Category Archives: Finance

Brushing Up on e-Commerce

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Photo by Nik on Unsplash

I had just sat down to the computer, with my first cup of coffee, when I noticed that my credit card had texted me about a $38 charge from Amazon. Checking Amazon on the computer, it reported that not one, but six items had been delivered and were sitting on the front porch. Checking out front, I found a pile of boxes sitting there. I hauled them in and then went back to the computer. My Amazon orders showed two new orders, $54.86 and $141.41.

These orders included the following items: a Dyson replacement battery, wrist blood pressure monitor, outdoor projector screen, 16-drawer acrylic organizer and nail polish and ear wax removing kits. None of these things had I ordered. I hadn’t even looked at any of them online. All of this stuff was paid for with a gift card, except for the $38 charged to my card. I printed shipping labels where allowed. Most items only allowed me to print a QR code coupon. I then trundled up to the local UPS store with all of the packages. 

I expect to get my $38 refunded. Plus, I should get the $158.27 balance credited to my Amazon account, where it will eventually get spent, but for the life of me I cannot see how this scam makes any economic sense. Googling “unordered Amazon packages” and I got “brushing”, a fraud scheme where third-party e-commerce sellers send unsolicited, low-cost packages to people to generate fake positive reviews and boost seller ratings. I could understand how such a scheme could work if they were preying upon internet influencers like Kylie Jenner or the like, but I am a nobody. Who cares what I think about nail polish kits? Anyway, I changed my Amazon password and ordered all sessions logged out. And to think when I got up, I was wondering what I could blog about today.

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up

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Standing Tall at Sundown

Please stand up, please stand up… Yesterday, I filled out our taxes. I have not filed them yet, but likely will soon. For now, I am letting them ferment. Things went mostly smoothly, mostly. Anyway, our final result came out very well. We owe the IRS some more but will recover most of that debt through our Missouri refund. $140 is smallest additional amount that I will have to pony up since I retired. The only real hiccup in the whole process came when I was gathering data to plug into TurboTax. There were no problems with the 1099s, but when it came time for social security, I hit a snag. In order to get my info, I had to create a new login. I dimly remember that the login that I used last year was going to be obsolete soon. Well, that time is now. This new login required me to furnish a new password, photo ID and facial metrics. By simultaneously using both our PC and my iPhone I was able to accomplish these tasks, but when we tried to replicate these actions for Anne, we hit a snag. Anne got an error code and had to call them. Long story short, they did not believe that she was who she purported to be. Will the real Slim Shady please stand up. Please stand up, please stand up. I now expect ICE to show up and whisk her away to some foreign hellhole. I’m keeping the door locked for now. As a workaround the operator suggested that we try another still available login pathway that uses yet another soon to be obsolete path. That worked, we got her logged in and were able to get the pertinent tax document. Afterwards, Anne found our little adventure in government bureaucracy too taxing and took a nap.

Tax the Rich!

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Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Just not me! We got a property tax bill for my father’s house. It had jumped by three times what it had been. It will be due in January. What do rich people do when they are faced with a situation like this? We engaged a lawyer. I don’t really understand our strategy, but that is what the lawyer is for. Anyway, this approach dovetails nicely with what our realtor had recommended that is to simply delay, deny and dismiss. Hopefully, long enough to sell the house.

Senior Property Tax Freeze

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Tax Heaven – Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

I do not know why I bothered. Compared to our other properties, our Saint Louis property taxes are relatively low. But who wants to pay more taxes? Not me. This year, Saint Louis County began offering senior citizens a freeze on their property taxes. Way back when we were young and when we first bought this house, our property value was low. Our property taxes were even lower. Back then, the county valued existing properties much lower than new construction. So much lower that some developers sued and won. Our property taxes started out low but kept rising over the years. This year, our house’s appraisal was slated to jump significantly. At the beginning of the year, I applied to get our tax freeze.

I started the process but did not complete it. This week, we were notified that we had until next week to complete the process. I tried calling but could not get through. Online, I snagged an appointment for today. Not knowing what to expect, except to expect the worse, I headed over to Clayton. Arriving, I got a confirmation text for my appointment and my name soon appeared on the teleprompter’s list of names. Eventually, a clerk called me to her window. Looking over my application, she determined that I needed a copy of our deed, which she could sell me for the princely sum of $4. Easy peasey. Not that this tax freeze is a rock-hard icy January freeze, but more of a mushy-slushy late-March freeze. Our property taxes will go up, just not as fast as before.

Who Wants to be a Billionaire?

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Powerball – Photo by Alejandro Garay on Unsplash

Last Saturday night, one of two winning Powerball tickets was sold in Missouri. Although, by state law the name of this winner will not be announced until Tuesday, I want to go on record now that it was not me. I figured that you wanted to know. However, I did buy losing tickets last Monday, if that counts.

Last week, the jackpot was more than a billion dollars, when I used a kiosk at the grocery store to purchase my tickets. Rather, I misused it. I only wanted to buy one ticket, but credit card purchases have a minimum of eight. Too many. While the odds of winning go up significantly with buying one ticket versus none, they do not increase much with subsequent buys. I decided to try the cash route, but I only had twenties. Thinking that I could get change or rather not thinking, I inserted my bill into the slot. It turns out that the machine did not give change. Who knew? So, in the end, I bought ten tickets all of which were losers.

In the end though, it probably was for the best. What am I going to do with a billion dollars? Or rather, half-a-billion, if I elect to take the instant payout. Or rather, a third-of-a-billion after taxes. At this rate, pretty soon, we will no longer be talking about real money anymore. Still, 300 million is a healthy chunk of change. Too healthy, to my mind.

With that much money, kidnapping becomes a real concern. First, I would have to move. I do not even want to think about that. Then I would have to hire security. That would mean that anytime I wanted to go anywhere, I would have to tell Bubba, my new head of security, who would then gather up his goons and then and only then we could begin traipsing. That sounds like a real downer. With no freedom of movement, what would I do? I could take up union busting, court stacking and deregulating as do my new ilk, but none of those activities are currently my style and I am not sure if I could get into any of that. I could begin donating the money. With that many funds, it would become a new career. But I am retired. I worked hard to become so, and I do not want a job, even one that I hire myself for. What was I thinking? Why did I buy those tickets anyway? In the end, I am glad that I was a loser and plan on remaining so.

So, why did I buy a ticket and even infinitesimally risk this awful fate? I don’t expect to win, the odds are against it (1 in 292 million), but a lottery ticket is also a ticket to dream. When you dream about winning, you only think about all of the good things that will happen and not of any of the bad. All that money buys you fortune, fame and fun, not millions of solicitors trying to reach you all of the time. One of the best reasons to buy a lottery ticket occurred years ago, when a coworker was throwing a dinner party. He bought each guest their own personal ticket and presented it to them at dinner. It was a great parlor trick and greatly enlivened the dinnertime conversation. They say that the odds of winning Powerball are about the same as flipping an ordinary coin and getting heads, twenty-eight times in a row. Start flipping!