Price of cigarettes

see the price of cigarettes has gone up a little in the US

BBC NEWS | Americas | US smoker chokes on cost of habit

 

A few years ago, I went to the atm and was getting some money out. the atm said my balance was $275,500 dollars. I still have that recept framed lol!! but they Fixed it by emptying my account, then making me wait a week before any of my money was back. and they charged me an overdraft fee when one of my bills was taken out.

 

Wow! The poor guy must have had instant high blood pressure reading that receipt for his pricey cigarettes!

Good grief, being charged an over-draft fee when the entire mix up wasn't your fault at all ... talk about adding insult to injury! Shame on the Bank!

Years ago I learned the hard way that if a Bank makes the opposite mistake and dumps a fortune into one's account, it's no easier to get them to take it back either. Geesh.

 

In a statement, Visa said the rogue charges affected "fewer than 13,000 prepaid transactions" and resulted from a "temporary programming error at Visa Debit Processing Services ... [which] caused some transactions to be inaccurately posted to a small number of Visa prepaid accounts."

The company assured customers that the problem has been fixed and that all falsely issued fees have been voided. "Erroneous postings have been removed ... this incident had no financial impact on Visa prepaid cardholders."

Glitch hits Visa users with more than $23 quadrillion charge - CNN.com

Apparently this wasn't just a one time occurrence for a pack of cigarettes. Less than 13,000 is still a huge mistake!

 

Yes, to each of those involved it's a huge thing!

I love the convenience of computers in our day to day lives (home, banking, business) but in some ways it must surely make us more vulnerable than ever before?

When computers "go down" even in small ways, such as none of the scanners and tills working at a grocery store, it's instant mayham. Clerks no longer know how to grab an adding machine nor would it do much good with out the 'scanners' since nothing has a real price on it anymore, just a 'code'.

And getting cash from an ATM is something I simply take for granted, as is using my Debit Card when buying anything - most of the time. (Our Debit Card deducts the amount owing instantly from my chequing account at my Bank).

Although it only lasted a few hours, all the ATM's at one of our largest Malls suddenly "went down" (apparently from overuse by Xmas shoppers), as did the computer system that would allow anyone to use their Debit Card re any Bank.

Few of us carry much cash anymore - leaving only the option of Credit Cards (again, computer controlled) as I don't know of any stores that will accept personal cheques anymore.

We surely put a lot of trust in computers not messing up or simply never going poof!

 

Fell for that about 14 years ago, Bank/Credit card companies don't make mistakes and credit card fraud couldn't happen, they had safe guards in place to stop things like that.

also the tills are linked to a stock ordering system, at a central warehouse/distribution centre, so if they did sell stuff they wouldn't know what they needed to order to replace the stock,

Haven't got a debit Card and the credit card I use is pre-paid, put money on pay a fee and spend it, so its not really a credit card more of a payment card, very useful for internet purchases as you can't take of more money than what I put on

only use cash when shopping anyhow, also if you talk to the manager on large purchases you can normally wangle a discount or something for a cash sale, especially if you waver any store warranty, or receipt but that doesn't tend to work with the large chain stores.

If everyone was like me bank charges would be astronomical so maybe its a good thing

I never trust computers, and the internet less, never use internet banking, the only way I get my money is to go to a counter, so I always have a counter receipt, and have a separate direct debit account that I put the money in over the counter, cash again, receipt again, No overdrafts, No unauthorised overdrafts,

In fact once when I did mess up and the Bank gave me an unauthorised overdraft I went and had an argument with the manager, wanting to know why he thought it necessary to lend me money with out asking me first and then charge me £30 for a letter telling me they had given me something I didn't want, as I pointed out to him if I went into the car park and washed his car and then came back and charged him £30 for a car valet would he not be upset and refuse to pay, I got my money back and closed the account.

Guess there is not many people like me that would rather inconvenience themselves, and go out of there way to make sure that there money is as safe as possible, probably why credit card fraud has increased over the past 14 years and finance companies now acknowledge that it is possible and does happen.

Sorry about the rant I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to banks

 

Not to worry - you're certainly entitled to a rant about Banks.

How very odd for your Bank to actually charge to setting up a Line of Credit (auto overdraft coverage) - wow! We had one in between selling one home and taking possession of our present one (poor money always goes into that Escrow account until possession dates) and the only thing we were charged for was the interest on the money used from line of credit for that month.

Unfortunately, for some of us, getting to our Bank is really difficult so my Debit Card really gets a good workout. One good thing is, because we deal with a Credit Union rather than a 'Bank', there are absolutely no fees charged for using it - as long as I have sufficient funds in my chequing account all is well.

You're wise to always have cash on hand - I'm so old-fashioned that money doesn't seem like 'real money' to me unless it's paper bills folded up neatly in my pocketbook!

 

I dont smoke........yet if someone were to set me on fire, I'm guessing I would