My Amazon Store card is issued by Synchrony Bank. It's used for all my Amazon purchases, and gives 5% back on all Prime stuff. I pay it in full every month, so I never pay any interest, the 5% is nice, and since I use Amazon Smile, a tiny fraction of each Prime purchase goes to JFPO (Jews For the Preservation of Firearm Ownership) -- or any of the other many organizations that Amazon Smile lets you choose.

As I said, I pay the full balance each month.

Couple months ago I miscalculated and overpaid by half a buck. Fifty cents.

Synchrony Bank could have, should have, let the fifty cents hang around on the account; it would have been used the next month. Nope, the geniuses there decided to send me a refund check. They paid processing cost and postage to send me a check for fifty cents.

The government does this sort of thing. Sends refund checks for fifty cents.

Experiment time.

Next time over pay by $0.10

Then, a month or three later, over pay by $0.01.

Old-timey computer guys know that there are two ways to do integer arithmetic: ones complement, and twos complement.

The difference is the way that negative numbers are represented internally. I don't think that there are any modern machines that use ones complement any more, but there were a few, way back around 1970, when I programmed for the Univac 418, which had two ways to represent "zero." There was a positive zero, and a negative zero, and depending on the logic of the program, it was frequently necessary to test for both types of zeros. Not all programmers thought about this, and the oversight caused some interesting results.

I remember the story about a billing system that did not take the possibility of negative zero into account, and sent bills for $0.00 to customers. The customers, of course, ignored these bills, but the system did not; if there was no activity on the account, the balance of negative zero was carried forward to the next month, and if not paid, a dunning letter was generated and mailed to the customer. One customer got tired of this crap and sent a check for $0.01, which then caused a positive balance on that account. After a month or two with no activity, a refund check was generated and mailed.

I hate Synchrony. I wish someone would come along and offer a more attractive product for retailers who want branded credit lines, which they own most of.

Yes, I f’ing HATE Synchrony.

-Rob

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Old-timey computer guys know that there are two ways to do integer arithmetic: ones complement, and twos complement.
<snip>

My first job after engineering school was at Control Data Corp. Our premier product at that time was the CDC 3600 – a large scale scientific computer.

It indeed used one’s complement arithmetic. Except address arithmetic, which was two’s complement.

https://artsandculture.google....-tifr/KgGCbcIyahfIew

I got an eighteen cents insurance overpayment refund check......... >> I deposited it.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
I got an eighteen cents insurance overpayment refund check......... >> I deposited it.

Good thing that you deposited it. Would not want to have their books out of balance.

Had you not cashed the check, at some point, the insurance company would have paid it over to the state where you resided at the time under the Escheat rules.

Every now and again search Escheat for each state where you lived. I discovered an insurance check that I never received. Wasn't a lot of money, but was nice to get it all the same.



P.S.
I took a minute and checked my state's website. Surprised to find I had a check I could claim and my wife also had a check. Neither are huge but amusing all the same.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SR,

My mortgage holder just mailed me a 5 page packet to state that my escrow account was forecasted to be 4 cents short next year, but they weren't going to charge me.

So they spent like 75 cents worth of paper/ink/postage to tell me that I didn't owe them 4 cents.

(It's even funnier because the cover letter is clearly an autogenerated form letter, and it states that due to the forecasted escrow shortage I would be required to pay them "$0.00 within 0 months".)

^^^^^
I would be tempted to stop at the bank and drop a copy of the shortage notice, along with four pennies on the branch manager's desk, and ask for a receipt.

Are you plain clothes? Or do you work in uniform? If uniform, this would be a good stop on the way to or from work.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
Experiment time.

Next time over pay by $0.10

Then, a month or three later, over pay by $0.01.

If enough of us participate, we can bankrupt Bezos!

Pretty sure there is a law that requires Cc companies to do that.

It has happened to me from a couple different card issuers.

Pay a balance, then wife or I return something and card has a credit, we get a check in the mail.

I have one of those cards for only one, single, sole reason. Synchrony offered to take $100 off my next purchase.

I was thinking about a Luminox Pacific Diver, which was, IIRC, about $600, so I got the card and paid a hundred less.

BTW, the Luminox is wildly accurate to the second, and I love it. I feel a little guilty saying that as I am currently sporting an Armida automatic, but

I always pay off the card monthly so I pay no interest. It's not a credit card, only usable on Amazon, but, sadly, we buy a lot of stuff from Amazon, so....

Bob

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
I got an eighteen cents insurance overpayment refund check......... >> I deposited it.

I got one of these…. Some minuscule number check for insurance overpayment….. forgot about it on the counter, probably threw it away at some point…. A year later my agent called me to see if I wanted another check because they noticed I hadn’t deposited it yet… so I deposited the second one… thank god for mobile deposits cause the 20 cents wasn’t worth a drive to the bank.

quote:

Originally posted by straightshooter1:
I have one of those cards for only one, single, sole reason. Synchrony offered to take $100 off my next purchase.

Bob

Did a similar thing. Was looking at a nice 34" gaming / work monitor. Offer for $250 off showed up if I signed up. To grabbed the monitor and a new desk. Only paid a couple hundred bucks for both.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
I got an eighteen cents insurance overpayment refund check......... >> I deposited it.

LOL . Mine was 6 cents. 6 cents . The check is still sitting on my desk.

I have a store card, but quit using it because I had the Amazon Visa as well. I used the Visa off site as well and got the same cashback/points as the Store card which could only be used on Amazon.

I think Sams club still uses them and they are blithering idiots! I pay my card online so I never over or under pay.