The Small Print

Lately I have been really into reading terms & conditions, the small print and things of the sort. For some reason I find it fascinating. It is where companies hide all their dirty little secrets. In doing this, I was reminded of an article I came across earlier this year. One where a company in the UK put in their terms & conditions that you were selling them your immortal soul. They said they did it to prove a point…that no one ever reads terms & conditions, but talk about creepy!

Now I will be honest, even in this phase that I a going though, I can’t get through all the T & C’s that I come across. Some of them are just too stinking long! Which I will say I think is NOT FAIR to the customer. Right when we are purchasing something, you expect us to spend an hour or so reading your rules. Yeah right. Of course I will do that!

Anyway, I thought I would share some sneaky findings as of lately:

• I have to sell my stock I got from work. When I called the stock selling people (the name I am using to protect the guilty), I had several questions for them. One was, how much do you charge? $14.95. No other fees? Nope. Then I called my bank to get some details that I needed to get my money from the stock selling people. My bank tells me to be sure they aren’t doing a wire transfer as there are all sorts of hidden fees involved. So, I go onto stock selling people’s website and low and behold it is a wire transfer and it says charges and fees MAY apply. At this point, they are only saying MAY. I of course pick up the phone and call back stock selling people and find out there is no option to these “may” charges. They do in fact exist. You sneaky bastards. Trying to steal my hard earned stock money at every turn. And behind my back. SO NOT COOL.
• I got a new terms & conditions packet from my credit card company. Normally I don’t even bother with those, just throw them away. But, I am in this phase, so I decided to read. What did I find? If I am late making just one payment, not only will I be charged a late fee, but my interest rate will go up 150% for at least 6 months. WHAT?!? I didn’t know there was no such thing as making a mistake anymore. That’s why credit cards are bad news! Seriously.
• When I went on to itunes recently, I had to agree to a new set of T&C's to continue buying a song. Determined to read it, I was shocked by how long it was. I finally gave up.
  

It's not fair how companies hide behind wording like "fees may apply" or "pre-existing condition". These people that make so much money off of us are out to get us at every turn. AND, they make us agree to things we don't even know about. This whole terms & conditions thing needs to be simplified. They should be a couple paragraphs long, not pages long!

Freaking terms & conditions!