How much are paying the piper to dance to his tune?

The Glittering Trap

Many years ago, an acquaintance announced, they simply had to have the NEW Iphone. Unfortunately, I asked the simple question: Why?

You see this person had a perfectly good cell phone and computer. They used the phone for calls and really had no need for anything else. It wasn't like they were keeping up a web site, taking phone orders, even running a business, processing credit cards or anything else on the phone or their computer.

A few years earlier, I had gotten a Blackberry because it was FREE...no it wasn't. I would have to pay for special service to do anything more than make calls from it. I decided it wasn't worth it as all I really did was make calls. So I really wanted to know why this person wanted this new phone. What I got was a life long enemy for asking.

But, another friend did get the latest and greatest. Now they spend half their life trying to make money to keep from getting their phone turned off because they now pay not just for the phone calls they need to get but all those pretty bells and whistles they have become addicted to using. Perish the thought of having a camera (even though it will take waaay better pictures) and having to up load those pictures from your home or office computer. What if you actually miss an email for an hour or so while you are away from your computer. Surely the world will end. Can you imagine carrying an address book? That is back breaking work. And so it goes on and on until now, a tablet must be had and of course an ereader for books because there is just so much wasted time while you are killing yourself to make the money to pay for all of these things......and if you miss the huge service bill, you can't even make a phone call.

But, I can process credit cards and pay my bill all at the same time.

Yes, little one and they can deny the credit card you just processed in a couple of hours that causes the payment you made to bounce and incurs a much higher fee than a bounced check right after they pull your credit processing account because the customer complained ….. no proof needed...no recourse. They don't need any proof to empty your bank account and it is your personal account because paying the phone bill is all you can manage and not a business account to limit your liability.

You might want to read that paragraph several times and then read the really fine print on your merchant card processing account.

Do you really need that bright shiny new device? It might be a really nasty thing in disguise.