FFS Friday

You know when you become a parent and you suddenly find that you have to carry around a whole pile of stuff?

Gone are the days when you can carry a small handbag, you either carry a handbag and nappy bag or you have a large bag that fits everything.

After a while the kids get older but you still have to carry a largeish bag because kids need stuff. Toddlers need baby wipes, water, toys and a snack. Older kids need baby wipes, bandaids etc.

For the last few years I've felt like my handbag is weighing me down. Every time I've tried to downsize it hasn't worked, I've left something out and then needed it the next day.  I've just had to resign myself to being weighed down by my bag. There's probably some sort of metaphor in that too, life certainly has been weighing me down.

Finally, I've reached the stage where I can downsize. The boys can carry their own water, they can survive without snacks and anything else I can leave in the car. 

I've downsized my handbag, my purse and all the stuff that I used to cart around. I dowloaded Stocard and put all my rewards cards on so I don't need to carry them with me.

It feels so good. My shoulder isn't sore and I feel lighter, physically and mentally.  

If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen me complaining about St George Bank. If not, read on.

We've been working hard at paying off debt and it's been going really well. A few weeks ago we made our final payment on our St George credit card. After we made the payment we had to wait a few days for the payment to process before we could cancel the card. 

A week after the final payment Tiger rang up to cancel the card and was told that it has an outstanding balance over $7000!

Turns out someone had gone shopping with our card and St George hadn't thought that was unusual. Here's what I don't understand. We haven't used the card since March and we only used it for infrequent, large purchases.

How did St George think 57 transactions on Afterpay over an 8 day period was okay? In one day there were 22 transactions. I have no idea why their fraud department didn't figure out something was wrong! Talk about incompetent. 

As if that wasn't bad enough, instead of cancelling the account St George just cancelled that card, opened another account and arranged a new card to come out to us! Tiger had to call them twice to have the account closed.

Now they owe us money because we paid back more than we owed, but we can't get that until the next billing period shows the card in credit, even though the account is cancelled. How does that even make sense?

They've been so painful and difficult to deal with, we'll never bank with them again.

Other banks have suspended our accounts over once unusual transaction and called us to make sure it was us, yet St George let 57 transactions go through without taking any action.

Afterpay were no better. We emailed them to check if there was an account created in our name. We gave them all the details of the fraudulent transactions, they sent us a link to check our account transactions. Not sure how we're supposed to do that without an Afterpay account. FFS.

Idiots.