I opened my mail yesterday to find a little surprise on my credit card statement. Not a good surprise. I opened it up to find out that last month's balance wasn't paid so they attached a nice little late fee as well as finance charges. And they don't just leave it at that. To add insult to injury they print little notes aaaalllll over the statement basically calling you a no-count. But then in the next sentence they of course say "you are a valued customer". Now, I know you're probably thinking that I'm some a) deadbeat who doesn't pay bills or b) dumbass who forgets to pay bills. I am neither. I ALWAYS pay my credit cards each month, on time, in full. Always have, always will. So I was baffled to find out that my payment hadn't been posted. I knew for a fact that I had mailed a check.
Soooooo, I went to work this morning and immediately looked in my check register to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough, I had written and mailed the check about 10 days prior to the due date. I figured I could just go to my bank account online, find out that payment was actually credited on time, and call them up to get the fees waived. After all, I figured it was their mistake and not mine.
Problem was, I logged onto my online banking and did a little search for the check that I had written but IT WASN'T THERE! I was so pissed! Mainly at myself for not noticing that my check hadn't been cashed, but also at the post office for losing the check in the mail. I was also mortified because I really did pay my bill. But, I knew with this terrible economy the customer service rep wouldn't likely believe my story. Whatevs. I decided to call anyway. I was either going to talk them into reversing the charges or tell them to suck it. (By suck it, I mean that I was going to pay the stupid fees and cancel my card).
I had my speech all ready, called up customer service and explained the situation. I gave the lady the check number and everything. Her response?
"Oh, yeah. Do you send your payments to our center in Dallas? You do? Yeah, there was a whole batch of payments that came in and were sent to our shredder on accident"
WHAAAAAAT? Obviously she continued and explained to me that they were aware of the situation and had a team investigating and that it was their mistake so I would therefore not be charged any fees and they wouldn't put me on their Official Shit List. So, that's all good ... glad I got it worked out and that they realize I'm not worthless. But, it begs the question .... what if I hadn't happened to call? Would they have just continued to consider me a derelict customer????
Lesson learned: don't trust those damn credit card companies, they're out to getcha. Even if you are a good customer.
Also, what is up with the lack of comments lately? Espesh when I blog about my personal life. Guess Longmired in Life bores yall to tears? Haters be hatin'.
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9 comments:
How crazy is that?!?! I pay my credit card bill on line and it drafts directly out of my checking account. See if you can do that and then you dont have to mess with the mail - and stamps. BTW, good to see you last weekend.
Trust no one! This is one of the many things my father has taught me...yes I have issues as a result. By the way I promise I'm not hatin' I've just been pre-occupied with Summer. :)
Katie, agreed! Twice - once with my credit card and once with my checking account - I have noticed a fee that I didn't think I deserved...so I called and all they said was "Oops. We'll remove that right away." My Dad thinks that sometimes banks just randomly assess everyone fees and then if only half of their customers notice and care enough to get them removed, they keep the other half of the fees...probably just Dad being paranoid but it could happen.
"We shredded a whole bunch of checks"? Um...no...you can't do that!!!
You are totally right, though. If you didn't call, they would ahve just assumed that you never mailed it.
Credit Card companies and banks are super desperate to crank any fee that they can on their customers. Even if you have a zero balance on the card they will charge you an annual rate. I would also look out for changes in your APR rate.....these companies only have a few months left where this is technically legal until Congress passes the law making it illegal.
Credit card companies are evil devil creatures.
There's no comment love on my blog either...thanks for yours, of course! :)
I just stumbled upon your blog...I love it!!!
As for credit card companies, I leave it to the husband to pay those bill s. I'm notoriously late for EVERYTHING. I can't be trusted.
I swear I'm not a deadbeat...I'm just a procrastinator. Thank goodness for automatic withdrawal!
I love that they leave it to you to call them. What if you didn't pay close attention to your statements? Geez. I'll give everyone (and every company) room to make mistakes, but to punish you in late fees before they resolve the issue? No no no!
Do people still write checks nowadays? I don't think I know a single person with a checkbook. All our banking is done online, and much of it is automated. For example, the full balance of our credit card is automatically direct debited from our debit account on it's due date. The only time we'd ever get a fee would be if we didn't have enough funds in our debit account to cover the balance.
I live in Australia so I'm not sure if electronic banking is all that common elsewhere?
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