This past spring marked the 30th anniversary of my high school graduation. Back in the winter, one of our classmates got the ball rolling, called together the usual suspects, i.e., some of us who live nearby and would be willing to help plan a reunion, and we started meeting at least once a month to work on the event.

The first meeting was interesting. About a dozen of us showed up at a classmate’s house, and it was soon evident that I was the only male in attendance. I had always wished the ratio of females to males was about that one-sided when I went to high school, and thirty years after the fact it finally was.

The girls, all friends of mine, were doing fine, and though everyone had changed some, most of them had really taken care of themselves. With a bit of imagination, I could still picture them as they were in our classrooms, or leading cheers at the football games, or marching with the band. But it was quite amusing that when a typewritten sheet was given to each of us to read, all who weren’t already wearing glasses were soon digging in their purses for them, because everyone of those lovely ladies were totally illiterate without their spectacles! Again, I was the only exception, but not for long, I’ll bet.

Unfortunately, the fact that I can mostly still read the fine print doesn’t mean that I always do. This fact was made painfully clear the other day at the shop when I opened a past due notice from a credit card equipment leasing company, which included a threat to damage my credit if I didn’t pay them the money they said I owed. I was dumbfounded.

A few months ago I changed my credit card service provider, and bought, or lease-purchased a new card swiping machine, complete with printer. Our old service provider wasn’t the best, and the electronic swiper that I had lease-purchased about five years before didn’t have a printer, which meant we had to use the old clunky emboss tracing machine when we processed a credit card sale.

Knowing how hard it is to get some institutions to quit drafting fees out of one’s checking account, after switching everything, I went down to the bank and stopped payment on my old providers, including the lease-purchase since the 48-month contract was long since fulfilled, yet they had kept charging me each month.

Yet the letter the leasing company sent me said I owed them for three months of payments! Since they couldn’t draft my account, they wanted a check and they wanted it now. I got on the phone and called them right away.

The person who accepted my call looked up my account, and reiterated what their letter had said, and told me I needed to send a check. I said that was certainly not correct, since it had been a lease/purchase, not just a lease, and the time for the lease to expire was long past.

She said that the records show that it was a four year lease. I said, “Ah-ha, you see I was right! That lease has to be at least five years old, so I completed the lease some months ago.”

She said that it was five and a half years since the lease was started, but the contract (no doubt, the fine print of the contract) stated that I was to have called her company two months prior to the end of the 48 month agreement, and tell them that I wanted to pay off the contract with that 48th payment. Since I had failed to make that call, I was still just leasing, she said.

I told the representative that their fine print was just a bogus way of taking advantage of honest business people who really believed that a 48-month lease-purchase was actually fulfilled in 48 months (go figure). I repeated to her that I had already overpaid the contract by hundreds of dollars, to which she demanded that I pay $114 more to close my account. I said I wouldn’t do it, and she said, “We can and will make entries into your credit history that will damage your credit if you do not send a check.” Her supervisor had coached her well, the last line of their letter said the same thing.

I sent the check (Kelly says “sucker” is printed on my forehead, and I’m the only one who can’t see it). But, I guess that $114 would have been better spent a long time ago buying me reading glasses, whether I needed them or not. The fine print on that contract certainly didn’t make the impression it should have, maybe a little magnification would have helped.

I’ve shared this story with my readers as a friendly admonition. When you’re signing contracts, lease-purchase or otherwise, beware of the fine print. What you don’t know, or don’t read, can certainly hurt you. This is actually the second time in recent years that a crooked contract has come back to haunt me. So, I’ve begun to fear the fine print, as I should have all along. And I will be looking at it much closer from here on out, with spectacles in place as required.

But at least some things work out better than expected. Such was the case with our 30 year class reunion. It was a great success, and all seemed to really enjoy themselves. Though it’s a jungle out there, especially in business, it’s nice to know I have some good friends out there too. Our friendships have been revived, and our contracts have been renewed, at least for another five or ten years.

And the good part is, some of those contracts are for life. No fine print required.

Have a great month,
—-Rick