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Con game

2007-07-03 15:27:23.99859+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

My credit card company sends along a little "customer thank-you reward" slip of paper with the bill. The little slip gives you 7 items, from a cordless screwdriver to a pedometer to wireless headphones, the kind of thing you'd expect to see for $10 at a dollar store. It lets you choose some number of each, and says "Each is yours for just $9.97 charged to your account and shipping and handling is included", but over on the left it says that the "Maximum Reward Value" is $112.00, and that:

Maximum reward is based on selecting four each of the three highest valued items...

Sooo... let me see if I've got this right: If I manage to choose right I'm still out $7.64? They even tell you what the game is.

Wow. Just wow.

[ related topics: Games ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-03 16:22:21.222467+00 by: jeff

Credit card companies these days are about as close to legalized crime syndicates as you'll ever imagine. And they have plenty of lobby money to throw around to lawyers in D.C. to cover themselves on usury laws.

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-04 13:23:15.180154+00 by: DaveP

The other beauty of this is that these "rewards" aren't offered by your credit card company, but by a "marketing affiliate" to whom they can't (if you have your privacy bit set) disclose your info. But if you take them up on the rewards, now you've just opened yourself to another company which will very aggressively market to you.