Stupid Tax

Years ago, I heard a new term which struck me as rather clever....and true!

I first heard it from my brother-in-law. I remember that he said he allotted himself a certain amount of money a month that would end up being used as stupid tax. And that way, he'd never go into debt for stupidity.

It's called STUPID TAX for a reason. Stupid Tax is when you end up paying money for something that is entirely your own fault, usually as a result of bad judgement or some other kind of stupid mistake.

For example, People who choose to gamble consistently pay stupid tax. I have a friend who claims that people who choose to gamble just aren't very good at math. If they truly understood the laws of probablility, they'd never do it in the first place.

Well, Over the years I've paid my share of stupid tax.

**Signing up for those clever marketing schemes..."Try me for 30 days risk free! But then if you don't return/cancel it, you've bought it for the low monthly fee of....!" In my young naive newly married status, I fell prey to this once or twice, and ended up with a few unwanted and unused cook books this way. Then I swore to never do it again...too bad I didn't remember!

**You've won the sweepstakes! Just send $10.00 here for us to release your 10 thousand dollars to you! (I'm SO embarrassed for admitting this one!)

**Parking tickets for parking in the wrong parking lot on purpose at college, in the hopes of not being caught during the 10 minutes it takes to run in and hand in an over-due paper.

**Speeding tickets from not paying attention to those little towns that pop up out of nowhere when the speed limit drops from 55 to 25. Ouch...that ticket was expensive! One time I was being extra stupid and was clocked going 80 in a 25 zone. You can believe that I never let that one happen again!

**Waiting too long to return some item to the store, and losing money on it.

**Not fixing something when it was still under warranty, when you KNEW it had to be fixed and you SUSPECTED that the warranty would end soon.

**Paying bills late.

**Registering for something late and having to pay more $$.


ANWAY...you get the picture! The reason for this post is that I THOUGHT I had graduated to a new level of living...one without stupid tax. I thought I had learned my lesson.

I am extremely chagrined to admit, however, that I recently fell prey to more stupid tax. Thankfully, I'm hoping that I've learned my lesson for good this time.

I've learned that you should NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER click on the web advertisements on any major web page. You never know what scheme you may fall prey too. Here's the short version of my story:

It's late at night, I'm feeling bad about my weight and appearance. I've recently read a few blogs from friends who highly recommend detoxing as well as the acai berry supplement for losing lots of weight. Lo and behold, that same night I see an advertisement for a free trial (plus Sh&H, of course), I Click on the picture (fatal mistake), read the testimonials, and am swayed that I should give it a try (what's the harm?) I ask myself. I tell myself I'll just write the cancellation deadline into my schedule so there will be NO POSSIBLE way that I end up paying a ton of money.

If you are reading this and you are groaning with the stupidity of it all, you might want to stop now. Because it gets worse.

Between two family vacations, I miss the deadline to cancel. Not only that, but I start to receive telemarketing calls trying to sell me colon detoxes and acai berry supplements. I tell them to cancel my accounts...I don't want it! And for some reason I think I've canceled the items I bought from those companies. Who else but them has my information to be selling me theses specific products? In the next few days, I see two different HIGH charges to my banking accounts.

Because it's all too stupidly painful, and the details are too exhausting, I'll just say that hours of phone calls, letters, shipping and returning products later, over a course of 6 weeks, I finally managed to cancel all accounts, and get all my money refunded except for the shipping of course.

I thought it was all over. I thought I was done.

Then I discovered new unexplained charges to my bank accounts. I'm thinking, who in the world have these companies sold me out to? It turns out, that when you click on some of these companies and sign up for free trials, that they automatically sign you up for other deals and "email" you the cancellation details (which go to your junk folder and get lost). The credit/debit cards they use to charge your shipping and handling, get charged for all other kinds of "great deals" that they claim they told you about. I had been caught: hook, line and sinker!

I had to spend many more hours on the phone with more companies fighting them and telling them I never authorized their clubs, and that I wanted nothing to do with them, and would you PLEASE refund my money? (during this time, I wandered around my house muttering like a madwoman: "stupid stupid stupid!")

This is where I learned to be more assertive; I had to talk to the manager of the various companies and threaten to report them to the Better Business Bureau. And that is when you find out to your relief, that the charges which all the telemarketers claim are "unrefundable" really can be refunded. Nothing is impossible if you talk to the right person.



Here is a format of the typical conversation I had with several different toads at several different companies. To be kind, I'm sure they are taught to aggressively fight for their company's interests. But isn't it interesting, that if you ever want a good deal from just about any company where you regularly order stuff, all you have to do is threaten to cancel your membership? It's disheartening to realize many misc. products we buy could be reduced by over 50%, and the producers would still be cutting a profit.

ME: "I would like to cancel my account, return the product unopened, and I demand a refund."

Them: "We can't do that. But I'll give you a 20% discount."

ME: "I'm serious. I don't want the product. Return my money."

Them: "We can give you an even better deal....60% off the retail price! Who could say no to such savings?"

Me: "I want to speak to a manager. What is your name and information?"

Them: "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have $100.00 in gas vouchers as a perk for keeping a membership with us?"

Me: "I'll be reporting you. Please understand that this means NO. I'm returning everything. There is no reason you can't refund my money."

Them in a very grumpy voice "Fine, here's your cancellation number and instructions. Your money will reposted to your account in a couple of weeks."

This kind of experience makes we wonder, GEE WHIZ, what kind of American Idiot falls prey to these vampires?!?

Oops...I guess that would be weak minded people like ME!

I'm so disgusted with myself, it took my several weeks to be emotionally distanced from the awful ordeal enough to put it to paper. But I wanted to record it as a severe humiliating lesson to me and as a friendly warning to others....

BEWARE OF STUPID TAX!