The big print giveth and the small print taketh away. — Unknown
DEPENDING on your persuasion, God or the devil is in the details.
Much of the big things in our lives are bound up by documents – your marriage contract, your divorce papers, your real estate holdings, your lease and anything else that requires the agreement between two or more parties.
Take credit cards for example. Kathy Kristoff, a business writer once compared a credit card to that wicked witch’s house made of cookies and candy in the old story of Hansel and Gretel. As the story goes, these children who were abandoned in the woods by a cruel stepmother and a hapless father were snared by the witch who found them to be too scrawny for her tastes and decided they should be fattened up first with carbs before she would bake them as the main entree.
The credit card company pitch is sugary sweet as the witch’s house and all too familiar by now: zero or low interest rate, nada annual fees, cashback points, and rewards galore. But take a moment to read the disclosures. No credit card company is in business for your sole pleasure and fiscal health. As prescribed by law, the disclosures are all there. It may tell you that the zero or low interest rate is simply introductory for a short period of time, or that the advertised rate applies to you only if you do a balance transfer from another credit card, or that if you get a cash advance, the rate is higher and the stiff penalties that may apply if you slip up with your payments. You will get the real picture of the credit card offer.
Get a magnifying glass and read and comprehend the disclosures, usually written in fine print at the bottom or back of all legally binding documents before you sign or commit to a responsibility. If you’re not up to the task of getting through all the tedious legalese and mounds of gobbledygook thrown in for good measure by legal eagles who crafted the contract probably to confound you, by all means ask for help from those who know and can trust, even if you have to pay to get that advice before making a decision particularly when it involves your fiscal health.
As an immigrant, you probably need to have just a tiny dose of cynicism every time you come across a message that sounds just a tad too good to be true. You must remember that in advertising messages, contracts, binding agreements as well as in anything else that promises something in exchange for something, “The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.”
For big ticket items, hold off making a purchase decision until you have shopped the market and done the research and have asked yourself the question and answered truthfully that what you are buying is what you really need. The incessant barrage on television, the print media, on radio, the internet and the billboards along the roadways for you to buy can boggle the sanest of minds. The sales events, even during recessionary times, are unending and alas, you will finally come to the conclusion that you will run out of money long before the malls and the discount stores run out of merchandise and sales events.
There is too much noise and confusion in the American cultural mainstream media that blurs what in the beginning for you may have been a sharp and clear distinction of your own personal needs and wants as a newly arrived immigrant. Like everybody else, expect to be confused. Mercifully, anything electronic can be zapped and you have the option to tune out whenever you choose.
Informercials are unpretentiously straightforward in going for the jugular. These are full-blown shows, from a half hour to an hour, that have been proven to be effective mass marketing tools. The sophistication with which a specific type of consumer is reached by precisely targeted direct mail pieces and e-mail pieces have reached unprecedented levels as giant data bases track information swirling about in cyberspace about you and the likelihood that you fit the profile of a prospect for a certain product. Even psychic networks have been known to rake in millions from poor, lonely, unsuspecting souls.
The technological age we live in has made it possible to find out about anything under the sun with just a few keystrokes. The media and the internet provide rivers of information that often overwhelm. These have become the most effective tools to gain a share of the mind and heart of consumers to ultimately affect thought and behavior patterns.
Mind share can translate to desired action among the masses or among consumers. Sorting through vast amounts of information to ferret out the tiny morsels of wisdom that we need to live by has become our way of life. You may love it or loathe it but either way, you have to learn to live and deal with it. It is our duty as the ultimate consumer, the final target of all these messages, to decide wisely in our favor.
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Nota Bene: Monette Adeva Maglaya is SVP of Asian Journal Publications, Inc. She has authored the book, “The Complete Success Guide for the Immigrant Life.” Her books are available at amazon.com or immigrantsuccess.com To send comments or requests, e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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