MAD ABOUT MONEY

Well I'm still whinging, sorry. The main bank account that I've 
used all my adult life has naturally come with a free card to use 
at ATMs and EFTPOS terminals. I believe a Visa/MasterCard debit 
card has always been an option for an extra fee, but I'm comitted 
to paying for things in cash and not using accounts with a large 
balance for online payments, so the free card worked fine for my 
use almost entirely at one ATM. That also makes it easier to check 
through bank statements for the card (which are mailed to me - no 
trust for online banking here) and identify unauthorised 
transactions, which of course don't happen due to how little the 
account is exposed.

For in-store payments I always pay cash. For online I have a couple 
of cards, one Visa and one MasterCard, onto which I put only enough 
money for the purchase I intend to make, or I use PayPal where 
that's available. Online, one of these three options has always 
worked, although in some cases two failed (sometimes quite 
inelegantly - phone calls involved) before I found out which one 
that was, hence the two cards. Honestly I often feel like I'd kill 
just to buy things from a store rather than deal with the horrors 
of online payments which have haunted me for weeks in the past, but 
on the other hand it does allow me to do things like buy the parts 
for the Jag from the UK even though it turns out the Australian 
parts place that I usually buy from closed down this year (without 
bothering to announce the fact on their website, but timing-out 
email server + two disconnected phone lines writes its own story).

Anyway the point of all this is that I keep those online-associated 
things completely separate from all that latter stuff (different 
banks even), nor am I interested in this new "Tap & Go" payment 
thing which leaks your card details to the nearest RFID reader and 
appears to attract all sorts of fees that aren't disclosed until 
after you pay them. So the current ATM+EFTPOS card suits me 
perfectly, which of course is why the bank has decided it's 
obsolete and are withdrawing it in early January.

Cue hours spent trawling through tables and descriptions of account 
fees and rebates to conclude that: a) I'll need to make them turn 
off all the features that the new Debit MasterCard adds, plus keep 
the card shielded from RFID readers because they can probably still 
skim details even with Tap & Go disabled. b) Via layers of 
monthly/yearly charges and subtracting partially-applicable 
rebates, it'll cost me a minimum of $5.60 per year, and probably a 
little more, compared to usually zero fees while I've had the 
account so far. c) Changing to their newer transaction account type 
would cost me more in other fees, even though the card would then 
be free.

OK so $5.60+ per year isn't the end of the world, but I'm paying it 
for _nothing_. I don't want any of the features, and in fact 
they'll be more of a pain to turn off, and I now have extra fees to 
watch because just one tweak regarding the rebates (which I'm not 
confident I've interpreted correctly in the first place: the lady 
at the bank and the letter announcing the change all gave me 
different answers (letter = no monthly fees, lady = $3/month)) and 
the figure could change completely, making it better to switch 
account types.

I can't help but wonder about the future if my desires for systems 
using a minimum of technology are this weird now while I'm in my 
20s. I feel like I'm hypocritical being stubborn about these things 
while spending much of my time working on technical aspects of 
computers and electronics. But I like ATMs, 24/7 access to cash 
withdrawals is a fine practical application of technology, why 
can't I just keep that and not have to implicitly trust all this 
other stuff that's less secure than my current arrangements? Or if 
not, I still have to pay for it anyway.

Still, while hunting through all the account type terms, I did 
notice that since interest rates have picked up my savings account 
interest rate has been stuck down at about %0.35 interest while the 
new accounts are now getting %3.5. Sneeky buggers, that account 
type did have a decent interest rate when I set that account up, 
they've just passed on the rate cuts and not the more recent rises 
which have applied higher rates to their new accounts for the last 
year or two. So in that regard this card fiasco worked out 
financially beneficial for me overall, but only by pushing me to 
wade through their T&C PDFs and crunch numbers for a while.

Oh and it's a public holiday today, but I'm not taking it because 
on Wednesday I learnt (a day after most people apparantly, the 
article I read started with something like "in case you've been 
living under a rock for the last 24 hours" - apparantly I am 
because that's not the first time I've had that) that Daniel 
Andrews unexpectedly resigned as premier of the state! That's far 
more reason to rejoice than some football thing that's on today, so 
I took Wednesday off instead and now I'd better start work. Next 
weekend I might be taking a day off for my rail holiday too 
actually, but then the rain forecasts for late next week are making 
it look like I'd be better off taking a boat than a train, so I'm 
not sure.

 - The Free Thinker