LISTEN UP!! Caught my credit card company stacking the deck.

[Sara Beverley]

Pay close attention to your billing statements. I always pay my credit card bill ahead of time and always pay much more than the minimum (trying to end them all forever now.) I paid my November bill (due Nov 2) through the mail October 20...plenty of time to make the due date. The payment has not been credited yet so I called to find out what happened. My check hasn't posted yet nor could they tell me if it had been received. I pitched a bitch after which the person removed my late fee and said she would document the record according to my statements (I gave check number, date, amount). I told her that I never pay my bill late and that I always pay more than the minimum She said that she could see from the record that that was true. There wasn't even a hesitation about removing the $35 late charge. I think she knew what was going on.

I bet any amount of money that the check was received and being held to miss the due date so they could assess the late fee. In the past I have mailed my payments and it has taken only three business days to post. I think the credit card companies try this with people just to see if they get caught. If you mail your payments close to the due date but in time to be posted before the due date watch your statements very carefully.

[elehhhhna]

1. Here's another one: My bro in law got his rate jacked due to

a late payment he supposedly made on another CARD! The rate-jacking card people said they occasionally re-check clients credit and if they see late payments, they raise the interest rate. He pif'd & cancelled.

[LibInternationalist]

2. oh, they all do this shit

my wife was once charged a fee both for canceling her service and beginning her service on the same cell phone bill -- something like $200

[lovedems]

3. They have done the same thing to my uncle for 3 straight months in a row

and the last time they were pissy with him and in order not to pay the late fee he did a check by phone. He didn't think he should have to but he would be damned if they were going to get any more money out of them.

Our mortgage company has been holding our payments and twice they actually rejected the payment. We had to call a lawyer because they wouldn't reject the payment and then call us and bitch because the payment the late.

Thank God we are good record keepers but the fact we had to get a lawyer to prove we were making timely payments really pissed me off.

I guess you need to watch out for more then credit card companies.

[West Coast Democrat]

4. Ever thought of paying your bill electronically online?

They give you a confirmation number and you don't have to worry about checks or the post office.

[Tesibria]

13. YES! this is the best way! nt

[daa]

14. Absolutely eom

[Cassandra]

5. After having a couple of payments...

supposedly late, I hooked up my credit card to my bank account (both Citibank) and pay by transfer from one account to another. I can pay very close to the end date, any amount over the minimum (I pay in full) and I get a receipt. No postal worries.

[The Spirit of JFK]

6. Two words, people...Credit Union

They are usually, if not all, non profit.....and mine has great rates. Plus, they are local/regional. Mine has very strict rules about changing rates, too.

[ComerPerro]

11. amen

I love my credit union.

[aden_nak]

7. They do that shit all the time. So do wireless companies.

A friend of mine has had a wireless cell phone with the same company (hint: it has three letters in the name) for years now. Every year, in either October or November, the mysteriously don't get his payment.

Hmmmmmmm.

[Straight Shooter]

8. I couldn't dump Capital One fast enough

Those people have the credit card games down cold. First month, they didn't even send me my statement! Time for renewal, they charged an annual fee, which I only signed up because they said no annual fee. When I complained, they informed me I hadn't read the fine print on the statement they sent with my card, which of course was contrary to their initial letter inviting me to get their card.

Right now I have a card through Household Credit Services http://www.householdbank.com and they've been pretty straightforward, although I did notice that their web site includes a caution to make sure you get your payment to them a couple days before the due date to ensure it will be posted by the due date. Maybe that's to ease the burden of everyone trying to squeak in their payment on the due date, but as far as I'm concerned, credit card companies should make accommodations for that; it isn't their customers' responsibility.

They are all playing games, folks, and it's going to get worse. Just try to find one you can live with. I wouldn't have a card, but it's not possible to get things online without one, and I like the choice offered by Internet shopping, such as more Dem-friendly retailers than my local wingnut community of merchants.

[wryter2000]

9. And another thing

These days they don't give you much time to make your payment. It used to be you could throw the bills into a pile for a week or two waiting for a convenient time to get to them. No more. I pay bills on every Friday now. They're really out for blood.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

10. Go through MBNA for the Mutual Credit Union.

[Atman]

12. I alway pay online, but...

The cardholder requires two days for the payment to post. I always pay in advance, but was away, so I attempted to pay only a three days before my due date. Thier site wouldn't accept my payment...got stuck in an infinite loop, wherein when I clicked "pay" it just returned me to the payment page, with no payment being made. I called tech support...they claimed the site was working fine, which it clearly was not. It was not my browser or computer, as I've used this exact service/page every month. They'd look into it and get back to me, but they hadn't, so I called back again. Sorry, they said...it appears fine, but now I was within the two-day window to accept payments. AND if I wanted to pay over the phone it was a $9.95 charge. BULLSHIT! I cried! This was their fault! I demanded to speak to customer service. After ten minutes of their circular crap, trying to say it must have been my computer, I made an offhand comment that I thought they were deliberately setting up these traps just to hose customers out of extra fees, and that perhaps I should just close my account and take my business elsewhere.

They apologized and waived the $9.95 fee. Two days later I got a later stating that AT MY REQUEST, my account had been terminated! But wait...it doesn't end!

I called customer service again...they'd cheerfully re-instate the account I never closed...FOR A $29 FEE!

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!

I don't carry credit cards...I use this one just for my automated payments to my web site host, and I could not cancel it because I had nothing else to use to make the payments...so back to customer service again. They finally reinstated my account, and waived the $29 fee, too.

[sandnsea]

15. And let's have "tort reform"

So there's never any redress when they are caught collectively fucking us over. Not that there's much anymore anyway. We are just giving away our country, it's disgusting.

[Shopaholic]

16. Get this--I had a credit on my Discover Card

and because I didn't use the card in over 6 months, they took away the credit and zeroed out my account! Yes, that's right-they took money away from me because I hadn't used the damned card!

[idiosyncratic]

17. I pay all my bills online and recommend that to everyone

I can look at the account, see what has been posted, dispute a charge before the statement arrives (just did that and got the fee taken off), and make payments early if I have some extra money right then.

Now I've set it up so I can look at my mother's account to make sure she stays on top of her bill. (She doesn't have a computer.)

[Cleita]

18. I caught one of mine doing the same.

I paid it off and cancelled it. They actually held one of my checks over a week to post it late. It was some time ago so I can't really recall the company, but I think it was run through Citicorp. I actually got the card through National Geographic.

[Pithlet]

19. Credit card companies make their dough from fees.

That is where a bulk of their profits come from, particularly late fees. I used to work for one, and sat in on a meeting where they were coming up with different ways to sock it to customers. I was not directly part of this as I was in fraud control, but it was a managers meeting so I had to attend. This was years ago. I imagine they've become worse since then.