Smokes and mirrors

July 31, 2007

 

I believe in giving everybody the benefit of a doubt but this is just silly.

Yesterday, a Richard (or Robert, I forgot) supposedly representing Hong Kong-Shanghai Banking Corp. called me up at my house and asked me if he could have 2-3 minutes of my time to offer me “a very good opportunity.”

I was about to leave for work but what the hell.

So he started his spiel about a debt coverage which works like an insurance at a minimum cost. I know where this is all going so I asked him immediately how much it would cost me.

“It’s free,” he said.

“Really, what’s the catch?”

Turned out that he wasn’t finished, the catch is it’s free if you have no outstanding balance. And if you do, you have to pay .45 cents for every 100 of our balance. “So, if you have P10,000 in your balance, you pay about P45.

So what can I get out of it?

Simple. If in the event of death of accident, they cover your debt from their own company and whatever is left is yours or your family to keep. The terms are 50 percent in cases of dismemberment and full coverage when you get snuffed. Okay, let’s see… I’m not really much of a heavy debtor and in my monthly credit card bill, you rarely see more than P3,000 in owed tab.  

I look at my statement of account and I only owe HSBC a little more than P2,000. Say, I accidentally cut off my fingers what’s 50 percent of P2,000? Wow. That really helps. I could purchase a box of Alaxan from that. If an HSBC representative drops in the hospital to hand me the P1,000 check, I’d flick him the finger even if it was just a stump of what remained of my middle finger.

It will encourage me to maintain a balance just so I could get a paltry amount in coverage. The bigger the balance the better, right? Wrong! They didn’t say nuthin’ about interest you accrue while you have outstanding accounts to settle. I’m not good at math but I do know that lifeblood of banks offering credit card service is the interest and at 1-3 percent monthly interest, that piles up over time.   

I’m not an expert of the law or anything but I do know that you couldn’t go to prison on account of debt. Look it up, it’s there in the Constitution. So why would I be interested in a program that covers my debt in the event of death? Being six feet underground gives you that perspective and the freedom to not care.

You have to give them props for this. It’s brilliant when you think about it. It's a classic case of smokes and mirrors where they slap on layers and layers of rewards to lure the potential customer to buy into the product which, in fact,  will benefit the company itself. Simply put, the company insures your debt, which becomes its liability when you die or if you decide to forfeit anyway, using the customer's money while discouraging the customer to settle his/her account in full thereby earning interest in the process.

From somewhere I heard him ask: “So, what can you say about our program?”

“I don’t like it,” said moi. And your three minutes is up.

Pity the fool who gets taken in on this crap.