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Your credit card company very helpfully sends you a list of every single item charged to your credit card. This is called a statement, and it comes every month.
Are you reading it every month?!
A survey by Lending Tree revealed that 1 in 4 credit cardholders don’t review their card statements every month. This means 25% of people are missing potential mistakes or even fraudulent charges! This is absurd to me!
Watch Your Autoships
Recently, I helped my friends Abbey and Victor move from one rental to another. When I got to their house, they pointed to “the free pile” and asked me if I wanted anything in there.
In addition to random odds and ends, there were about nine cases of Celsius Energy drink. When I asked them why they were getting rid of it—and why they had so many—I was shocked to hear that the previous tenant had been getting an Amazon delivery of a case every two weeks—and never cancelled it!
Abbey and Victor lived in this house for nine months! That’s roughly 18 cases of an energy drink that someone else paid for and never received. They were $23 a case on Amazon when I looked it up. That adds up to $414 absolutely wasted! (Well, not really wasted, because they’ve been giving it away to anyone who wants it, but still.)
And yes, they tried to reach out to Amazon to have the shipment stopped, but they needed the account holder’s information in order to stop the shipments.
But wait, there’s more…
Free Gas
I am a real estate agent and represented myself when I bought my current home five years ago. One thing I always tell my buyer clients is to move the utilities into their own name the week before closing so the change goes live on closing day. Of course, I did the same for myself. Or so I thought.
Fast-forward two years, and I was searching my inbox for my natural gas bill. I can’t remember why I needed it, but I couldn’t find it, and my husband didn’t have it in his inbox either. But we DO have gas service—and it hadn’t been shut off.
I reached out to the company to ask them what email address they had on file for us. They gave an address I’ve never heard of, and the name on the account was NOT mine. It was the son-in-law of the person who owned the house previously.
I had never turned the service over to my name, and they had never cancelled their service!
I immediately put the service into my name, and asked if I could get a history of the last two years of payments so I could reimburse them, and was told they cannot give me the contact info or the amount they paid.
In the winter, my bill can be $200-$300. Summers are much less—and I have no idea how much this actually costs since the gas company won’t share. But I’d guess it was easily $1,000 they paid on my behalf.
It’s So Easy to Avoid Problems and Fraud
Both these situations could have been completely avoided if these people had simply checked their credit card statements each month. And this process takes just a few minutes!
It’s definitely worth a few minutes of your time to save $414 (and counting—that energy drink delivery is still going strong) and even MORE worth it for that utility service I got for free for two years. (Who even knows how long they would have continued to pay my bill?!)
Last month, there were two charges on my credit card I didn’t recognize. I called up the issuing company, and we determined together that it was most likely fraudulent and that someone had somehow gotten hold of my card number.
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When this happens, the fraudster will frequently start with a nominal charge to test the card. Large purchases can draw attention to the credit card company as well as to the cardholder, but ~$20 may not.
We ended up cancelling my card, and they sent me a new one. Better safe than sorry.
Start Building a Habit
If you’re one of the 25% who don’t check their credit card statement every month, make a plan to do so, starting with the next statement you receive. Either review it as soon as it comes in or put a note on your calendar to review it before you pay the bill.
Don’t recognize a charge? Contact your credit card company and let them know you are disputing a charge, and they’ll share with you the steps to take. It’s a very simple process, takes just a few minutes, and can save you money!
The Money Podcast
Kickstart your personal finance journey with Scott and Mindy as they break down the good, bad, and ugly of people’s personal money stories. From interviews with entrepreneurs and business owners to breakdowns of listener finances, you’ll get actionable advice on how to get out of debt and grow your money.
Mindy Jensen
BiggerPockets
Mindy Jensen has been buying and selling homes for more than 20 years. Her preferred method of investing is the “live-…Read More
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