It's not too unbelievable that a 20 year old has a $2000 balance.
Anybody remember those Dell 8XXX desktop deals where you bought one for $800 and there were ~$700 in rebates or something like that? Well- I had the brilliant idea of buying 10 of those . . . quickly racking up an $8,000 balance on my Amex (actually- it's my parent's Amex with a sub-account for me)- along with another $2,000+ that was already on there for some other earlier purchases.
I received a statement for about $11,000 . . . I had already sold all the computers on ebay- so I had plenty of money in my bank account, but just under $11,000. So I paid off about $10,500 of it . . . and figured that I would only be charged interest on the remaining $500 . . . WRONG. Important lesson y'all: if you don't pay off your credit card in full, down to the last penny- you'll be charged interest for the full amount. So the next month's bill, I received my statement, with an interest charge for $450!
Of course, I called Amex- thinking they must have made a mistake . . . but the CSR told me that's how it works (or something like that- it was a bit more complicated). Then he asked me . . . how old are you? I told him I was 21. He literally jumped out of his seat, "What're you doing with a $11,000 balance?!?!" Told him about the eBaying thing I do on the side . . . guy was really nice. He talked to his manager- and took off the $450 interest charge. <WHEW!>
And that's my story for why it IS believable for a 20 year old to have a $2,000 balance.
Anybody remember those Dell 8XXX desktop deals where you bought one for $800 and there were ~$700 in rebates or something like that? Well- I had the brilliant idea of buying 10 of those . . . quickly racking up an $8,000 balance on my Amex (actually- it's my parent's Amex with a sub-account for me)- along with another $2,000+ that was already on there for some other earlier purchases.
I received a statement for about $11,000 . . . I had already sold all the computers on ebay- so I had plenty of money in my bank account, but just under $11,000. So I paid off about $10,500 of it . . . and figured that I would only be charged interest on the remaining $500 . . . WRONG. Important lesson y'all: if you don't pay off your credit card in full, down to the last penny- you'll be charged interest for the full amount. So the next month's bill, I received my statement, with an interest charge for $450!
Of course, I called Amex- thinking they must have made a mistake . . . but the CSR told me that's how it works (or something like that- it was a bit more complicated). Then he asked me . . . how old are you? I told him I was 21. He literally jumped out of his seat, "What're you doing with a $11,000 balance?!?!" Told him about the eBaying thing I do on the side . . . guy was really nice. He talked to his manager- and took off the $450 interest charge. <WHEW!>
And that's my story for why it IS believable for a 20 year old to have a $2,000 balance.
