Author: A.T.

Have you already seen this one? It purports to be a collection of actual warning labels (and other helpful packaging instructions) that have appeared on a variety of products:

On a Sears hair dryer:
Do not use while sleeping.

On a bag of Fritos:
You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside.

On a bar of Dial soap:
Directions: Use like regular soap.

On some Swanson frozen dinners:
Serving suggestion: Defrost.

On a hotel provided shower cap in a box:
Fits one head.

On Tesco’s Tiramisu dessert (printed on the bottom of the box):
Do not turn upside down.

On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding:
Product will be hot after heating.

On packaging for a Rowenta iron:
Do not iron clothes on body.

On Nytol sleep aid:
Warning: may cause drowsiness.

On a string of Chinese-made Christmas lights:
For indoor or outdoor use only.

On a Japanese food processor:
Not to be used for the other use.

On Sainsbury’s peanuts:
Warning: contains nuts.

On an American Airlines packet of nuts:
Instructions: open packet, eat nuts.

On a child’s Superman costume:
Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly.

One reason for all this obsessive labeling is fear of lawsuits. That fear has led to safer products, for which we should all be grateful. But there’s a balance. Fear of lawsuits can have adverse consequences as well. Things cost more; and some worthwhile innovations may never even make it to market. Those interested in this balance, and in the point of view of those who believe we’ve actually gone too far, might want to check out http://www.overlawyered.com/.

(Then again, many of the wild verdicts one reads about are either drastically reduced at a later stage of the process, or involve more than at first meets the eye. That woman scalded by the coffee was just one of hundreds who had previously been injured without corrective steps having been taken — and it was a really, really bad burn. So no one should favor killing all the lawyers. It’s more a matter of fine-tuning.)

Aron Roberts: “One of the better ways to avoid situations where credit card issuers impose late fees is to obtain a credit card from your bank or credit union, *if* it can automatically pay your full balance (or minimum payment, if you prefer) directly from your checking or savings account. My modest-sized community credit union, for instance, automatically deducts my full balance each month shortly before the payment due date. (Better yet, their Visa Gold card – with a $20 annual fee – pays a cash rebate of 1% on all purchases.) It’s worth checking with one’s bank or CU to see if they offer such an automatic payment option, as well as to check on the features of any credit cards they may offer. Sometimes the best credit card could be right under one’s nose!”

John Carr: “Since I get ballistic when I get late charges, I arranged to have my balance paid in full automatically. Citibank offers 3 options: pay in full, pay the minimum, pay a set amount each month. I have every utility and monthly charge paid automatically from my Citibank credit card where possible — for the frequent flier miles — or else from my checking account. So the only balance I have to watch is the checking [to be sure there’s enough to pay off the card balance in full each month]. Just call your credit card, utilities, newspaper deliverer, cable, etc and tell them you want automatic payment.”

Are we really going to keep asking the same questions over and over? Can’t we settle some of these age-old questions?

Q. If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if no one’s there to hear it?

A. Of course it does.

Q. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

A. The egg. Because at whatever stage you decide to define a chicken as being a chicken — mutated and evolved from whatever near-chicken precursor laid the egg that hatched it — there was an egg with a forthcoming chicken inside before there was a chicken to lay it. The egg was laid by the precursor to the chicken, which had perhaps spent too much time around a poorly-shielded nuclear power plant. The egg cracks, and to the surprise of the near-chicken, out pops . . . a chicken!

Anything else on your mind?

(For questions like “Why is the sky blue,” where it’s not in dispute, just hard to remember, try http://www.ask.com/ and type, “Why is the sky blue?” For questions having to with your refrigerator’s ice-maker, or any other GE appliance, call 800-626-2000 twenty-four hours a day, press 4, and you get great human service.)

Ed Tolson: “It used to be that if you missed a payment, you were assessed finance charges at the high interest rate you understood when you got the card. Now, when a payment is missed or late, they tack on this exorbitant ‘late fee.’ Is there some consumer advocate we can look to for a remedy to this mess? The fees go beyond the realm of usury. I recently was a couple days late on one card (my fault for being on vacation) and was assessed a $29 fee on my outstanding balance of $9.95. It’s just incredible to me. We would seem to need some government intervention (shudder!) or a major grass roots campaign to shock these money-grubbing morons back to their senses. Any thoughts?”

Well, Ed, the simplest thing might be to send $100 extra, say, and run a perpetual $100 credit. The lost interest, after tax, on $100 is — what? Three bucks? A lot less than even a single $29 charge. And if you are someone who, like me, never pays interest on a credit card, then letting them enjoy that foregone three bucks a year isn’t much to pay for the convenience of the card and the float we get from the time we make a purchase to the time our check to the credit card company clears.

I’m actually not sure how various cards would treat you if you had a $100 credit and then they sent you a bill for $110 — for a net of $10 — and you didn’t pay the $10 on time. They might still try to charge you $29. But it seems to me even they might agree this makes no sense.

Still, two other ways to do this would be (a) to run a credit of even more than $100, especially if you know that a vacation looms; (b) set up an automatic $100 a month (say) payment to this card, if you use CheckFree or one of the other services that allow for automatic bill payment. Separately, you’d pay the bills as received (generally, for $100 less than the total, because your $100 payment would be reflected as a credit) . . . but if you ever failed to do it on time, at least they’d have gotten the $100 on time, and you’d have avoided the late fee.

All that said: Yes, it’s highway robbery, and abusive, and an easy target, I should think, for regulators and class action lawyers. Then again, no one forced you to take the credit card or agree to its terms — or to pay late. The best solution may be the free market: People who don’t like the charge should switch to a card that doesn’t have it. What was particularly galling about the GM Card, if Deep Plastic is to be believed, is that late fees were routinely charged to people who paid on time. That really is unconscionable.

A Vote FOR the GM Card . . .

Steve Strunk: “I wanted to let you know that we have had a GM card for several years and have had no problems with them or their servicing agency. They were quite helpful in a billing dispute I had with a merchant and I have twice redeemed points toward purchases. We keep our cars for many years (my GM truck is almost 10 years old and never had a major problem) and therefore feel that buying new (and getting a full 3 year warranty) is best for us. We buy everything — even groceries — on the card and then pay it off each month. Once we accumulate the maximum $500 in credits each year we switch to an airline miles card for the remainder of the year. The only problem I have with credit cards in general is that all of them keep cutting the grace period. It’s to the point where you have to mail payment the day you receive the bill in order to get it there on time. However, I am not going to let that stop me in taking the free money or miles that they give away. Just wanted to let you know that someone has had good experiences with the GM and other ‘free’ stuff cards.”

. . . And Another Vote Against

Shane Millburn: “After receiving my GM Card bill with an unexpected late fee and entering an item in my dayplanner to call The GM Card first thing Tuesday morning I was pleasantly surprised to find more GM Card bashing on your web site. Forgive me for beating a dead horse, but I need to tell my story.

“I have been a loyal GM card user for six years. My charge volume for the first four years was $20K/year and $10K/year for the last two years (they changed the rules after the first four years reducing the maximum credit towards a GM vehicle). In six years I missed one payment (I wrote the check but it was lost somewhere and I had to pay to cancel it – no late fee was charged by The GM Card). Other than that one lost payment, not a flaw in my payment record with them. Two years ago I used my GM Card earnings to help buy a very nice Chevy. I was a happy customer (and still am happy with the car). I thought The GM Card and I were quite good friends.

“Imagine my dismay when my latest statement had a $29 late fee. After checking into my records I found that I mailed the check on 7/14/99, it was due 7/16/99, and was posted 7/20/99. The check was posted prior to the next statement closing date. Guilty as charged I called The GM Card people to apologize and ask for the charge to be reversed. After calling their “customer service” line, and entering my account number, I was promptly told that they had high call volume and no one could talk with me. I was then disconnected. I was amazed! I expected a long wait, but they just hung up on me! I tried it again just to make sure I didn’t do anything wrong — same result.

“I called again and this time I entered the lost or stolen card option and was connected to a nice customer service agent. She asked why I couldn’t pay my bill on time and then explained the late fee sequence. Here is the math on The GM Card: 11 days from the closing date until arrival of the statement at my house, seven days for the post office to get the payment back to them and be posted in their operation. That leaves only eight days for me to pay it or be hit with the late fee. And NO she didn’t offer to reverse the $29 fee even after I indicated that I wanted to close my account because of it. The nice customer service agent forwarded me to the account closer who very efficiently closed my account (I got the impression that this was a common thing).

“The bottom line on The GM Card is that they don’t want to keep their customers. I am willingly forfeiting $1K in GM Card earnings to close this account and deal with a customer oriented card operator that doesn’t gouge their customers.”

Oh, no! You let them get away with $1,000? You see? That’s their strategy! They try to make you so crazy over $29 you give them $1,000! The rep probably got a bonus! Try to get it back!

Don’t read this column if you disapprove of my straying from money topics. Just go straight to Chapter 15 of Fire and Ice. (You already have Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14.) Most of us have a great deal to be thankful for — I certainly do. But near the top of the list is not having to work for a guy like Charles Revson.

Now.

You may have heard about the proposed Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Clinton/Gore and most Democrats support it. George Dubya and many Republicans do not. It would extend existing hate crimes legislation to cover serious violent crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation, gender and disability (not just race, religion, and national origin, as now).

Opponents say that all crime is hateful, that all criminals should be punished, and that it’s not fair to single out certain groups for special protection or to punish crimes against those people more severely — let alone to call in the Feds to do it. Local law should apply, and the punishment for a crime should have nothing to do with whether or not it was motivated by hatred against a particular kind of people (e.g., blacks or Jews or gays).

I just want to say two things. First, it’s not true that our system of justice ignores motivation. Dead is dead, but there’s first degree murder, second degree murder, third degree murder, and manslaughter. We already make distinctions based on motivation — as I think we should. What the Hate Crimes legislation aims to do is send a message that pure hate, as a motivation, is one this society particularly detests. In a society as diverse as ours, it’s an especially important message to send. Be a good citizen, pay your taxes, contribute to the common good — and you’re welcome here.

Second, this involves real people. Maybe even, one day, someone you care about. The Human Rights Campaign held a press conference yesterday prior to House hearings, at which two of the participants were Tony Orr and his partner Tim Beaucamp. Two years ago, they were standing at an ATM in Tulsa when three men approached them, called them “faggots,” and beat them. Orr suffered a concussion and received stitches for the many gashes on his head. Beaucamp suffered permanent nerve damage after the orbital bone around his eye was broken. The attackers were sentenced to 40 hours of community service.

“People like us in communities all across this country need some place to turn when justice is not served,” Orr said at the press conference. “We need to be able to appeal to a higher authority when localities and states do not — for whatever reason — fully investigate and prosecute a hate crime. ”

The Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed by the Senate this month. It is supported by, among others, 22 state attorneys general, the National Sheriff’s Association, President Bush’s former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, the Police Foundation and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The President has promised to sign it if passed by Congress. It’s up to the House.

“We were targeted because of who we are, not for any other reason,” says Orr. “They were trying to send a message that ‘our kind’ are not welcome in Tulsa and deserve to be beaten or die. It is time to send a message that what is not welcome are hate crimes.”

Forty hours of community service may not adequately send that message.

Spread the word . . .

Tristan Ashby: “Re: Biweekly Mortgages. Perfect timing. I, too, almost enrolled, as an easy way to pay down my mortgage. But the kicker was even worse. They wanted to charge me $335 to start off AND $36 a year (or something very close, I can’t remember exactly). Since my mortgage is only $750 a month, I figured I would be better off just to pre-pay the extra $360 today and be done with it. Besides, my mortgage company already makes it easy to pre-pay by offering an extra line with the payment coupon.”

Stephen Gilbert: “There’s a great website that shows the effect of changes in your mortgage payments. Want to add nine dollars a month? You can instantly see the change in your loan term — graphically and with numbers. See: drcalculator.com/mortgage/ .”

Bill Kistler: “Ok, I got the idea on biweekly loans and prepayment. But how about a new purchase of a home? Is it better to pay cash or take a mortgage assuming a 15% or 28% marginal tax rate? And at what point (interest rates/time) might one decision change the other?”

☞ The higher the tax rate, the lower the effective interest rate. And the lower the interest rate, the better to borrow for a long time — if you think you’ll own the house a long time. It’s nice to have the bank on the hook for you for 30 years at a low rate while you are on the hook to it only until you decide to pay off the loan. But there’s no magic number at which it’s suddenly smart or stupid to borrow against your house.

Theoretically, you would do so the instant you can earn more, after tax and all expenses, than it costs to borrow. But you can never do that risk-free. (Mortgage rates will always be higher than short-term Treasury rates.) And you really can’t assume 10% a year in the stock market is “a given” even though the last 17 years have been so extraordinary. In the 16 prior years, the Dow went from a 1966 intra-day peak of 1000 to a 1982 low of 777. It fell.

But whatever the stock market or interest rates may do (and note the big news earlier this week that mortgage rates have bumped back up above 8% on average), one homespun is always true: It’s wonderful to own your home outright. This is not an archaic notion, and you are not a fool if you aspire to it.

This is the MasterCard, you will recall, that is serviced by some other company, yet GM gets all the ill will. It is a terrible card, serviced by a terrible company.

Latest example:

I finally found out how to transfer the $1,500+ rebate I had accumulated to someone else. (The card gave me 5% on every charge against the purchase of a new GM car.) You add the name of the car purchaser to your account, which can be done by phone and takes only a couple of days. He or she need not be a relative. You can specify, as I did, that the additional cardholder not get a separate card, and you can always take the person OFF your account.

So I found a friend actually willing to consider buying a new GM card — not easy! — added him to the card, and prepared to redeem my dollars. (I couldn’t bring myself to waste that rebate and let it go unused.)

As it happened, once my friend started looking for real, he couldn’t find a GM car he liked. He wound up buying a Saturn. Yes, Saturn is a GM car, but it is specifically excluded from this rebate plan. So I didn’t manage to transfer the $1,500+ after all, and it remains to be redeemed.

But I got a letter from James Hogan in the GM Card Customer Center saying they had recently sent me a new card, yada-yada-yada, and if I hadn’t received it I should call the Lost/Stolen Department at 1-800-374-0001 immediately.

Well, I hadn’t received it.

Indeed, I hadn’t realized they were even sending me a one. (My card was not due to expire for a while.) But maybe when you add a name to the account they send a new card. In any case, you don’t want to ignore this kind of thing, so I called the number.

And was placed on hold for 20 minutes. Eventually, I just had to hang up.

What if someone were out charging merchandise even as I was on hold? Wouldn’t the stolen-card department want to answer the phone real quick? If I’m supposed to call them immediately, shouldn’t they be staffed to answer pretty fast?

I called back a few days later, was forced to reveal my entire life’s history for security purposes, to verify it was really me, and then was allowed to explain the reason for my call. I was surprised to get this notice, I said, because I hadn’t been expecting a new card. Had they really sent one?

The (nice) security specialist checked and said, no, I had not in fact been sent another card.

So why the letter saying that I had been, and instructing me to call immediately if it had not been received?

Just part of the GM MasterCard service.

I wrote about the GM Card a couple of years ago after being charged a $20 fee for being (they claimed) 3 days late on a $55 payment — a $20 fee they refused to waive — and got an outpouring of similar stories from readers.

One, dubbed Deep Plastic, wrote: “As an employee of Household Credit Services (the bank that underwrites your GM Gold Card), I can assure you that you are not alone in your Credit Card Billing Rage. . . . I own GM stock, and I’m tired of the bad rap GM gets for the stupid policies of Household. (I say stupid, because it takes Household approximately 4 days to post a payment to an account once the payment is received. Household does not back-date the payment, therefore a late fee is assessed even though 90% of the time they had the payment on time)."

Perhaps this has changed in the last couple of years, but I doubt it. Someday GM will unhitch its trailer from Household Credit Services. That will be one small sign GM is beginning to get its act together. In the meantime, I have a feeling its market-share erosion is not over.

Bill Merkel: “Thought I’d pass this ‘great deal’ on your way. My mortgage company, Norwest, has been bugging me since I first bought my house to sign up for their ‘convenient’ and ‘money saving’ bi-weekly service plan. They claim that by doing so, I can shave over 6 years off my term and reduce interest payments by about $20,000 over the life of the loan. And it only costs $9 a month. Hmmm, the opportunity cost of $9 a month for 23 years, say at 15%, is about $21,500. So I’ll save $20,000 by [foregoing] $21,500. I think I’d do better by just sending in an extra $9 in principal every month. That math is a bit tough for me, though. Any thoughts on bi-weekly payments?”

A biweekly repayment schedule is a relatively painless way to pay down your mortgage faster, and thus save lots of interest. Instead of paying $1,000 a month, say, you pay $500 every two weeks. There being 52 weeks in a year (and 4.3 weeks in a month — a handy fact many people forget), you wind up make 26 such payments, or 13 months’ worth rather than 12. That extra month’s payment greatly accelerates the pay-off.

Is it worth it? Certainly not if you can earn 15% on your money. But you can’t. At least not over the long run, unless you are a very, very rare individual.

The math here is actually very simple. Paying off, or paying down, an 8% mortgage is the same as “earning” 8% — risk-free — by not having to pay it. That’s a tax-free 8% (not bad!) if for some reason you don’t itemize your tax deductions; or more likely the equivalent of a taxable 8% if you do. (Because after-tax the mortgage interest really didn’t cost you 8% at all, but perhaps 5% — so, after tax, that’s all you’re really saving by paying it down early.)

So if you happen to be the last one on earth with a 12% mortgage, it’s a no-brainer — jump at any early pay-off you can make. But while I think mortgage pre-payments are a decent idea for most people, the case grows ever less compelling as the interest rate goes down. Would you rush to pay off a 3% loan (if there were such a thing)? I hope not!

The fact is, the 7% or 8% that most people could “earn” these days, risk-free, is a pretty good rate. After all, it seemed OK to the people who loaned you the money, and they weren’t naive little savers. Indeed, the people who loaned you the money were likely getting a tiny bit less (the bank, as servicing middleman, takes its small cut), and they were taking at least a teeeentsy bit more risk. (There is almost no credit risk in first mortgages, let alone in buying bonds backed by a diversified pool of first mortgages. But “almost no risk” is not zero risk. And believe me, there is zero chance, if you owe 8% interest on your mortgage, it will be forgiven. So there is 100% certainty that by paying down your mortgage you will save the 8% you would most assuredly otherwise have had to pay. Unless, that is, the bank fails to do its math properly — something to watch out for.)

Accelerating the payments on an 8% mortgage is not a way to grow rich quick, but it is, as I say, a relatively painless way to sleep sounder; an easy form of forced saving.

But what about this $9? At first, I thought it was a monthly principal prepayment, but now that I think of it, I assume it is, as you say, a bank service charge — $108 a year, year after year, to have a computer clerk at the bank click one button, one time, to recast your repayment schedule. (Not to mention the 14 extra payments for you to mail or e-transfer each year — 26 instead of 12 — which may have a small cost to you as well.)

So if you have the discipline to do it, I’d skip the $108 fee and just send an extra principal pre-payment (clearly marked as such on your check!) every so often. For example, you might commit to yourself to send the amount of your entire tax refund each year, if you normally get a tax refund. Check with your bank; but every bank I’ve ever had a mortgage with has handled pre-payments routinely. The extra payment is simply subtracted from the balance due. And without service fees.

Don Rintala: “I (still) can’t understand annuities. I get the idea, but I don’t understand why the marketplace fails to deliver any good ones. It you have some chips and you don’t know when you will be dying, then annuities could play a very useful role. This is, of course, the answer to your question as to why not stocks, or bonds. Because with them you leave your capital behind when departing this vale of tears. An annuity could, theoretically, let you live a better life, because you use up all your resources (no capital left behind), and you pool actuarially with a big group. Given the perfectly reasonable need for this kind product, why are the only ones available not very appealing? Must have something to do with the law.”

Good question.

First, to bring everyone up to speed . . . the original idea of an annuity was that you’d put up — or perhaps your spouse would arrange to put up for you in her will — some fairly large sum of money, in return for which an insurance company would promise to pay, say, $800 a month for the rest of your (or your spouse’s) life.

That’s still an option, but it’s not really what most people think of these days when they speak of the tens of billions of dollars in annuities — mainly “variable annuities” — that are being sold today . . . some, even — egad! — for use within an already-tax-deferred IRA (see “Annuity Insanity“). Variable annuities are basically huge IRAs that (a) provide no tax benefit when you put the money in; (b) allow you to put in as much as you want; (c) are invested in the stock market, which is why the outcome is “variable.” Yes, you will have the option, when you start withdrawing the funds, of receiving some fixed monthly payment for life, but you will also have the option to withdraw it all at once or in chunks. However you withdraw it, all but your initial investment will be taxed as ordinary income — not as lightly taxed capital gains.

So the first reason today’s variable annuities are not the world’s greatest deal is that all your long-term “appreciation” from the stock market, which would ordinarily be subject to a favorable capital gains rate, is fully taxed as ordinary income.

The second reason is that they are sold by insurance companies, most of which build into the deal their own high selling and overhead costs and high annual management fees, knowing that it’s hard for the layman to figure out just what those fees amount to, and that few buyers appreciate the huge difference they make over the long run.

(If you do buy an annuity, buy it, don’t be sold it. Actively shop around for the best deal, with the lowest, or near the lowest, annual expenses and fees.)

The third reason is that to satisfy the IRS requirement that these be “insurance” products (and thus qualified for the tax-deferred build-up), there has to be some element of insurance — and fee for insurance — built into the deal. Typically, what you are charged for this all-but-worthless insurance element is way out of proportion to its value.

The fourth reason is that it’s a big pain to switch variable annuities from one manager to another, so most people are essentially stuck with whoever they started with — which may well be a sub-par investment manager.

Those are the main drawbacks I see to the typical variable annuity enthusiastically marketed today. (As always: if you already have a variable annuity, good for you. You should be commended for having put money aside for your old age, and are in far better shape financially than if you had spent the same money on, say, a boat.)

But what of the traditional annuity? Namely, the option to pay a large lump sum in return for a lifetime of fixed payments? This is an appealing notion (especially if you can find an annuity indexed to keep up with inflation), and I expect it may become more competitive in this Internet age. But again there are reasons to pause.

First, to protect itself, the insurer assumes that you will live a long, long time. It will further assume that its own investment returns over that period will be quite modest (as they may be). And it will build into its calculation its selling fees and overhead costs, and a good margin for profit — as it should. If I were an insurance company, I would, too.

And actually, you want it to be conservative, so that no matter what happens, it will have the financial strength to survive and keep making your monthly payments.

But all that conservatism, overhead and profit cut into the size of the pay-out.

(I do think the Internet will allow for sharpened competition in this area, and better deals. Shop around! Shop around! But in addition to price, consider the other is the financial strength of the insurer. Yes, many states have financial guarantee funds to bail out failed insurers. But not all do, and not in every imaginable circumstance. So the more you plan to rely on annuity payments, the more closely you should scrutinize the strength of their provider. Note that while a B+ or A- was pretty darn good in high school, a B+ or A-minus rated insurer is low on the relative-strength totem pole.)

In short:

As IRA-like substitutes for a 35-year-old, I’m no fan of annuities. As annuities in the traditional sense, for you or your spouse, they can be worth a look as you near or enter old-age — especially if you just know you’re going to live to be 94 or 100. But I would personally be reluctant to trust all to an insurance company, or to resign myself to “dying broke.” I want always to feel I have some savings to fall back on, to control, and, ultimately, to leave to some worthy causes. Perhaps even to a worthy person or two. (So be nice.)

Thanks to George Fescos for alerting me to the $15 off for first-time visitors to healthquick.com. I went to the Grand Opening Specials, bumped my order up over $20 to get the free shipping, and wound up with 2 bottles of Echinacea (boosts your immune system), 3 bottles of Ginkgo Biloba (which I used to call Ginko Balboa, until it improved my memory) and 1 bottle of vitamin E (although I’m told you should really take the 200 IU size, not the 400s offered here) — all for $7.34. Including shipping.

Go and do likewise, with two caveats:

• First, although navigation of the site was quick and easy until the last step, “finalizing” the order required several tries — maybe because the server was overloaded or just because it’s new and there are some bugs to work out. I logged out, logged back in (it had retained all my info) and finally got it to accept and confirm my order.

• Second, your taking advantage of this good deal will not get me even a single frequent flier mile. No, for that you need to get your three free items from PlanetRx by clicking here. And today and tomorrow are, I believe, the last two days to do it. Quite a few of you have, but if you saw last night’s Friends re-run, about Ross selling the Girl Scout cookies, you know that there’s always some kid out there who devises some maniac way to sell even more than you did. (Ross sold 511 boxes, then quickly bought 361 more himself when he saw that the little girl next to him had sold 871 — so he could report 872 and beat her — but there was some kid who sold 2000 boxes somehow. So please! Get your free stuff (plus $3.95 shipping)! I won’t bug you about it again! Click here!