I noticed two unusual refunds on my Citibank credit card bills last month — both from “Schwartz Settlement Refund” in the amounts of $1.97 and $6.85. Of course, so did hundreds of other bloggers around the web, most with refunds in the range of $0.03 to $0.73. I paused a while on the hunt for information as I found it kind of funny to read a dozen other blogs all rambling about the same mysterious topic. I became even more curious as to why I got so much higher of a refund compared to everyone else.

Of course, none of the information I found on the other blog websites was useful or even remotely accurate (I saw everything cited from foreign currency exchange overcharges to some form of forgery), so I had to rely on the traditional media for answers. *gasp*

According to the Miami Herald, the Schwartz case, which originated in California on behalf of Elliott Schwartz, concerned Citibank’s practice of not crediting payments on credit cards if received after 10 a.m. Although a 24-hour grace period prevented late fees from being assessed in most cases, the extra day’s interest was charged anyway.

Citibank agreed to a settlement of $18 million in cash for the plaintiffs, but since there were more than 20 million of them, the majority of people won’t even get a buck.

If the average person gets such a minuscule settlement, that sure makes it sound like I’ve been assessed way more in interest charges than most. In a way, I had been repeatedly and unjustly charged late fees and had already complained to Citibank but those charges were all related to their self-imposed fluctuation of due dates and my steady electronic payments. I got a full refund of all those assessed late fees, too!

I’ll take the $8.82. Wouldn’t mind a piece of the $7.2 million that the lawyers representing us plaintiffs got, though!

I recently started reading the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

It wasn’t until I was just about finished with the first chapter that I realized that I was one of probably only a dozen people in the world that hadn’t read the first Harry Potter book. (I’m also one of only a likely handful that hasn’t seen the movie Titanic yet!) I thought I HAD read HP1 before, but it was the finer details that emerged from the book that I began to read that made me quickly realize otherwise.

Somehow, when I had first watched the movie, I never cottoned onto one of the most fundamental details of the story: the fact that Harry’s notoriety was solely caused by his survival of the attack by You-Know-Who. I had assumed it was caused more by the fact that it was somehow inexplicably known that he was GOING to be a great wizard of some kind in the future.

Signing off for a while — off to read more HP…

Crack! The gavel banged on the county supervisor’s desk.

“Lot number 16. Sold for $10,200 to the man in the striped shirt!”

I was not the man in the striped shirt, and glad of it. I had made another trip to El Dorado County to attend their annual tax sale. Properties owned by taxpayers who failed to make the required annual installments for periods of longer than five to seven years lose their homes and investments to the highest bidder.

At the beginning of the proceedings, the county tax collector goes over the rules, reads the mandatory legalese required by state law, and utters the caution of “caveat emptor” to the packed room of bidders. Payment is immediate, in cash or negotiable paper, and there are no refunds, no exchanges. The room was so full, I had to stand out in the adjacent hallway, six people deep.

Some year very soon I may stop going altogether. It’s a lot of work to do the research, even on those few occasions when I can do some of the work online at home. Traveling from property to property across an entire county can be time-consuming and tiring — not to mention a bit confusing trying to find every unmarked piece of land. Worse yet is that the auctions have become a circus with every moron within 25 miles in attendance.

This isn’t rocket science, guys. But you gotta spend the time to do your homework.

Remember the guy in the striped shirt? The one who purchased lot number 16 for $10,200? The corresponding parcel number was 026-040-06-100, a lot just a few hundred yards from the gorgeous, near-pristine Lake Tahoe.

Sounds great!

Imagine his surprise when he found out that the piece of land he purchased for $10,200 was worthless — a one-foot by 20-something-foot strip of dirt worth a whopping $36. My guess was that he misread the assessor’s maps and assumed he was bidding on a neighboring parcel, one likely 6,000 to 10,000 square feet in size.

Oops.

Update (2012)

During a website revamp in late 2012, I re-researched this parcel to see if there had been any additional activity or transfers. I was surprised to find that the lot had been advertised in local newspapers as having gone back up for auction in both November 2004 and July 2012.

Since California Revenue and Taxation Code requires that the property be in default for a minimum of five years before the county is permitted to auction it off, and the legal filings indicated the same assessee name in both notices, it is almost certain that “striped shirt” realized his mistake prior to losing his striped shirt and backed out of paying the full $10,200 bid.