Eliminating unwanted credit card charges

Ah, the dreaded credit card that I love to hate. There is no denying that a cash-only lifestyle is the one that ultimately leads to peace of mind, but there is also no denying the convenience that credit cards offer us. When paid off every month, a standard credit card does not cost anything extra to the consumer, and some even offer rewards in the form of points or cash back that some people find rewarding. Some even offer the "Illusion" of buyer protection. However, there is a trap that is all to easy to fall into: The unwanted credit card charge.

Unwanted credit card charges are an insidious thing. One way they can work may be like this: A company offers a good or service, with the promise of no commitment and that you can back out at any time. All they need is your credit card information. This could be a gym membership, or a service that delivers skin care products. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, you turn over your information and, without knowing so or being advised of, agree to terms and conditions that allows the business to charge your credit card every month unless you go through extraordinary or even impossible measures outlined in the terms and conditions to cancel your subscription. If you try calling your credit card company, you will be advised that you need to contact the business that is charging your card to get them to stop, but when you contact the business, they give you the run-around. At this point, it seems like you're going to be on the hook for those unwanted charges every month, but there may be a quick and easy way out.

First, a disclaimer: I'm not offering legal or financial advice, I'm just saying what I would do in this scenario. If you find this doesn't work for you or causes things to end badly, then you probably shouldn't get advice from Internet web sites. That said...

If I lost my credit card, I have a responsibility to report it; the reason is simple: There is an assumption in the terms and conditions of most credit cards that I am responsible for my credit card and its information, and if I have lost my credit card, I am no longer in control of it. Notifying my credit card company of a lost credit card will cause them to stop any further charges to that card, and then they may issue me a replacement credit card with a new number and expiry date. What this means is that any future charges made to my lost credit card cannot happen. Of course, this also means that if I am using my credit card to pay off monthly bills automatically, I will need to contact those businesses to notify them of my new credit card information or arrange an alternate method of paying them.

Suppose I noticed an unwanted charge on my credit card this month, and I discovered this will be a recurring charge that is going to be impossible to get rid of. If I were to lose that credit card (preferably in a shredder), I would need to call my credit card company and tell them that I lost my card. I would be responsible for the charges made before the time and day I called them, so there may not be much I could do about the initial unwanted charge. I would pay this credit card off in full up until the date and time I reported it lost in order to protect my credit score. However, moving forward, if I did not provide a business with my updated credit card information, they cannot charge my credit card. You can be sure they would try to contact me to get this information from me, but I would be very much in control. For example, I could tell them that I no longer own any credit cards and therefore have no credit card information to provide them with.

Moving forward, there may be a threat of a penalty that must be paid for cancelling early or outside of the conditions of the terms and conditions, but without my credit card information, they would have no direct way of charging this to me. They could invoice me, or there may be threats of litigation or collection agencies, but so long as I did not explicitly consent and am no longer using their goods or services, I would think there would be little grounds for them to collect, and I most certainly would be willing to challenge them in court. At the end of the day, it's likely that if I was duped into a monthly charge that I didn't explicitly consent to, so have a good many other people, and the only way such a business can remain viable is to continually dupe people; chasing me would be a waste of their time and resources. They like credit cards because they're an easy way to get money.

As you can imagine, this is a pretty contentious issue, and possibly the most controversial topic I've ever posted on. We seem to live in a culture where consumer rights are being eroded and where businesses can create all sorts of loopholes in their terms and conditions to deny us of any consumer rights we might think we should have, so I believe in taking a stand where necessary to take back control of my finances.

Is College worth it?

We live in a culture where we are conditioned to be accustomed to things like consumer debt, unemployment rates, post-secondary education, and giant corporations seemingly in control of everything for our best interests. As children, we are raised to believe that it's important to get a credit rating, college diploma, and a lifelong career with benefits and a pension. My own experience has shown me that the traditional College system is a multi-layered business, and is largely unnecessary once we unpack the indoctrination that has lead us to believe they are necessary and good.

Lies and myths: Post-secondary education

One of the greatest lies I was told as a child was that I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up, so I decided I wanted to be an astronaut. I realize now that this desire stemmed from my exposure to some great science fiction shows and movies of the 1970's that came on the tail of the Apollo missions and growing up in a time of the promises of the shuttle missions. By the age of 12, I was already too tall to be an astronaut by conventional standards. As it turned out, only a select few people would be chosen to pursue this occupation. The other problems with this lie is it doesn't take into account the realities of future job markets and places too much importance on the vocation. The hot job of today may not even exist 10 years from now.

How we really need to start teaching our children to think is the importance in investing in themselves. They need to understand that greatness and talent aren't things a person is born with or that we wish for, but rather are things that are cultivated through a process of self-investment and discipline. A great magician didn't just buy his tricks from a store and start performing; a great athlete didn't just drink a protein shake and then win a gold medal. Some of the greatest business leaders of our time skipped past College; even Bill Gates dropped out of college, which should speak volumes about how unimportant a College education really can be. This leads into the next myth, and that is the myth of work-life separation. Once we buy into that myth, we buy into a lifestyle of unnecessary complexity and consumption. We must want to fully invest ourselves in what we do and allow it to be an important part of who we are throughout our lives so that even our interests and hobbies contribute to making us the best we can be at what we do.

From Grade nine on up, students are streamed into three levels: Academic, applied, and locally developed. Students come to understand that academic is just for students who wish to pursue a university education, while applied is for those who wish to instead go on to college. Locally developed is generally considered a stream for mentally challenged students. 

The problem is that this suggests there is something lacking in the current education system, which is not true at all. At least in Ontario, Canada, and in spite of what you may hear from fear mongers who likely have a vested interest in post-secondary education, a high school diploma is all most people will ever need, as long as a child makes the right choices starting with Grade 9. One of these choices is to commit to taking science and math all the way through to Grade 12. Another choice is to take courses at the academic level, if possible. If a child shows any interest in any building or mechanical trades, then I would encourage them to take valuable skill building shop courses in order to get the most out of the four years of high school that they can. To a teacher wholly indoctrinated with the myth of post-secondary college education, it may seem foolish and a waste of time to take academic science and math while taking shop classes, but to a person who knows how to cut through the crap and get to what's real, this is a strategy in extracting the greatest value in the least amount of time.

Now I will expose the biggest, dirtiest secret of post-secondary education: What a traditional college program offers is a diploma, but what employers want are certifications. For example, let's suppose a child decides he or she wishes to become a Computer Systems Technician. After taking a two year program and spending thousands of dollars (often in the form of a burdensome student loan), this graduate soon learns that what employers really want are certifications such as CompTIA, Cisco CCNA, Microsoft MCP, A+, Net+, and possibly others, and that the college diploma is little more than a useless piece of paper. Suppose, for example, you want to pursue a career that requires CompTIA A+ certification, you can go directly to their web site and pursue training specific for that certification that would take weeks for a fraction of the cost of a regular college with nothing more than your high school diploma. In one year, a motivated individual could obtain all of the certifications the Computer Systems Technician program offers to "Prepare" them for in two, and for less money.

Missing out on the "College Experience"

Afraid of missing out on the traditional "College Experience?" This is indoctrination at its finest, and what students will really be missing out on is learning how to be good consumers to serve the interests of corporate giants. One of the first things students are offered is a student credit card, because, as the myth goes, it's important that they build a good "Credit rating" so that when they graduate, they can enjoy lower interest rates on things like car loans. The truth of the matter is, all a person needs to build a good credit rating is to have a regular bill - say, a cell phone bill, or car insurance bill - that they pay 100% on time every time every month in their name. That's all it takes to build a good credit rating. But don't worry; if they pass up on the credit card, maybe they can still score a "Free" smart phone from a major carrier that they will pay for many times over during the life of their contract.

Besides starting young adults off with a lifestyle of indebtedness, the traditional "College Experience" also teaches young people what music to buy, what shows to watch, what products to buy, what beer to drink...the traditional College system is very much a multi-layered business engineered to keep kids inside the bubble of the traditional college experience as long as possible. This means they get to take the summer off, plus all of the statutory holidays, along with forced days off during exam week, and if the teachers go on strike, too bad. Don't worry though, the courses are designed to keep them busy with plenty of busywork memorizing useless trivia to keep them from recognizing what's really going on. Also, they get the privilege of spending thousands of dollars per year on big heavy textbooks that get updated every two or three years so that they can't buy them used or sell them when they're finished just to milk them for every possible penny to keep an otherwise dying pulp and paper industry thriving in this day and age of digital media.

Missing out on the traditional "College Experience" means a person may also miss out on opportunities to binge drink and engage in other regrettable behaviour, eat unhealthy cafeteria food, and live an unhealthy sedentary lifestyle, so they can also later contribute to a booming healthcare industry. It's all part of the cycle.

Exploring direct routes

I provided a shortcut example for Computer Systems Technician, but there are direct routes for many other vocations. For example, I have learned that "Police Foundations" is a babysitting course to keep young adults busy until they're old enough to be police officers. If you studied law and physical education throughout high school and got a job as a security guard with a reputable security company upon graduating high school (which only requires a clean criminal background check), you could create your own path to becoming a police officer. If you want to be a writer, write! Take seminars on how to become a better writer. However, going into each and every program is beyond the scope of this essay; instead, I would like to provide the reader with the tools necessary to plan out their own path.

A good place to start is at the end; in the case of a traditional college education, that end would be browsing the job boards. The Government of Ontario has their own job bank, but many of the good jobs there get pulled from job sites like Indeed, Workopolis, and Monster. Not only do these job sites provide links to available employment opportunities, they also offer all kinds of great career advice. When you've found an entry level job that interests you, scroll down to the requirements. Do this for several, even dozens of jobs in the field you are interested in, taking note of overlap. This will provide you with detailed information about what certifications and qualifications the employers are looking for. Often, job postings are a "Dream list" for an ideal candidate who may not exist; for example, plenty of entry level positions ask for 1-3 years of experience, but odds are very good that if you have every certification they demand and demonstrate tact and professionalism, you will get the job.

Making the big bucks

Ultimately, what many people are after when they enroll in a traditional college program is to make really good money. Traditional college may prepare you for an entry level clerk or assistant position, but sooner or later, you're going to realize that earning more than $60,000 a year on a college diploma is nearly impossible, unless you luck out and manage to get into a municipal union, for example. To land an upper middle income to high income job, you need something special, and this is why making the right choices in high school can make a big difference.

One path to a better paying career is by way of a red seal trade. Many high school students who studied shop courses throughout high school and have their grade 12 science, math, and English have everything they need to pursue a career in the trade of their choice. I recommend researching your local trade unions, as these will usually offer valuable additional training and certifications free of cost in addition to a better wage, benefits package, and pension plan, and they will often find the work for you. Earn while you learn, and in 5 years you have a ticket that actually means something. A good place to start is at the red seal web page, where you can peruse the various trades, find out the latest local job market reports, and see if any of them would be a good fit for you.

If trades isn't your thing, then you may discover that a degree in your field is something employers want to see in order to pay the big bucks. This is where taking courses at the academic level in high school is important. You could enroll in University right from high school, but, as some have pointed out, not everybody has $200,000 or the time to attend an accredited university. In the year 2017, it's now possible to earn your degree online. This again moves beyond the scope of this essay, but I do suggest that you do your homework and make sure your degree comes from an accredited organization and not some mill. Some traditional accredited colleges now offer degrees via on-line training.

Changing perspective

By taking charge of one's career and life armed with little more than a high school diploma with the objective of investing in training and certifications that matter, perspective changes. Instead of putting your future into the hands of some corporation so that you can earn an income to pay off your perpetual debt at a job you eventually grow to loathe while hoping you don't get fired so that you can afford endless distractions, you are now in control of your life. Without the burden of debt, a regular paycheque becomes unimportant as you can create your own cycles of earning and learning. This change in perspective is liberating, though as is often the case may draw the ire and contempt of those who, from their perspective, "Play by the rules" and got a conventional College education.  

Why do Colleges exist?

Community colleges came into existence at a time when information was hard to get. The benefits of the Internet did not exist, so your options were to do what your parents were doing, or follow the advice of a guidance counselor who, in the interest of making his or her day as easy as possible, would gladly move you along up the line to your local community college. The community college became the gatekeeper of knowledge for those who could not afford a university education but wanted better than a minimum wage job, and provided the service of connecting employers to new recruits. Plenty of people have pursued great careers with their college diploma, but even then the brightest could see through the crap. Once a person learns that financial success comes from delivering a good or service that other people want, they realize that they need to become very good at that.

Today, you may still find yourself attending a local community college if you're taking a red seal trade, as most red seal trades have an educational element that goes along with the hands-on learning, and since red seal trades are regulated and entrenched in tradition, the local community college is the legitimate accredited learning institution. Mind you, these programs don't offer the same profits to the College business like a traditional two or three year diploma would, as these courses are condensed into 8 or 10 week blocks, but you still get the opportunity to keep the textbook industry rich and happy, so at least you get to enjoy that part of the college experience.

Many community colleges now offer distance learning opportunities. This is more out of necessity, as they no longer hold a monopoly on information and are legitimately competing with other on-line learning services. For example, if you want to be an accountant, you could take all of the necessary courses through the Durham College continuing education online courses. This is very cost-effective both in terms of time and money. I got my own Electronics Technician certification through the George Brown college distance learning program. I can apply the credits earned from that program in order to obtain a fully accredited Bachelor of Science degree through distance learning.

Your Future

Moving forward, this is good information even for those who may not have made the best choices in high school, had a conventional college education, got their diploma, and now want to move on to something else. These ideas and concepts are free to explore by anyone at any age; the idea of investing in yourself, committing to self-improvement on your own terms. Picking and choosing what you need to be successful in your life will ultimately be the future of education, as the old institutions die away to give way to generations of increased diversity in skills in training that allow each person to reach their potential.