Screwed
Back in April of this year, someone got a hold of my credit card number and used it at FirePay.com - which is like PayPal, but super sleazy - and charged $500. This bumped my credit card debt from $3800 to $4300. So what I did was cancel the card immediately and reported the theft both to the sleazy dotcom and the credit card company. It was a whole ordeal of faxing and waiting for a form in the mail, filling it out and mailing it back. Because $4000 was my limit on the card (don't ask my why the $500 went through if this is the case) they wouldn't give me a new card/account until I had paid off a large chunk of the $4300. In April of this year I was out of work, so that wasn't happening.
Because I'm here in Spain, I was paying my monthly payments via their website automagically debiting from my California checking account, but this got wacked when I cancelled the card. So I didn't have an easy way any more to pay my account (sending checks in Euros to my credit card company isn't happening...). So the plan was that I was going to wait until the money was returned so that I could open a new account and start paying automagically again. It was a dumb plan, I know, but there wasn't a whole lot of other options.
Well, time passed and a few weeks ago my brother told me that he received a letter in the mail (his house is my U.S. address) saying that I had been refunded. So I decided I had been avoiding this mess long enough and I had better get to it and get this whole thing straightened out.
Well, I just called and my minimum payment to bring the account current will be $650 on a balance of $4780. WHAHAAAT? I thought they refunded the stolen money! Ahh, they did. But there's been $100+ a month in charges since April for interest and being over-the-limit. FUUUCk. Not only that but my credit rating just got a big black mark on the More Than 120 Days Late box. UUGH!
It would have cost LESS money, and my account would be active and my credit cleaner if I had just paid for the stolen charge rather than to do what I did. Joy. Why do I do these things to myself?!? (Us, now, actually. Ana's not particularly happy with me...)
Consider this another life lessson from your blogpal in Spain.
-Russ