I need an opportunity to vent. This is nothing I have any hope of affecting any kind of positive change on. The only hope I have for a sense of improved emotion is to speak out about it, loudly.

I just got screwed out of $1330.

I think we all know about credit card promotions. If you sign up with X card they'll give you Y number of Air Miles, or some other commodity the scale of which is absurdly small, relative to what you've spent to get it. I, with my MasterCard, had something called FirstHome Dollars. What this plan did was, for every X number of dollars I spent with my MasterCard, the credit card company would chip in some almost infinitessimally small amount towards a down payment on a house.

Normally this would be a good arrangement for the credit card company. Who waits long enough to buy a house to accumulate any meaningful amount of credit in their account? What worked against MasterCard in this instance is, I've had this card, and this plan since the day it was issued to be, back when I was 18. That's a long time and a lot of purchases on which to accumulate FirstHome Dollars. So it stands to reason that I'd amass quite a few.

As you all know, I'm buying a home now. So by the obvious extension, I want my FirstHome Dollars. So I phone up the good people at MasterCard and ask them to forward my money. At first the guy didn't know what I was talking about but a couple of prods and he got the point. He was happy to fulfill my request and told me he had to close out my account. I didn't care as I'm only buying one FirstHome.

So the statement comes in the mail today. I was all excited as this was half my downpayment. I open the letter and it says $2500 on it. What the hell is this!?! That's only 2/3 of my money! Where's MY MONEY!!!

I fretted about it for about an hour and I couldn't take it anymore. I had to know what the story about this was. So I called up MasterCard and asked them what the hell was the deal with this? The guy again didn't know what I was talking about but he went off the line for a couple of minutes and got the scoop for me.

Apparently you are only allowed to withdraw a maximum of $2500 from your FirstHome Dollars account at any one time.

What the HELL is up with that!?! Under what logic would you ever buy two FirstHome's?

The explanation I got was, you could transfer the remaining balance to a close family member, like a son or daughter. Now explain to me, how would I have a child that could use this, if I'm getting my FirstHome now?

Idiots! So now I'm out $1300 and I don't feel particularly good about it. If any of you want to switch from MasterCard to VISA in protest, feel free to join me.