Congratulations for using your Bank of America Credit Card (Say what?)

[Tdarcos]

I received the following in the mail:

Bank of America

Reward Center
10615 Professional Circle
Suite 102
Reno NV 84521

Paul Robinson
550 S. Carlin Springs Rd
Rm 330B
Arlington VA 22204

Your reward has arrived
Order date: June 16, 2020
Order number 159228256212326

Dear Paul Robinson,

Congratulations! The gift card(s) you earned exclusively with your Bank of America® credit card is enclosed. Thank you for participating in your rewards program. Enjoy your reward!

Please see the important instructions and restrictions printed on the back of the gift card.

If you have any questions, please visit us at www.bankofamerica.com or call the number on the back of your bank of America credit card.

Thank you.

Amazon $100.00

This credit card program is issued and administered by Bank of America, N.A. Bank of America and the bank of America logo are registered trademarks of Bank of America Corporation. All other company product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others and their use does not imply endorsement of or any association with this program. ©2020 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.

Card is active and ready for immediate use


All good and reasonable, right? Not so fast.

I don't have a Bank of America credit card. I have not applied for a Bank of America credit card. I have such poor credit that I don't think I could even qualify for a credit card from a normal bank[1], certainly not one offering a $100 Amazon gift card.

But in case BofA made a mistake, I've already used the gift card for something I have lusted over for years, but is now so cheap with the extra hundred bucks I could afford it: A lifetime supply of chocolate err sorry, wrong movie, no, a lifetime supply of disk space! An 8TB powered external hard drive that I can plug into my computer. $144, so with the gift card it's an astonishing $44. It took me ten years of downloading to put 1.5 TB on my NAS, how long do you think it would take me to fill an 8 TB USB drive? By then we'll probably be able to buy thumb drives or SD cards that big for $20.

If I live that long.

And if BofA is stupid enough (given my credit history) to actually send me a credit card, if it has a tiny credit limit, I'll probably use it up and not pay it for insulting me with such a low limit. If it has a large limit, then I almost certainly will use it responsibly. Or maybe I should go nuts with it so if they come to their senses and cancel it, there's nothing left to cancel!

The question I'm not sure about is why BofA has been so nice to give me a $100 Amazon gift card. And why they think I have one of their cards.

[1] By "Normal bank" I mean one like BofA, Wells, Citi, my credit union, etc. I had received an offer from Credit One Bank, where they offer a card with a $750 limit but the fees on it run close to $250 the first year and $150 a year thereafter. Not worth considering; I have a no fee card from Chase with a $2000 limit.

[The Happiness Engine]

...
I sent you a gift. Didn't want to make it A THING. Fucking accept it.

[The Happiness Engine]

Glad it actually got to you, was wondering if a (orderly, nurse, man-cow servant?) stole it.

[Jizaboz]

...
I sent you a gift. Didn't want to make it A THING. Fucking accept it.

Lol awesome.

The whole time I was reading the original post I was like “hm sounds like someone gifted him something. Hope he hasn’t already thrown it away.”

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

After all these years, we see the engine that produces the happiness.

[Billy Mays]

An 8TB powered external hard drive that I can plug into my computer.

You should partition it so that Flack doesn't have to scroll through nearly 8TB of pornographic images when this whole thing goes tits up.

[Tdarcos]

An 8TB powered external hard drive that I can plug into my computer.

You should partition it so that Flack doesn't have to scroll through nearly 8TB of pornographic images when this whole thing goes tits up.

I do partition stuff; the NAS has 19 master directories and over 60,000 subdirectories. I do separate stuff by category, so the directory with music videos and others I downloaded from YouTube are in a directory by themselves. That's about 2,000 files and 60 GB. The Programming directory has over 100,000 files in hundreds of directories.

I think the pron is in one obvious place.

[Billy Mays]

I think the pron is in one obvious place.

There is no chance it is in one obvious place.

[Tdarcos]

Before I forget, I should remember that Happiness Engine was nice enough to let me have the Amazon Gift card he earned through his Bank of America rewards program.

"My hard drive was made possible through the kind gifts of viewers like you.

Thank you."

[The Happiness Engine]

That was very gracious. I hope you enjoy it.

[Tdarcos]

That was very gracious. I hope you enjoy it.

I do appreciate the gift.

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
- Blanche Deveraux, The Golden Girls (and later lampshaded in the episode that she stole it from the character Blanche in the play A Streetcar Named Desire.)