For some reason, I have listened to my father more since he died last year than I ever did when he was living. My father came of age during the 1930s. As the story goes, he sold eggs door to door as a boy and later, before signing up and heading for Europe in uniform, as a young man. “Those housewives,” he told me once, “were always very happy to see me.” In addition to growing into a very healthy sex drive, to which I owe my life, literally, a childhood spent in the 1930s instilled in my father a life-long, profound and complete mistrust of the banks. Goddamned thieves, I heard him say to my mother one night as they balanced the Boatman’s account, the cucumber green, perforated statements stacked neatly across the dining room table. It’s foolish to trust the banks with your money, we were told frequently, my brothers and sisters and I. They will screw you.
Over the summer the one company I have a credit card with sent me a letter to tell me that changes were being made to the fee structure in the near future. I would be charged for new things, in other words, in new ways. It was a beautiful afternoon when the envelope arrived, sunny and clear, cool enough for comfort but warm enough for shorts and flip flops. The absence of my father has been the strangest thing ever for me. Most times he feels more present in death than he did in life, but on that particular day I wanted to call him to see what he thought of AIG, whose latest outrageousness had made headlines that morning. I couldn’t call him, so I decided to read the entire letter from the credit card people instead.
If you want to try this at home, I have a few words of advice. Start reading at the very end, where the fonts are impossibly tiny. Generally, the smaller the type, the truer the words. The easily readable print, conversely, is reserved for the PR people. In large type, I learned that I am being “empowered” by the credit card company, but in the tiny print section I learned that there would be new, higher penalties for late payments and a new charge for foreign transactions. I got fixated on that. I assumed that “foreign” meant outside of the U.S., but the term “transaction” puzzled me. When I tried to check in at a hotel in Hong Kong in 2006 with my credit card, the instant my card was swiped the account was frozen. I spent the better part of two days trying to reach the fraud squad in Nebraska to assure them that it was indeed me, that I was indeed in Hong Kong, that I did indeed intend to use my credit card to pay for the hotel. That was a foreign transaction, and fees were added accordingly to cover the cost, I presume, of freezing and then thawing my account.
That’s one thing. Buying a pair of jeans at the mall less than three miles from the front door is quite another. As a result of the work I’ve done, I happen to know that the processing of credit card purchases for many companies – ones we’ve all heard of, ones that can be found as “anchors” in any mall – are managed in other countries. This is called a number of things, “smart shoring” being the most colorful I’ve heard thus far. This is a great way, we’ve been told, to contain costs. And there are all kinds of computer programs that can manage the entire process “end-to-end” seamlessly, efficiently, affordably. Until, that is, the credit card company decides to start adding 2 percent of the total transaction to the bill when the purchase is made from a company that has smart shored. I called the credit card company and eventually connected with a very pleasant woman. I asked her if this 2 percent would be added to the bill based not on the country where the purchase was made, but the country where the purchase was processed. “Yes,” she said bashfully. I have not conducted a survey, but I’d bet lots of money that very few people who run the cash registers have any idea what country the work is being done in when they swipe the customer’s card, hand the keypad over and ask for the PIN. Why would they? And why would most people think to say to the cashier, “Excuse me, is your processing handled in the U.S. or elsewhere?”
Were the retailers obligated to let their customers know that their customers would be stuck with a 2 percent foreign transaction fee? The woman from the credit card company said she couldn’t speak on behalf of the retailers. I thanked her for her time and we wished one another a pleasant afternoon. I can’t speak on their behalf either, but I’m going to anyhow. I have very little respect for businesses that have sent thousands upon thousands of jobs to other countries for the sake of cheap labor and the very short-term prospect of “increasing shareholder value.” I think expecting them to let customers know that they’re going to pay a little extra because of the location of the money computers makes about as much sense as expecting bank executives to be humble about their own bonuses, especially during years when their palms are wide open when the rescue money is being handed out.
Over the summer the one company I have a credit card with sent me a letter to tell me that changes were being made to the fee structure in the near future. I would be charged for new things, in other words, in new ways. It was a beautiful afternoon when the envelope arrived, sunny and clear, cool enough for comfort but warm enough for shorts and flip flops. The absence of my father has been the strangest thing ever for me. Most times he feels more present in death than he did in life, but on that particular day I wanted to call him to see what he thought of AIG, whose latest outrageousness had made headlines that morning. I couldn’t call him, so I decided to read the entire letter from the credit card people instead.
If you want to try this at home, I have a few words of advice. Start reading at the very end, where the fonts are impossibly tiny. Generally, the smaller the type, the truer the words. The easily readable print, conversely, is reserved for the PR people. In large type, I learned that I am being “empowered” by the credit card company, but in the tiny print section I learned that there would be new, higher penalties for late payments and a new charge for foreign transactions. I got fixated on that. I assumed that “foreign” meant outside of the U.S., but the term “transaction” puzzled me. When I tried to check in at a hotel in Hong Kong in 2006 with my credit card, the instant my card was swiped the account was frozen. I spent the better part of two days trying to reach the fraud squad in Nebraska to assure them that it was indeed me, that I was indeed in Hong Kong, that I did indeed intend to use my credit card to pay for the hotel. That was a foreign transaction, and fees were added accordingly to cover the cost, I presume, of freezing and then thawing my account.
That’s one thing. Buying a pair of jeans at the mall less than three miles from the front door is quite another. As a result of the work I’ve done, I happen to know that the processing of credit card purchases for many companies – ones we’ve all heard of, ones that can be found as “anchors” in any mall – are managed in other countries. This is called a number of things, “smart shoring” being the most colorful I’ve heard thus far. This is a great way, we’ve been told, to contain costs. And there are all kinds of computer programs that can manage the entire process “end-to-end” seamlessly, efficiently, affordably. Until, that is, the credit card company decides to start adding 2 percent of the total transaction to the bill when the purchase is made from a company that has smart shored. I called the credit card company and eventually connected with a very pleasant woman. I asked her if this 2 percent would be added to the bill based not on the country where the purchase was made, but the country where the purchase was processed. “Yes,” she said bashfully. I have not conducted a survey, but I’d bet lots of money that very few people who run the cash registers have any idea what country the work is being done in when they swipe the customer’s card, hand the keypad over and ask for the PIN. Why would they? And why would most people think to say to the cashier, “Excuse me, is your processing handled in the U.S. or elsewhere?”
Were the retailers obligated to let their customers know that their customers would be stuck with a 2 percent foreign transaction fee? The woman from the credit card company said she couldn’t speak on behalf of the retailers. I thanked her for her time and we wished one another a pleasant afternoon. I can’t speak on their behalf either, but I’m going to anyhow. I have very little respect for businesses that have sent thousands upon thousands of jobs to other countries for the sake of cheap labor and the very short-term prospect of “increasing shareholder value.” I think expecting them to let customers know that they’re going to pay a little extra because of the location of the money computers makes about as much sense as expecting bank executives to be humble about their own bonuses, especially during years when their palms are wide open when the rescue money is being handed out.
