Image by illustir via FlickrSaving money doesn't have to be difficult. Sometimes all it takes is just a phone call.
I was billed $240 for my ABN AMRO Platinum Card for the annual fee. I have been using this card for free for 2 years and called them up to cancel the card because I haven't been charging much of my expenses to this card.
Spoke with the call centre rep who forwarded my call to their cards dept and immediately got a waiver for 3 years because they were in the process of rebranding the card and repackaging the benefits and promotions and would rather retain me as a customer even though I charged only a little of my expenses to the card.
The other recent example was the NTUC Income Car Cooperative. I had recently cancelled my membership and was surprised to receive a bill for a car booking for the supplementary membership that was held by the wife. Called up the CarCoop finance people who said they would check as I had already cancelled my membership before the date of the transaction. Later that day, a call centre rep called me to inform me that the charges would be cancelled as they had billed me erroneously due to a call centre operator making a mistake on the membership number of the person making the booking.
That was $132 saved if I had not checked and paid the bill unthinkingly.
What is the lesson I continue to learn about saving money?
- Check your bills carefully
- Dispute the transactions or ask to cancel for credit card annual dues
- Be firm but polite
