A post totally NOT about books

I don't have a credit card. So I was wowed and happy when the new debit cards came out and had the cc logo. Now I could shop at all the stores that accepted cc's. I've been doing this for years. Well I just got the shock of my life. I'm so sad because I have overdrawn my account. I've been with Citibank for 10 years and I have always heard of their shady practices but I chose to ignore it. Because hey...it's never happened to me. Until today. Lately I've noticed some weird stuff going on, but again I decided to ignore it. As I said until today. Citibank put out a new incentive to use your debit card as a credit card and you'd get all these rewards. Well since I don't normally carry cash I was even more thrilled!! I can get rewards for doing what I do on an everyday basis. So from that point on I ignored the debit feature. Well today I learned that when you use it as a credit card the merchant has 4 days to get the receipt over to the bank. So the bank "holds" the money and takes it out of your available balance. Cool right? This is what's called an "authorization." HOWEVER, if the 4 days pass by and the bank hasn't received the merchants hard copy request, the money is released BACK into your account and it shows up as AVAILABLE money. BUT the kicker is that the "authorization" still shows up on your screen. Now this is what happened to me. My merchant got lazy and I didn't keep accurate tabs on my account. I didn't look into my bank account over the "holiday" weekend. My merchant got lazy, the bank released the funds and then the merchant had a spurt of energy and ran to the bank. Well the bank took the money out and I got PENALIZED for being stupid enough not to know the difference between "authorizations -- credit card holds money until receipt comes in" and "POS" -- the debit feature where you punch in your code that automatically DEDUCTS the money from your account." Now mind you that in all the years I've used it as a cc not ONCE did this happen. I guess Citibank changed their policies on the amount of days the merchant has.

So I'm here to say beware everyone. Ignorance is NOT bliss. My ignorance is costing me $50.