Watch Your Credit Card Accounts

I'm not going to name names, because this is about CC accounts in general.

Also, I am the one who precipitated the following, but . . .

Because of the possibility of identity theft, I check our CC acount online every morning. Friday, 3/8, in noticed a $39 late fee because I had not made a $988 payment due 3/6. I had screwed up.

I called and asked what I needed to do to pay the account in full, to stop interest from running (we pay the full amount due each month, so never pay interest). I mentioned that we had been good customers for 14 years and had never missed a payment, expecting the late fee to be waived, etc.

I was told The total of all charges was $2137, and offered to pay that then. She refused and told me to pay online.

3/9 our bank account showed the $2137 charge, but the CC account didn't, so I called again and spoke to a manager. In the mean time a $75 Wal*Mart purchase had posted. I asked the manager the same thing, how much to pay in full and stop interest from running? She said $144. $144 more when only $75 more had posted?

I paid it and put my thoughts together in an email to customer service.

I was two days late paying $988, so gave them $2200 instead, $1200-plus of it not being due for another month, and got stuck with $108 in penalties?

As of this morning it appears that they have waived the late fee and the interest charges, but I haven't heard that for sure.

So, pay your bills on time or expect the worst.

I had been dealing w/ elderly ill parents and screwed up paym't as well. The late charge put me over cc limit and then they charged me over limit fee. Besides that they more than doubled my interest rate as a penalty. I have been a customer for 10 yrs always paying on time as well. Trying to talk to someone got me no where- I paid in full and disposed of card.

If you read your credit card notices carefully you will find that some say, if you "default" (are late, over limit or whatever), they can increase not only their credit card fees but any other of your credit card fees. Can you imagine being late on a Penny's payment and having your Sears card go to the default mode??!!! :annoyed: It's true. On top of that, your car insurance is now based on your credit rating,too! When we got our renewals this year there was a letter attached explaining that our rating was based on our credit rating. When I called and asked, they said all of their customers got letters as part of their renewal review. I will say though, we set reminders on all of our accounts. If my husband spends over $200 on a purchase he gets a phone call, I get an e-mail! If a bill has not been paid within 5 days of its due date, I get an email so I can check it out.

They have interesting ways of computing interest once you start carrying a balance, so that when you start carrying the balance, even if you pay that month in full, there's still interest accruiing on the average daily balance that gets carried forward into the next months bill. Since there are more charges in the current month, that adds to your average daily balance for interest rate calculations. I think if you pay 2 months in full in a row, then the interest stops, but they get you on that extra months interest. I guess somehow the CSR calculated how much you needed to pay to somehow avoid accumulating any more interest from that day on.

-David

Here is a thought !!

I pay most all of my bills online. However, I have my CC and my gasoline cards set up to automatically pay the minimum amount due by taking it out of my checking account 1 day before the due date. That way if I'm gone or just screw up and forget to do it, I'm not penalized with late fees or a higher interest rate. Normally I make an additional online payment to either pay it off or pay a higher amount in addition to the minimum but at least I never have a mistaken late fee. Any of the CC companies will be glad to set up a scheduled minimum payment for you. Just a thought.

Mike S.

There were U S Senate hearings this week regarding the credit card issuers and the abuses they have imposed.

Send your stories to Senator Carl Levine of Michigan at

269 Russell Office Building
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510-2202

Phone (202) 224-6221
Fax (202) 224-1388
8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

JLB said:

Because of the possibility of identity theft, I check our CC acount online every morning. Friday, 3/8, in noticed a $39 late fee because I had not made a $988 payment due 3/6. I had screwed up.

Click to expand...

Just curious, not critical, but if you check your account every day, how did you not know a payment was due? I'm like you. I check every day and as soon as one of my accounts shows a payment due, I hit the "Pay Now" button and set it up for them to take the money out of my bank account at some future date when I know I will have the funds to cover it.

GEORGE

As I said in my OP:

I am the one who precipitated the following . . .

I had screwed up.

I have excuses, but those are the best explanations.

As of an email this morning, they are sending a check for our balance, which appears to be the reveresal of the late fee and whatever interest may have been charged. I did not ask for a refund, since we will soon have more charges posting, but . . .

bogey21 said:

Just curious, not critical, but if you check your account every day, how did you not know a payment was due?
GEORGE

Click to expand...

We have all our cc's set to be paid off fully every month. The cc companies direct debit our checking account every month on the due date so not only do we never miss a payment but we never have to pay it before it is actually due, hence keeping our money longer.

I noticed our interest rate for purchases was 19.24%, so I followed up on that.

They dropped it to 9.9% and asked if we needed anything else. I said yeah, some cheap money for about a year.

They put $32000 in our checking account for a $75 fee and 1.99% for 12 months.

Wow!

As the original stuff, they reversed the late fee, did not charge any interest and sent us a check for the credit balance we had the day they looked at our account!

Speaking of coincidences, this morning in my daily run through our financials (it's a short run, like a 40-yard dash ) it would not let me access the account I am talking about. It told me to go to a security site.

That site would not let me access our account number and told me to call a phone number.

There there was a recording zipping through recent transactions, asking me to approve them.

Of course, I figured that big chuck of change going to a strange bank account would be the culprit. What it really was was our resort taking our 2009 fees for two weeks, a transaction in which our card was not scanned.
- - - - - - -

While I'm whining, we have something like ten accounts with our local bank. Hers, Mine, Ours and Ours. Our bank is a biggie in the Springfield/Branson area and they brag about their online banking.

But, in order for me to check our accounts online I would have to have three separate online thingies with three separate userids and passwords, each with two separate test questions, and they require you to change everything every 90 days and if you don't use one of your access thingies for 6 months, you have to start all over with it by calling a person and setting it up all over again.

So I sent an email to the president of the bank. He said he knew and he didn't like it either, since he has to do the same thing. He had already asked his techies to do something about it.

And, they really do not offer online banking, just the ability to view your accounts online. We recently had a CD mature and I had to take the certificate in, surrender it, and tell them what to do in person.

I tried to explain to them what online banking meant, that we have CDs around the country with no physical certificate and we actually do that banking online. Of course, folks buy and sell securities online millions of times a day.

Glad it worked out

I was really shocked when I read your first post - since it seemed you talked to a CSR right away and was not given instant satisfaction of full reversal of late fee, interest charges, and your interest remaining the same. My experience has been on those few occassions when I screw up and miss the due date (I HATE when they make it due on a bank holiday), I make the payment (almost always the very next day, in full), then wait a few days and call. Only once did I even have to talk to a supervisor as the amount of it all was over the CRS's limit. But I imagine that one of these times I am going to get a stern talking to and a "no more" answer.

There are so many credit cards that it's crazy to pay anything if you are a really good user.

Be sure to pay off that cheap money by the 12 month date - or it won't be so cheap anymore (which is what they want of course). Going to buy some more TS with that $$$??

Wow! My head's spinning! here, I am trying to hold it in place:

I know most of you figure eveything in my life is an epic saga, but, in my defense, I would like to point out that in every case it is other people causing all the drama.

This morning it occurred to me that an error in the thinking of both myself and the account person that set up the cash advance the other day is that if we don't pay off the entire balance already on the card before the cash advance, all payments we make we be allocated to the lower-rate cash advance. The existing charges, at the higher rate, will not be paid at all.

Pretty simple credit card stuff.

So I called and got a gal who works with the person who set up our cash advance but who obviously has issues with that person. I explained the situation and asked, "So what do I owe you to pay all of our unpaid balance now? . . . And, does that include the $854.30 I have already set up to be paid online on 4/5/07, or is that in addition to that?"

Again, pretty simple stuff.

That's when the, "That's a stupid question" stuff started coming out of Kim's mouth.

So I said, "We're done. Pass me off to your Supervisor."

Supervisor Louise said that was a perfectly normal question and she understood it perfectly. More talk back and forth, friendly and helpful, and then she said, "I see your cash advance is not scheduled until 4/4, and that is not something we are allowed to do, do a cash advance on a future date, and, there is no interest rate mentioned in Robin's notes. Let me go check on that."

When she came back she said they don't have an offer for 1.99% until March, 2008!

Wow!

In the meantime I went to our account online, clicked on Special Offers, and what is being offered is .99% until May, 2008.

She said she doesn't know about that.

So now I am on phone watch for the day, until the Cash Advance/Special Offer people call me back.

Sorta like House Arrest, not that I would know exactly what that is like.

The person I dealt with the other day called, so I am off House Arrest.

She says the problem is that she is a corner office person and the other people I am dealing with are cubicle people. They can't see and do what she can she and do, and they can't see everything she has done. The cash advance is post-dated for the date that offer becomes available. The cubicle people don't know that yet.

In interest rate adjustment will go into affect after this billing cycle, on 4/17, and the cubicle people can't see that either.

She said my question this morning was legitimate and natural, that she understands it perfectly, and that Kim was out of line.

Well, now I know the problem Kim has with Robin, that being that Robin is above her in the food chain.

Robin assured me that everything she said will happen. Still, she has no way to put it in writing, say to send me an email, so to me, the customer, it is just two versions of the same thing from two employees of the same company, both just voices on the phone.

Now the fraud protection people just called to see if I authorized the sizeable cash advance, before they send it.

I guess a little redundancy is not all that bad.

Did Robin explain why you're getting 1.99% vs .99%?

Because I misread it.

Everything seems to have worked out. I got to balance paid off before the cash advance, and there was no finance charge on anything. Now only the cash advance is on that card and we are using another card for purchases.

And the cash advance has been spent to make the business purchase for which it was intended.

MusicMan (Formerly JP) said:

Did Robin explain why you're getting 1.99% vs .99%?

Click to expand...

Update on this:

I broke down last week and decided to do the two more online registrations necessary to see our business account and the accounts only in my wife's name, which are IRA accounts.

I did the ones for my wife, which were simple, and looked for the first time this morning.

I had to call last week and ask to be able to see the business account online and they sent me a 167-page manual and a 13-page agreement, in duplicate. It was confusing so that I couldn't tell whether they were charging a fee or not. One level of service did and the other didn't and I couldn't tell which they wanted me to sign for.

So I whipped another email out to the Pres last Friday.

This morning I got a call and they told me they have not changed the way they do business, but if I logged on with my main online registration, the one I have always had, all of the accounts will be there. And they were.

JLB said:

While I'm whining, we have something like ten accounts with our local bank. Hers, Mine, Ours and Ours. Our bank is a biggie in the Springfield/Branson area and they brag about their online banking.

But, in order for me to check our accounts online I would have to have three separate online thingies with three separate userids and passwords, each with two separate test questions, and they require you to change everything every 90 days and if you don't use one of your access thingies for 6 months, you have to start all over with it by calling a person and setting it up all over again.

So I sent an email to the president of the bank. He said he knew and he didn't like it either, since he has to do the same thing. He had already asked his techies to do something about it.

And, they really do not offer online banking, just the ability to view your accounts online. We recently had a CD mature and I had to take the certificate in, surrender it, and tell them what to do in person.

I tried to explain to them what online banking meant, that we have CDs around the country with no physical certificate and we actually do that banking online. Of course, folks buy and sell securities online millions of times a day.

Click to expand...