This is a case of Discover card FAIL followed by a Discover card WIN.
In early December, Bally Fitness sold the bulk of it’s health clubs to LA Fitness.
As you might have heard in local business news, the transfer was not handled very well by Bally or LA Fitness.
Well, to add insult to injury, Bally almost screwed me over.
In late November, they charged my Discover card $240 for my annual renewal … unfortunately, I had never approved the charge.
In recent months the credit card companies (Chase & Discover, mostly) have ramped up their efforts to get me to use “Convenience Checks”. Almost every statement includes a batch of them.
I’ve never liked the fact that they send them … first, and foremost, because I never use them. Secondly, I consider them a serious security risk. If someone rifles through my mailbox (which has no security) and grabs my statement, they could easily cash the checks. Yes, I know I probably wouldn’t be liable for the amount … but it would be a major pain to figure out what was going on.
I finally got around to calling both Chase and Discover to request that my account be flagged so I never get Convenience Checks again.
In both cases, the customer service person I talked to understood my concerns … and updated my account appropriately. I was warned that there might be one ore two more mailings sent out, as the convenience checks are setup in advance … but I can deal with that.
Hmmm … now that I think about it a bit … that doesn’t really make sense … at least in the case of Discover … because the checks are attached to my statement, which is clearly custom printed on demand at the end of my billing cycle.
Oh well, as long as they don’t send me more than 1 or 2 more batches, I’ll be happy.
We had a very interesting weekend … did some fun stuff … saw some thing interesting, and encountered a new situation.
First, the fun stuff … we went to the Darwin exhibit at the Field Museum with my parents. It was quite interesting and informative. It covered both his Theory of Evolution, his personal life, and some discussion of Evolution in general. Did you know that he almost didn’t go on the Beagle voyage? He had asked his father for permission, but it was denied. After some huranging, he got is father to agree that … if Charles could get a reasonable person (in his father’s opinion, of course) to present good reasons for him to go on the voyage, he would allow it. Charles worked with his uncle, who his father apparently thought was reasonable, to put together a point by point rebuttal for all Mr. Darwin’s arguments against going.
After the museum, we decided to go for dinner … we didn’t want to go for Greek food, as that’s what we have a habit of doing. We also didn’t want Chinese, because Ginny and I just had Chinese food.
We decided on Italian … and found a place about two miles west of the loop for dinner. As we were driving there, I spotted a yellow cab that was a Ford Escape Hybrid. Considering how taxis drive, a hybrid vehicle makes a lot of sense. It was a 2008 model, which I’m not a big fan of … but it’s better than anything else. That was the interesting bit.
On to the weird … we got to the restaurant, had to wait a bit of time for a friend to join us, ordered and ate. The food was good. We were ready to leave, asked for the check, and I tried to give the waitress my AMEX card. She waved me off saying that they didn’t take that. So I asked her if Discover was OK. She clarified by saying that they didn’t take ANY credit cards. I only had $20 cash in my wallet. Luckily dad had some cash.
I was kind of shocked … I had never encountered a main-stream restaurant that didn’t take credit cards. I wonder what they do if someone shows up, orders, eats, but doesn’t have enough cash?