Hideous card...

So I decided to join the 20th century... I've been a firm believer in the fact that I neither want nor need a credit card, but the plans to move abroad for a while essentially spawned the understanding that I would need to bend my principles a bit. So I went ahead and ordered a Visa from Sampo. Swell. They even let me pick the image I wanted on the card from a predefined set. I picked the black card. A simple, black card. No image. Just black. Neutral and stylish. And fairly often I wear at least something black, and at times I'm completely dressed in black. Simple decision, huh?

Well, the card arrived yesterday, and it was black. But it had these little sparkling bits on it. To sum it up, it was hideous. I was planning on actually starting to use the debit card features of it since they're a lot more widely supported than Visa Electrons, with which I'd been living before. But my god... The card looked so hideous that I don't think I can even take it out of my wallet, let alone pay with it.

So naturally, after a bit more than 24 hours of contemplation, I put in a new order for the same card but with the standard Sampo image on it. Hopefully it won't be glittery...

Telemarketers

Telemarketers should die. I think just about everyone shares this view, hopefully even the telemarketers. A new and increasingly annoying trend, however, appears to be that companies who's client I already am have started to call me up. The latest one was a Finnish bank called Sampo and they wanted me to come talk about saving and whatnot. I'd only actually slept roughly three hours last night and rolled around in bed for another three hours and was fairly out of it, so I routinely checked my calendar and booked a meeting with them, before understanding that I didn't really have any interest to talk to them about anything. I just don't believe that anything they say could possibly interest me in any way.

Then something interesting happened. Some other guy called me again and said that the first person who called me had made a mistake and the time she'd agreed with me had actually been booked before and he offered to reschedule me. So of course I took the opportunity and told him that in fact I didn't really think it that important for me to meet them and discuss anything with them and that I despise these sort of direct and aggressive marketing attempts. But did he give up? No. He went on and on about how they wanted to reward their current customers. If they wanted to do that, drop the charges that they make me pay for various services I already use. If not that, then I'm not interested. The persistent asshole finally went away when I told him that I would seriously have to consider moving all my assets completely to Nordea (their competitor with whom I also do business) if they continued to call me. Sheesh.

It's one thing to harass potential clients by telemarketing, because you don't really have that much to lose. But it's interesting that even when I am already Sampo's customer and pay their fees (oh, and bankers should also die ;) they still feel the need to harass me like this. I'm not sure, but I have a feeling that I checked the box that said that I didn't want to be contacted. I guess I'll have to double-check that this indeed is the case...