The Payoff

Ace has been anxiously waiting for this day to come. After checking the mailbox every day with expectancy, today he pulled the door down and slid the white envelopes and junk flyers out and it was there, the final bill to pay off his Harley. "All right," he thought, "let's see what the final amount is." He pulled the statement from the crisp envelope and unfolded the paper. He was pleasantly surprised to see that it was nearly $50 cheaper than the usual monthly payment. Bonus! But true to everything in life today it wasn't that simple; upon reading the rest of the statement he found the due date and it was tomorrow. What the...? So he called Harley Davidson to make the payment over the phone. This naturally soured the sweet taste of paying the bike off and making it all his. He was told that he couldn't make the payment over the phone to Harley Davidson, that he could do it online through the Harley Davidson website and by the way, interest is compounded daily. Ace hung up the phone and headed to his computer thinking that Harley Davidson must have modeled their financing on the mafia's. After going thru the headache of registering on the Harley Davidson finance website to complete the transaction it redirects Ace from Harley Davidson over to JP Morgan Chase's website, the most evil MF'ers on earth!

It seemed sadly logical that JP Morgan Chase is involved, after all, they are corporate America's favorite bank; heck they're the Feds bank of choice... what's that tell ya? After completing the information contained in the website it says that there is a $6.00 charge to make a credit card payment! So this is JP Morgan Chase's version of pay me now or pay me later. If you mail it in with a check, the interest is compounded daily so by the time the check arrives it is for the wrong amount and another payment is then needed. It's that or pay the six dollar fee now. This is considered freedom now in America, since it's our choice of which manner we'd like to get screwed. To add insult to injury, the website also states that there is a $12.00 fee if you make a payment over the phone, which they may just state it to make you feel like you're getting a deal by being forced to pay $6.00! Wait a minute... didn't Harley Davidson say that he couldn't make a payment over the phone? Oh, that was to Harley Davidson not JP Morgan Chase, so I guess they weren't technically lying... or were they? A disgusted Ace did it, he paid the bill with the added fee and even with the extra six bucks it was less than a normal payment and he was free. Free! Once again we see how Harley Davidson markets themselves as a humble, all American, grass roots company, yet they operate so much like every other global corporation. They aren't the rebels that they are always selling to us. They make a great product, but their priority always seems to center around grabbing great gobs of money; ours.