit cards bills okay? Especially if like #Undecided, you don't even bother reading your statements and just pay whatever number you see in your statements (this would be case #2 though).

LOL

Case #1 : Mandiri credit card.

I tried multiple times to pay for hunny's credit card bill via E-Banking and it continuously failed because their website kept on crashing (those you use Mandiri e-banking would know that this is true and happens all the friggin time) until at one point, i thought i succeeded. The page went on to what appears to be a successful transaction page, with tiny red writings that told me that the transaction was a failure. Yep, i totally overlooked it and it was of course partly my fault. But don't forget, i already tried MULTIPLE times to pay for it and it kept on failing. Later when i realized it was a failure, i freaked and kept on trying to pay (it was late, you can't expect us to get out of the house at dawn just to pay a credit card bill, yes? What E and Mobile Bankings are for then???) and it kept on failing. We finally managed to pay it, 2 days late.

And of course, they charged us IDR 130.000. Which is a miniscule number, but that is NOT the point. The point is, why should we be charged on something that is also partly THEIR fault? It's hardly our fault if their website kept on crashing, isn't it? We already contacted them as soon as we realized it the payment didn't came through and they promise to make a note to make sure we won't be charged, but we were charged and when confronted by it they just said "Terribly sorry, we cannot credit it back. Just be careful next time". BE CAREFUL???? Be careful my a**!!! How was i supposed to be careful when i already kept on trying to pay and your website kept on crashing??? How about YOU take care of your website and upgrade it, make sure this never going to happen again and not patronize us about it? Geez! Mandiri bank, you're on my black list now. Will be closing the credit card as soon as the installments we have in the credit card's finished.

Case 2 : HSBC credit card.

Now this one actually not really HSBC's fault but since it involves them then i just chose that title to be more consistent *LOL*. The real problem lies with Lola Box. Why? You know i was their loyal customer since they first appeared in the beauty box world (and they seems to be the last two beauty box company still standing, who knows for how much longer since i realize they no longer accept 6 months and 1 year subscriptions and been MIA in social medias since last Saturday, which is always a tell tale sign of beauty boxes company going kaput) and kept on renewing my 3 months subscriptions for 3 times. My last transaction was on October/November 2013 for another 3 months subs, which ended on January 2014.

I have not (and no desire to) renew the subscription ever since (and no, i am not being delusional. I've checked my account with them as well as my e-mails to make sure i didn't rise in the middle of the night, sleep-computering and renewed my subs), so how come when hunny received his HSBC bill there's a LOLABOX transaction worth IDR 375.000? And i don't think i've ever used HSBC credit card for any transaction in Lola Box in the first place anyway!

I'm very obsessive and i freaked (naturally), thankfully HSBC's cs seems to be very accommodating, (as long as they approve the complains, which is 99% in the bag-or so they said) so we've blocked the credit card and will be receiving a new one in the mail soon. Still, it sucks to have to go though all the trouble and possibly have to pay for the new card, when it was never our fault in the first place! How did that transaction get in there??? So scary!!! And this is not the first time this happened, years ago someone in Thailand tried to hack our credit card, thankfully the HSBC CS called us to clarify if we made that transaction (which is NOT true since we were nowhere near Thailand back then), another time with other credit card (Mega, i think) with even more unknown transaction with merchant we've never even heard about. WTH. Why is this keeps on happening to us?

To make matter worse, Lola Box also cannot be reached. They did not respond to my Tweet, e-mail and Facebook wall for days (even though i used to praise their CS' fast responses back in the day), their phone (the only phone number they put on their website is a Flexy number) is turned off. WHAT IS HAPPENING???

And so, it is IMPORTANT to read your bank statements and bills kids, unexpected transaction that you've never made might pop out sometimes (in our case, 3x) and you need to do something about it before it's too late (i imagine once you make the payment you can't complain about it anymore).

UPDATE :
I finally hear from Lola Box, or should i say-they spammed me with pretty much the same e-mail over and over again (probably because they kept on calling me Minny and Hendratmi on the first e-mail *LOL* whoever the hell those people are) stating that it MIGHT be my old transaction back in November. Really??? REALLY???? You charge my credit card FIVE months later? Why not five years later? They also insist that i check on my old statements if i've already been charged or not. Like, seriously... Who keeps 5 months old statements??? I sure don't. And you can't ask me by feeling surely, coz i do feel like i definitely PAID for it already, but can i be sure? Of course i can't! I don't even know how to reply to their e-mail yet without exploding and telling them that i think their system suck b***s. PFFFFFTTTTTT.

With that, i am gonna close this unexpected entry. I was actually thinking, would it be excessive to write a post like this when i just posted a complain post not a week ago? If you think so, please refer to the first three paragraphs :p. I (we) may be complainers, but don't worry-we only complain about legitimate matters. If you don't do anything to piss us off, of course we won't be complaining (that would make us insane people that needs to be admitted to some asylum) in the first place. I find justful complains to be healthy (for our mental state as well as to create awareness to some matters for the readers) and necessary.

So if you think we complaint too much, take my suggestion : Next time you see a blog post title that sounds like a complain? Don't click it :). Stick to our happy-go-lucky travel (of course, there would be some complains in them too though if something happened in that travel!), reviews or hang out posts-which we have plenty of!

We are so much more than just that blog that complains, but don't sue us if you see this kind of posts whenever we're faced with frustrating situations!

Delightfully Annoying Complainer,

#Pink

PS : At least you can't call us the complainers that doesn't do anything but complain. We complain AND take actions. Including writing blog posts like this to make sure you know stuffs can happen and how you can avoid them in the future.

PPS : If you're wondering about the outcome with the whole debacle with Lola Box, you can read the comment below. For Lola Box' peace of mind, let me clarify this : i am not accusing Lola Box of abusing my credit card information, i was suspicious about the transaction and voiced my concern. I did forget the card i was using and that's my fault, but for the life of me i CANNOT remember if i have paid it or not months ago (and i actually never thought "OMG, Lola Box is trying to steal my money! They must be stealing my credit card informations!". No, i was worried if there's any way someone could hack their system and maybe the money didn't even go to Lola Box). That's why i e-mailed them (why in the world would i even try to reach to them if i just want to waive the payment? I could just stay silent and even block out their comments). The reply i got, was unsatisfactory, so when i added the EDIT part, i got even madder. So don't worry Lola Box, nobody's accusing you of anything criminal. Guess what, i didn't even tag Lola Box in this post so if anyone Google it (everybody knows that if you google them then lots of the results would be directed to MY blog) this won't come up, but now i change my mind.

4:34:00 PM
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On Why You Shouldn't Own Too Many Credit Cards

credit cards

Hi guys!

Caution : This is not the typical #Pink's entry (OOTDs, travel, make up, reviews or hauls), this is full of rants and curses, oh and it's highly opinionated (because i am me), so if you're not in the mood to hear (or read, really) someone's complaints and rants, skip it!

Been having quite a horrible day, mostly dealing with stupid credit card's customer service. You know i am quite a credit card evangelist, i like to use different banks' credit cards depending on the promotions that they are having to maximize the usage of those cards (and get the best deals out of them), but i should also tell you this : don't own too much of them.

It gets confusing! Like sometimes you'd forget to pay them for a day or two, and their late charges are a lot bigger than how much you actually spent-which SUCKS, happened to me TWICE with different cards and i terminated my accounts with them immediately, it's just so not worth it! One time, i punched in the wrong numbers on the amount of payment and it was short of IDR 13.000 and the next month the interest was IDR 300.000. WTF? And the the B*TCH of a customer service had the nerve to yell at me when i nicely asked about it, saying i haven't paid my millions worth of bill-therefore the hundreds of rupiahs of charges-all because she misread all the information displayed on her own effing computer. Stupid much? I hope she rots in hell as i write this. Oh yeah, i hold grudges for years.

Then you also might lose track of which card would be nearing their annual fees (i don't think there are a lot of countries which banks still charges annual fees! They're just stupid!) and you'd ended up having to pay a fortune for those stupid annual fees (just terminate them if they refuse to waive the annual fee, you don't need those stupid card anyway, lots of other banks are waiting for you with an open arms-and free annual fees).

Get rid of them!!!

I myself only own like, four credit cards (one that i pay for myself-with a lifetime free annual fees, one that's my parents' additional card, and two more from my hunny's additional cards) and i already don't use most of them (i only use one or two mostly) but that's already way too much! My hunny on the contrary, has like 10 or more, and like i said, that confuses him (and i) and we kept having to pay for stupid things (late charges, annual fees, etc).

Okay, so maybe that did not happen that often (once or twice a year, but if you have my memory once a year is way too often anyway, i'd feel like the previous event happened just days ago WTF), but that's still super unnecessary and annoying okay! That in turn made me got so pissed off at him, because i've been telling him to cut off most of the credit cards, why would he needs so much anyway??? He only use like, three of them mostly anyway! And the ones that keeps in creating troubles for us are the ones that we don't really use anyway! How much stupider can you get???

Anyway, this particular credit card we were dealing with today, we used it for several installments without realizing next month would be the due date of the annual fee. Same thing (same bank) happened with my mum's card but somehow they waived the annual fee, so everything was peachy. Was hoping for the same thing for us, but no such luck. They told us to pay the annual fee (IDR 700.000 because my effing hunny had to have platinum cards for every effing bank) or pay off all of the remaining installments, including 3x200.000 (for every installments, yes we had three) penalties for cancelling the installments.

That would not be so bad, if not because two out of three installments will actually be finished NEXT MONTH (so they're making us pay penalties even though we'll PAY the installments fully and within time limit WTF), when the annual fee's due. WTF. The CS didn't offer any other alternatives, instead she actually challenged us to pay off all of the installments+penalties (that's up to IDR 8.000.000) like we couldn't afford to do it, so i did. Within a few minutes. And then i demanded hunny to call her back and tell her to terminate both of our cards NOW. Another CS answered and he begged us to continue using the credit card, just use a certain amount of the credit card and they'd waive the annual fee. AFTER we already paid the whole thing. WTF.

But being the kiasu that i am, that still sounds like a good idea (i mean, IDR 600.000 is not that little, i can get like two Zara dresses on sale okay! Or even book a hotel for a night in Bali! Yes, by this statement you should already guess that 1-i am obsessed with Zara and 2-we're planning to go to Bali next, sometime soon). But my hunny went on and said NO and insisted on terminating the cards-without consulting me! @#$%%^&*@))*^#$%@@@!!! Seriously, how can this guy even survive without me, eh??? I just can't understand how his brain (nor other guys') works!!! The CS was offering him his IDR 600.000 back (using 5mill within three months is nothing), and he declined? WTH WTF, what in the world's wrong with him????

And yes, of course i pulled a major wrath on him and made him call the stupid CS back, they've successfully reversed the effing termination but can't help him with the waiving annual fee thingy, he'd have to talk to the exact CS (thankfully he wrote down the CS' name for once!) to be able to talk about it because that particular CS was the one who offered that alternative. WTF. And we'd have to wait until tomorrow morning to do that. I have a sinking feeling the effing CS might refuse to give in after all of this stupidity. After all, hunny did say NO in the first place. WTF.

Maybe you read this and get confused, why am i so worked up from such a small problem? Well, in my world that's the only major problem i face, so deal with it! (Sorry, PMS-ing BIG time) Plus this is not the first time this kind of things happened, i am sick and tired or stupid banks' customer services who keeps on changing their words (twisting and twirling every statements, offer or whatever), causing inconvenience to their customers, and also sick and tired of hunny doing stupid things. Trust me, if you're a guy you'd want to marry a smart woman. Coz there will be things where you SUCK at (in my hunny's case, it's apparent already) and only a smart lady can keep you out of the big black holes awaiting you in many opportunities.

In short, i highly recommend you to keep you credit card collections to a minimum. Three of four would be more than enough (unless you're a super billionaire who use credit cards in the billions, in that case i guess you wouldn't mind paying stupid things like late charges? I know my sis doesn't. LOL). That way it's going to be easier for your (or your wife) to keep tracks of the dates, amounts to pay, etc. World would be such a better place for the both of you.

Try to get the ones with the most offers, and if possible, have different cards from your close friends and family members (so you can borrow each other's cards whenever a certain card's having a promotion, make sure you only do this with people you 100% trust and don't have a bad track record of paying back debts *LOL*).

I seriously wish i could care less about this kind of things, let him deal with his own mess. But being married means you cannot just ignore things like that. After all, his money is your money, right? (But your money is yours entirely, of course. I'd chop his hands off if he tries to touch a penny of mine LOLOLOL)

Oh, maybe from the title you'd expect me to go on about not being able to pay credit card interests? LOL. Sorry, if you're looking for that kind of drama (i am not that kind of shopaholic that swipes her card til it maxed and not being able to pay afterward, i'm a total opposite of that. I would never dream of using a credit card without having the exact funds in the first place. I only spend what i have, only prolonged having to pay for it by using a credit card!) the place is not here. We always pay our credit cards bills fully, i would never pay the minimum payment only and then having to pay the steep credit card interests, i think that's just STOOPIT!

Honestly i wrote this credit card debacle as an opening to another entry (a hotel review actually, i'm gonna have to write about it tomorrow then) but i got so carried away *LOL* as usual. And also as usual, i feel so much better after writing everything down. I realize how kiasu and very Asian i sound in this entry *LOL*, but i've never claimed that i am anything but that so... keep any negative comments to yourselves okay *yes, you're correct, i am no good with criticism, even more so around my period*. But if you have any similar encounters with credit cards, you're more than welcome to share your war stories here!

My love-hate with banks isn't limited to their credit card customer service, i hate their pushy sales people even more so (went into a yelling contest with one that tried to force me to agree to join their insurance program and then went on accusing me of being "poor" and didn't have money when i told her i wasn't interested WTF, f*** that b**h!!!), but since i am in the mood of bitching about their credit cards only, i', gonna save all that for another entry HAHA.

Now i'm off to watch Running Man and hopefully i will finally be able to stop being annoyed after that.