Digital Impulses

Unravelling a Credit Mystery

This is CRAZY.

Let's see if I can keep this straight. 

I have a credit card from a company called "Direct Merchants". 

Now, Direct Merchants is a *brand* from a company called HSBC Card Services which stands for Hong Kong and Shanghi Banking Corporation and which was established in 1865 to facilitate commerce between China and Europe.

However, the website you connect to to make on-line payments is called "Account Central" and nowehre on the website does it tell you that you are there to make a payment for Direct Merchant or for HSBC Card Services.

SO:  AccountCentral is the website to make payments for a Direct Merchants credit card that is in fact a brand of the parent company called HSBC Card Services.  It's all horribly confusing and makes me rue the day I ever decided to do business with these people in the first place.

I am feverishly attempting to clear out the tangles in my credit profiles and will not rest until it's done.  This is going to consume the rest of 2008 and probably 2009 for me but it will be very much worth the effort.

I feel good for having started this journey to financial freedom.  It's all good from when you have a goal and a plan of attack in place.

Out of 2nd Life

I just now came into my office and I had an email from 2nd Life, telling me that they were about to bill me $22.75 for the quarterly renewal fee for my *premium* 2nd Life account.

An account I have used maybe 2 or 3 times since I signed up for it in April of 2006, mind you.

I immediately went to the 2nd Life website, searched around until I found a customer service FAQ that had the answer on how to cancel your account.  When I started the process to cancel the account, I was told that I could just DOWNGRADE to a BASIC account that was FREE, and that this account would allow me to still access 2nd Life and look around and stuff.

So that's what I did.  I now have a free, basic account that allows me to login and look around and I can later re-establish my premium, paid account if I decide I want to really get back in to 2nd Life.

This is all part of my merciless hacking of all unnecessary debt that I have signed up for over the years and get billed for monthly on different credit card accounts.  As I get renewal notices, I am going to cut them all away until all I am being billed for are true essential services.

Yay Me!  And thanks, Dave Ramsey.  You rock.