Crazy Offers in the Mail This Weekend


Over the weekend I had some free time to sift through my junk mail, so I thought I would complain about the ridiculous offers I receive via our wonderful postal service. I first noticed that I had received a lovely letter from American Express congratulating me on being approved for a gold card:

"Congratulations are in order. You've earned an important distinction - a Card that reflects your achievements and complements your life. A Card designed to reward you and bring you the extra service and privileges you require."


"It's the American Express Gold Card, and you've been selected for Card membership with the annual fee waived your first year (a $125 value)."

Wow, a $125 annual fee that is being waived for a year. What an honor! Does anybody really want that? That means in a year I get to pay them $125 per year for a credit card I do not need when all my other credit cards I own charge me no annual fee at all. They promise me 25,000 membership points worth $250 which would hopefully cover the annual fees for two years (if I can receive the bonuses back in cash like two of my current no annual fee cards give me.) The two cards we use primarily right now are the Chase Freedom MasterCard and our Charles Schwab Bank VISA card. Both these cards charge us no annual fees and pay us back 1% on all purchases which we can receive back as actual cash checks we must periodically redeem. We put all our day to day purchases on the Chase Freedom card, and all our unusual on-line or phone charges on our Schwab card. We do not need another card, so I think the American Express offer can find its way into the recycle bin.

The other item I received in the mail is our complementary issue of the Ladue News, even though we do not even live in Ladue! I guess they decided that we live close enough and therefore we want to spend ridiculous amounts of money on stuff like private schools and cosmetic surgery. Boy do they have us pegged incorrectly! The big offer they listed on the back cover was from our friends at Charter Communications, the same folks that send me a mailing at least once every week since I am not a current customer. On the back cover they promised internet service for only $19.99/month, but it was only for an introductory 3 month period. When I checked on the Charter web site for our area, is seems we would have to agree to a 2 year term where the rate would increase to $34.99 for the following 21 months. They will also lease me a cable modem for $7/month which adds up to $84/year, a pretty crazy cost for an item you can buy on eBay for $30. No thanks on that ripoff. They also wanted to charge us $5/month for "Wire Maintenance" which is even more ridiculous. If I just stick with their "special deal" of $19.99/month, over 2 years I would pay 3 x 19.99 + 21 x 34.99 or $794.76 over the two year period. If I subtract out the "free $25 gas card" it would cost me $769.76. My current AT&T DSL is costing us $30/month so over that same 24 month period it would cost $720 (assuming AT&T does not keep jacking up their prices). This means I do not save anything switching to Charter unless AT&T become even bigger crooks and jack up my total charges at least $50 over the next two years. It is difficult when you must pick between two different crooks!

I also received a mailer from Quicken Loans saying that I may be eligible for a 125% LTV loan from them. Now, I definitely do not want or need a 125% LTV loan from anybody, but I was curious why Quicken Loans thought I should think about getting one when our current LTV is under 50%. I was also curious if Quicken Loans was affiliated in anyway to the real Quicken folks at Intuit who make TurboTax and such. I checked their listing on WikiPedia, and was surprised to see they are the largest online mortgage lender and the #5 retail lender overall in the US.  It appears in 1999 Intuit did purchase them, but in 2002 their original owners bought them back but kept the Quicken name. They seemed legitimate enough so I used their tool to see what rate I would get, and it appears I could qualify for a 3.875% 15 year loan for $80,000, but I would have to pay 1.625 points. Ouch! I checked Schwab Bank where we have our current loan and they offered a 3.830% 15 year loan with 1.0 points. Not much of a choice there!

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