Chase Flexible Rewards… WTF

I just redeemed 5,000 rewards points on one of my credit cards for a $50 statement credit. Not a bad deal.

Trying to score some more free money, I decided to check my Chase card and see if I qualified for anything. Nope. A $25 statement credit from Chase is 3500 points. And that's pretty lame.

Just for the hell of it, I checked the rewards program rules and found this gem:

Redemption Rules

1. A service fee of up to $25 may be charged for the use of Reward Headquarters services for point redemption. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion to determine the amount of the service fee, to waive the service fee, or to change the service fee without notice.

That's right. Once I get up to the 3,500 point limit and redeem those points for $25, Chase has given themselves the right to then charge me a $25 service fee for redeeming those points. Granted, they'd probably exercise their right to waive that fee… but… douchebags. That's all that I can think of.

I think the "flexible" part of "flexible rewards" just means they expect you to bend over when you attempt to use the program.

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I'm A Victim Of Credit Card Fraud! … YAY?

Last night I received a call from Chase's Fraud Prevention group. I figured it was nothing big, since I've just used one of my Chase cards (I have 3, as a result of mergers turning non-chase cards into Chase cards.. some sort of witchcraft I think) to purchase several $6-15 orders from eBay, some from suppliers in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Boy was I wrong. It was actually a $49.95 subscription fee to an online dating site, made on a card that I haven't used in over a year. A card that I physically shredded before I moved to my current apartment in July of 2008.

Chase made the whole process relatively painless. They closed the account immediately (it didn't even show up when I logged onto my account right after finishing the call), explained what they were going to do, what I was going to need to do (pretty much nothing, just fill out a "Affirmation of Fraud" for that they're going to mail me), and said not to worry about it at all.

I would have caught the charge this morning when I checked my accounts, but seeing that fraudulent charge would have thrown my entire day off balance. I'm glad Chase was on top of things.

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