Ever heard the expression to error is human...to really screw things up you need a computer? Well...now think what happens when you combine the two!
Ok...so here is a question for you...have you ever made an error before when using the computer? A simple mistyping of a word...you meant to say the word goal and instead you type coal. You perform spell check and all seems good. You discover only after you have sent your work of art to someone that there are typos!
What about when you are typing in numbers? I can be really bad when typing in numbers and on many occasions will type in a 7 instead of a 4 or a 9 instead of an 8. Has this ever happened to you?
My guess is that the answer is YES!
I have no doubt that these errors occur on a very consistent basis and have happened to you...the funny thing about all of these errors...so many will go unnoticed!
So how does this relate to your personal finances? Great question but let me first ask a question of you. Do you believe that you are the only one that ever makes a mistake? Trust me these types of errors happen EVERY day and more than likely have happened to you financially.
Let me give you a quick example of what recently happened to me:
I am a customer of Sprint and several months ago I opened up my bill. Now please note that my bill usually runs around $250.00 per month (part of the price you pay when you have kids with phones). So I open up my bill...read the amount due...have what I deem as a major panic attack...take a deep breath... and finally calm down! So what was the amount due on my MONTHLY Sprint bill??? How about $43,515.00...You read that correct...my bill was for $43,515.
Naturally I immediately called customer service to sort this out. Would you believe that the first person I talked to said there was no mistake! Certainly I was not going to accept that answer. Once I moved up the decision maker line I talked to a supervisor who scrupulously went through my account. It was a simple typographical error. The amount of the bill should have been $435.15 not $43,515.00. The error was nothing more than a simple misplacement of the decimal.
Now this was certainly a very obvious error but how many smaller errors do you think pass you by, maybe even monthly?
You owe it to yourself to check each and every bill or statement you receive each month. Credit card, utility bill, bank statement any personal bill you receive, Odds are you will find an error or two over the next year. Could be as little as a few bucks or as extreme as I discovered.
No matter the amount ...it is your money and the only person worrying about you is you!
Check those bills!
