Minor things that bother you

[GaryV]

prepaid cards

I got something, don't even remember what it was now or where it came from. I spent most of it, then figured the remainder of the card would be eaten up by the monthly service fees.

Yet years later, they still send me emails reminding me to sign in to see my balance. Sigh.

[SEWIGuy]

I always just use those gift cards at the grocery store for the first $100 of any purchase, and then pay the balance with something else.

And there is no way I'm calling someone on the phone for $4.

[1995hoo]

Regarding vdeane's issue, I think the problem at the gas station is most likely that even if you say you want a specific amount of gas, the station typically puts a hold on your card for a larger amount. The Liberty station nearest to my house does $100, for example. That charge shows as "pending" and never actually posts because the real amount replaces it. So if you use a prepaid card with a balance less than the "hold" amount, it gets declined for insufficient funds—think of it as being like bouncing a check, I suppose.

I've used up gift cards/rebate cards at the grocery store from time to time. I pay the remaining balance on those and then use my regular card for the rest. But I've never had a rebate card that gave me extra if used at a specific store.

The one time I didn't do that sort of thing was in 2014 when we replaced our HVAC and thermostat. We got about a $1000 rebate from Carrier via a prepaid VISA card, but there was also an option to have the money deposited to a bank account after you got the card. Normally I would not do that, but $1000 was too much money, so we took the option and used that $1000 towards paying off the HVAC expense.

[formulanone]

When I get a rental car that is registered in a state far away from the place I'm visiting and then people assume that's where I'm from. I was near Austin, TX at a traffic light and the guy next to me starts asking me where in Illinois I was from. It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about. A year later, a similar thing happened with the parking lot attendant at a place in Las Vegas. He asked me where in Minnesota I was from.

This is the story of my business-traveling life, though rarely do I worry too much about the plate. Back in 2017, I had a Massachusetts plate on a car I rented in Jackson, Mississippi; just a few months later, a Mississippi tag on a car rented out of Boston, Massachusetts. A lot of things in life just even out...

For a few years into the pandemic, Florida or Texas plates were on seemingly 50% of the cars I'd rented, even though I'd rented cars from about 40 different states within that time, as there were limited demand for rental cars, vehicle production shortages, and more scattered units amongst the corporate-owned rental locations. I've had to do it a few times due to flight cancellations (though on these boards, we look at that as potential opportunities).

[kernals12]

When I get a rental car that is registered in a state far away from the place I'm visiting and then people assume that's where I'm from. I was near Austin, TX at a traffic light and the guy next to me starts asking me where in Illinois I was from. It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about. A year later, a similar thing happened with the parking lot attendant at a place in Las Vegas. He asked me where in Minnesota I was from.

This is the story of my business-traveling life, though rarely do I worry too much about the plate. Back in 2017, I had a Massachusetts plate on a car I rented in Jackson, Mississippi; just a few months later, a Mississippi tag on a car rented out of Boston, Massachusetts. A lot of things in life just even out...

For a few years into the pandemic, Florida or Texas plates were on seemingly 50% of the cars I'd rented, even though I'd rented cars from about 40 different states within that time, as there were limited demand for rental cars, vehicle production shortages, and more scattered units amongst the corporate-owned rental locations. I've had to do it a few times due to flight cancellations (though on these boards, we look at that as potential opportunities).

Did you get people asking you from where in that state you were from?

[formulanone]

When I get a rental car that is registered in a state far away from the place I'm visiting and then people assume that's where I'm from. I was near Austin, TX at a traffic light and the guy next to me starts asking me where in Illinois I was from. It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about. A year later, a similar thing happened with the parking lot attendant at a place in Las Vegas. He asked me where in Minnesota I was from.

This is the story of my business-traveling life, though rarely do I worry too much about the plate. Back in 2017, I had a Massachusetts plate on a car I rented in Jackson, Mississippi; just a few months later, a Mississippi tag on a car rented out of Boston, Massachusetts. A lot of things in life just even out...

For a few years into the pandemic, Florida or Texas plates were on seemingly 50% of the cars I'd rented, even though I'd rented cars from about 40 different states within that time, as there were limited demand for rental cars, vehicle production shortages, and more scattered units amongst the corporate-owned rental locations. I've had to do it a few times due to flight cancellations (though on these boards, we look at that as potential opportunities).

Did you get people asking you from where in that state you were from?

Maybe once or twice from the places I'd stopped at. Usually "did you drive all the way from Alabama to get here?" is common enough question almost every week.

The only time I can specifically recall was when I had a rental car with Madrid plates while touring Barcelona right around the time of El Clásico...about one car a day would furiously honk their horn at me for no other reason, but nothing more than that. I don't think my plate has ever mattered much in any of my travels within the US.

[kurumi]

Sidestepping politics, but there are a few combinations of "renting a car in state A, but its license plate is state B" where I'd ask for a different car. I definitely want to blend in.

[1995hoo]

I just got an obvious scam text message claiming to be from "EZDriveMA" (what the?) claiming I must pay my unpaid tolls by today. It happened to have a sender's phone number with the country code for the Philippines (as if it weren't absurd enough on its own).

Easy enough to block the sender and report it as spam, but I can't help but wonder how anyone actually falls for really obvious crap like this. Certainly there are some much more sophisticated scams out there that are quite problematic. But this sort of thing is so obvious that if you fall for it, you probably ought to have a conservator appointed.

Edited to add the message itself:

[SEWIGuy]

When I get a rental car that is registered in a state far away from the place I'm visiting and then people assume that's where I'm from. I was near Austin, TX at a traffic light and the guy next to me starts asking me where in Illinois I was from. It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about. A year later, a similar thing happened with the parking lot attendant at a place in Las Vegas. He asked me where in Minnesota I was from.

This is the story of my business-traveling life, though rarely do I worry too much about the plate. Back in 2017, I had a Massachusetts plate on a car I rented in Jackson, Mississippi; just a few months later, a Mississippi tag on a car rented out of Boston, Massachusetts. A lot of things in life just even out...

For a few years into the pandemic, Florida or Texas plates were on seemingly 50% of the cars I'd rented, even though I'd rented cars from about 40 different states within that time, as there were limited demand for rental cars, vehicle production shortages, and more scattered units amongst the corporate-owned rental locations. I've had to do it a few times due to flight cancellations (though on these boards, we look at that as potential opportunities).

I have never been asked once about my car rental license plate, and I've rented dozens of cars.

[J N Winkler]

I'm not a fan of prepaid cards in general, and that includes gift cards as well as refunds.  It is now illegal (at least in the US) for the value on them to expire, but as Vdeane discovered, there are ways for the providers of such cards to relieve themselves of the obligation of full redemption.

A while ago I wanted to get rid of two $100 gift cards we had had for several years.  I did so by spending them on groceries until all the value was gone.  Both cards advertised the ability to review charges online, but it proved possible to do so (at least with my combination of OS and browser) for only one of them.

Easy enough to block the sender and report it as spam, but I can't help but wonder how anyone actually falls for really obvious crap like this. Certainly there are some much more sophisticated scams out there that are quite problematic. But this sort of thing is so obvious that if you fall for it, you probably ought to have a conservator appointed.

There are multiple business models for scams.  Some are high-risk but high-yield and aimed at targets that can reasonably be presumed to be alert to fraud (e.g., successful businesspeople getting ready to retire).  Others, like a great deal of email spam and these unpaid-toll texts that originate from outside the +1 country code area, are low-risk but low-yield and work by deliberately filtering for gullibility.

Having a guardian or conservator appointed can be as financially ruinous as falling for a scam, especially in states where snowbird populations overwhelm the courts' ability to provide adequate supervision.  Nevada had a scandal several years ago when court-appointed guardians (mainly in Clark County) were being found essentially to be stealing.

[Bobby5280]

I get annoyed when people mispronounce the word Chipotle.

It's not "ch-pole-tee," it's "ch-pote-lay." It doesn't need to be said with a Spanish accent either. My brother says "ch-pole-tee" whenever mentioning the restaurant chain. As often as the chain's TV commercials run it would seem like the correct pronunciation would take. But I still hear people pronounce it the wrong way more often than the right way.

Given there is over 400 pages worth of posts in this thread I'm surprised this nit-pick hasn't been mentioned previously (I did a key word search for chipotle).

[Max Rockatansky]

I get annoyed when people mispronounce the word Chipotle.

It's not "ch-pole-tee," it's "ch-pote-lay." It doesn't need to be said with a Spanish accent either. My brother says "ch-pole-tee" whenever mentioning the restaurant chain. As often as the chain's TV commercials run it would seem like the correct pronunciation would take. But I still hear people pronounce it the wrong way more often than the right way.

Given there is over 400 pages worth of posts in this thread I'm surprised this nit-pick hasn't been mentioned previously (I did a key word search for chipotle).

I'm slightly upset that Mount Chipotle was leveled before I had a chance scale it.

https://themercedfocus.org/a-pile-of-dirt-sat-on-a-parking-lot-these-valley-residents-made-it-famous/

[Molandfreak]

I get annoyed when people mispronounce the word Chipotle.

It's not "ch-pole-tee," it's "ch-pote-lay." It doesn't need to be said with a Spanish accent either. My brother says "ch-pole-tee" whenever mentioning the restaurant chain. As often as the chain's TV commercials run it would seem like the correct pronunciation would take. But I still hear people pronounce it the wrong way more often than the right way.

Given there is over 400 pages worth of posts in this thread I'm surprised this nit-pick hasn't been mentioned previously (I did a key word search for chipotle).

I'm slightly upset that Mount Chipotle was leveled before I had a chance scale it.

https://themercedfocus.org/a-pile-of-dirt-sat-on-a-parking-lot-these-valley-residents-made-it-famous/

You can also no longer go paddle boating in Lake Chipotle. https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-lifestyle/introducing-minnesota-lake-no-11843-lake-chipotle

[1995hoo]

I know someone who says it like "chi-POAT-ul." I don't think he knows it's wrong and I don't think he knows the correct pronunciation.

[vdeane]

It is now illegal (at least in the US) for the value on them to expire

Interesting.  The one I have says the card balance is forfeit when the card expires in July.

Regarding vdeane's issue, I think the problem at the gas station is most likely that even if you say you want a specific amount of gas, the station typically puts a hold on your card for a larger amount. The Liberty station nearest to my house does $100, for example. That charge shows as "pending" and never actually posts because the real amount replaces it. So if you use a prepaid card with a balance less than the "hold" amount, it gets declined for insufficient funds—think of it as being like bouncing a check, I suppose.

I've used up gift cards/rebate cards at the grocery store from time to time. I pay the remaining balance on those and then use my regular card for the rest. But I've never had a rebate card that gave me extra if used at a specific store.

The one time I didn't do that sort of thing was in 2014 when we replaced our HVAC and thermostat. We got about a $1000 rebate from Carrier via a prepaid VISA card, but there was also an option to have the money deposited to a bank account after you got the card. Normally I would not do that, but $1000 was too much money, so we took the option and used that $1000 towards paying off the HVAC expense.

Mine says that, when you split, you have to use the prepaid card at the end so that the total value of the transaction is reduced to the card balance.  I guess it will authorize on the full amount even if you're splitting the payment.  I also didn't want to do it at a grocery store, because that requires doing the math on how much to charge on my regular card (since it has to go first), and because I can't split on the self checkout, and I don't like how they bag in the regular lanes.

[Bobby5280]

I'm slightly upset that Mount Chipotle was leveled before I had a chance scale it.

If that was in a snowy area it would have been fun to sled down it.

When I was a kid we lived in Syracuse for a couple years. There was this big mound of dirt next to our townhouse complex. It was earth dug out for the basements in another set of townhouses nearby. My friends and I had a lot of fun sledding down it. Lake effect snow would pile up on it almost daily. One of my friends used a hose to coat one side of it in ice. We build a dirt mound ramp at the bottom of it. Kids would "get air" when hitting the ramp. Adding to the fun, we would hurl snow balls at the sledder when he was airborne.

Yeah, we didn't have Atari, Nintendo or any of that stuff yet.

The few times it snows here in Lawton a bunch of people will go to the Cameron University football stadium (that's no longer used by the University for football) and sled down this big hill side on one end of the stadium.

I know someone who says it like "chi-POAT-ul."

OMG. That sounds really bad. Haha.

[webny99]

Given there is over 400 pages worth

I was mentally completing this sentence "...400 pages worth of potential pronunciations of Chipotle" 

Chi-POT-lee is the incorrect one that I hear most often.

But hey, if nothing else, they are at least self-aware about it, going so far as to use it in their marketing to contrast to their supposedly easy to pronounce list of ingredients.

[DTComposer]

I just got an obvious scam text message claiming to be from "EZDriveMA" (what the?) claiming I must pay my unpaid tolls by today. It happened to have a sender's phone number with the country code for the Philippines (as if it weren't absurd enough on its own).

Easy enough to block the sender and report it as spam, but I can't help but wonder how anyone actually falls for really obvious crap like this. Certainly there are some much more sophisticated scams out there that are quite problematic. But this sort of thing is so obvious that if you fall for it, you probably ought to have a conservator appointed.

Edited to add the message itself:

Ugh. I've been getting these also, supposedly from FasTrak here in California. The first one made me look twice, since I had been on the Bay Bridge and the I-880 toll lanes about a week prior, but like you, the sender's phone number gave it away.

[Rothman]

Chipotle should rhyme with Aristotle.

[Scott5114]

Mine says that, when you split, you have to use the prepaid card at the end so that the total value of the transaction is reduced to the card balance.  I guess it will authorize on the full amount even if you're splitting the payment.

The card may say that, but I don't think it's true. From the card's perspective, it has no idea whether it's being run first or second—all it knows is it's being charged $X by vendor Y. So long as the vendor charges only $4 or whatever to the card, it won't even know that there is another card involved in the transaction.

I also think that the possibility quoted upthread, that the gas station attempted a hold for $50 or something and that's what caused the decline, is likely. That's also probably why the card issuer couldn't help you—the only way that gets resolved is the hold falling off. Wait a week and maybe try doing something similar somewhere that isn't a gas station.

I did a brief Google on this and one suggestion that seemed promising was using PayPal's "send money to friends" feature to send the money on the card to a PayPal account, which you could then use from there or transfer to a standard bank account. (Just make sure you use the "friends and family" option to avoid paying a fee to PayPal.) I also wonder if there might be a way to use some combination of CashApp, Venmo, or Zelle to get the money off the card (I don't use any of these services so I don't have any insight as to whether that's possible or not).

Heck, if you go into your bank/credit union and just ask a teller for help, they would probably be the most informed as to the options available to you.

[Scott5114]

I get annoyed when people mispronounce the word Chipotle.

It's not "ch-pole-tee," it's "ch-pote-lay." It doesn't need to be said with a Spanish accent either. My brother says "ch-pole-tee" whenever mentioning the restaurant chain. As often as the chain's TV commercials run it would seem like the correct pronunciation would take. But I still hear people pronounce it the wrong way more often than the right way.

My wife and I call it "chee-POTTLE". We know it's wrong, we just have a stupid sense of humor.

[kernals12]

Sidestepping politics, but there are a few combinations of "renting a car in state A, but its license plate is state B" where I'd ask for a different car. I definitely want to blend in.

You're spending way too much time on social media if you think regular people care about that.

[Max Rockatansky]

Normals often do care or have a perception, especially if they don't travel.  The only time my brother in law has been to California was for my wedding.  He grew up on a farm in Michigan hearing nothing about how California is supposed be nothing but a liberal hell hole.  Imagine his surprise getting off the plane at FAT only to be greeted by the John Deere display at the bottom of escalator.  Taking him to the tractor part depot and Sierra foothills changed his mind quick. 

[kernals12]

I love getting my Chip-otul burritos on a white torti-ll-a

[thspfc]

When I see a Texas plate far away from Texas I assume rental car.