I thought about it a bit, but I decided to give up free money and put my principles aside on this one.
Most people are swamped when they come back from a long vacation. Overloaded email inbox, delayed projects while you were away, and neglected housework that’s waiting for you at home (what’s that smell??). My situation is no different. As soon as I came back from the cruise, I was greeted by a stack of mail, most of it junk.
The Sucky Accounting System
The rest of it? Bills (even better!). I opened one up, and it proudly states “LATE CHARGE”. Oh oh… I remember now. I disputed a charge last month that the billing department agreed to fix, but since the amount was not reversed until after the bill cycle ended, the system must have thought I short paid $50 and happily dished out interest payments. The cost? $0.75.
The right thing to do is to give them a call, explain the situation and ask them to credit back the $0.75. Chances are good that I will succeed, but should I spend the 30 minutes on the phone to get this fixed? What if they take another couple weeks and I short pay the same amount? Can you pay late charges on a late charge?
The Answer is Obvious
The answer of whether to call should jump right out at you, but not all of us will come up with the same conclusion. $0.75 is rightfully mine, so there’s a good reason enough to make a phone call. Furthermore, not calling promotes bad behavior, because adjustments should be made in a timely manner, not weeks after the fact. But then, how much do you value your time? We do many things that don’t make us any money (like watching TV for example), but at least we chose to do so. If I need to spend 30 minutes to get that $0.75 back, wouldn’t it be more beneficial to me (and the world) if I spend that time building my business, kept $0.75 and donated the rest to a charity? I may not make money as quickly as many wealthy individuals, but I’m pretty sure that I can produce at least a few bucks in the same amount of time. Then there’s the financial cost of actual making the call. What if I end up going over my cell phone minutes because I spend too much time on the chatting away this month? It may sound unlikely, but I went 100 minutes overboard last month trying to fix my website a couple weeks back, which cost no less than $40.
What Would You Do?
I plan to let this one slip by. The money is there for the taking, I know. More accurately, I shouldn’t have to pony up those extra three quarters, but the opportunity cost didn’t seem to justify the effort.
Opportunities presents itself all the time but there’s always a trade off. Almost always, the cost is time but sometimes, it might be something else that you cherish even more.
I’m a big advocate of taking action and seizing the moment, but sometimes… just sometimes, it makes sense to let opportunities past you by.
I know my father would have called them up and let them know how ridiculously the charge was (and he’s absolutely right). Yet, I decided to do nothing. What would you have done? Am I being smart? Or did my actions suggest irresponsibility?
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Have to agree with you on 75 cents…. If it’s under a dollar, I am not going to bother with it…. However… if it had been a dollar, I would have. We all have our own personal line in the sand
A dollar huh? I hope companies don’t see this and start charging us $0.99 every month or something!
I would call because of the principle of it. This type of situation probably happens fairly often. Since most people either don’t notice the extra charge or don’t want to take the time to correct the over charge then the company is collecting free money. All of those “little” over charges add up over time to their benefit. I agree that not calling promotes bad behavior.
I’ve called because I was over charged by 1 penny. I know, big deal. But, I think it was intentional and that they tack it on to each charge hoping customers either won’t notice or won’t bother with such a small amount. It’s an easy way for them to steal money from people. I don’t like being taken advantage of like that.
If it’s intentional and recurring, then you definitely need to dispute the charges. What I don’t like is those companies that scrap off the fractions of a cent off every transaction instead of rounding them off (or keeping them forever until it accumulates to one cent). It adds up to millions of dollars through time I bet.
Have you seen Office Space? Exact principle.
I would have asked my wife to call, and then take her out for ice cream
Usually when this happens to me, I call but if the amount is small, sometimes I feel embarrassed to ask even though it’s rightfully mine.
$0.75 is $0.75. It’s more than nothing and it tells them that you aren’t going to let everything slip by.
I think exactly the same way – any part time job opportunity, really any choice of how I spend my time outside my full time job – I will evaluate every option with a cost/benefit analysis type approach. Maybe it’s just because I’m an engineer and love Excel, but if you break everything down into raw numbers, decisions get much easier. Interestingly, when you see what result is the “best” according to how you decided things, sometimes I’ll think ‘hey I don’t like that’. This lets me know that I place a higher psychological value on a different choice, and my decision making process needs to be adjusted accordingly.
Granted, I don’t use this process for every little decision (like a 30 minute phone call for a $0.75 charge), but the thought process is the same. I could make more money filling out a $2 survey online than I could through talking on the phone. It’s worth keeping a record of the charge for future reference if there’s other problems with the account – lets you prove it’s a recurring issue rather than a one time thing.
This could go either way. Like “A” said above me on the comments you SHOULD call because of the principle of it. On the other hand, your time could surely be better spent elsewhere!
Time is your most valuable possession. I can think of many things that are worth more to me than the .75. I wouldn’t have called, so I side with you on this win. But if you would have called I can’t say it would have been a terrible idea.
I would definitely call because you never know how they will react if they find out you don’t really care about these small charges. They may take the hint that they can just carelessly service your account in the future, which will be much more costly than $0.75 or that 30 minutes of your time.
Don’t call. Like you said, you can probably spend that amount of time to help others. Most people don’t value their time until they are old and don’t have much left!
This makes sense. Sometimes the wisest things to do with issues like this is to do nothing.
Hey David,
So may I ask what your threshold would have been to call? What if it was 10 bucks?
Good question. I don’t have a threshold per say (or at least I can’t identify where it is right now) but I would likely call if it was $10.
Like you said, before you spend your time and effort on something, you must ask yourself whether it is really worth it. Personally, I would call up the related people and get my money back, even it was a measly 75 cents.
These thefts by big companies add up over a lifetime. If the phone call is free, I’d make it and kick up a stink until they a) repay me my 75 cents, b) compensate me for my time and c) provide a good-will gesture as to why I should continue to do business with a company that can’t keep on top of its own affairs.
Well, David. It wouldn’t bother, if it’s only a whopping $0.75, isn’t it? After all, it didn’t worth to spend over hour arguing with the people through telephone…