British Expatriate Network

Have noticed a new (to me at least) trend of my credit card company deliberately targeting me for late fees.

I suspect they are annoyed that I pay the balance off in full each month and are technically only making money on the few transactions I make, from the retailer.

The past two months, I have paid the same way I always do - with an automatic payment through my bank, sent 7-10 days before payment due date. Granted, the system my bank uses can be attrociously slow as sometimes, instead of paying through an automated system, they simply mail out a cheque from somewhere in New York state.

A payment left my account on June 23rd - it was posted to my credit card on July 5th, over a week after the due date and conveniently racking up a $25 late fee, finance charges and probably raising the APR on the account to boot.

I know these fees are not enforcable in UK and people who refuse to pay them are untouchable - can the same be said for here?

I'm about through with this card. It is a Platinum that came from the Union so if I don't get this resolved, I'm going to close the account for good and let the union know what a crap company they are associated with and quit the union also if they are no help.

Why are most businesses scams these days? It is ironic that if I lent you money and charged you ridiculous fees and interest, I'd probably be prosecuted, yet if I lobbied Congress hard enough and paid enough bribes, I'd probably get away with it.

How come you posted the payment on june 23rd and it wasnt cleared until july ?? with my bank i pay about 5 days before the date i want it cleared given them plenty of time to process the transaction .

i would call my bank on that one either there was not enought money in the account to process it .or you amde the payment date tobe the one in july .
Call the c/c company if you have your account in good standing they usually reverse the late charge first itime around to keep you as a client .

your right about paying the account in full every month if every card holder did that they would go broke ....fact is they dont ..

i do they same with amazon c/c we use it just like a check and pay if of when due , the points add up to get us a few $20 gift certificates at amazon .

as you say they dont like it but im playing by there rules and not acquiring any interest on the balance and cementing our credit rating at AI and there not much they can do about it .

IF your not happy with the c/c response to your problem look around there are always c/c offers that give a decent rate to folks with a excellent credit rating .'
Amazon which we pay every month is at 8 %

i have a ussa AT 4 %

and just opened a new account with capital one at 4.5 %

we use these if we dont intend to pay the whole amount of at the end of the month .

I remember seeing on a TV programme (probably Frontline) that this was a big scam at Providian in the early '90s they would receive peoples payments and cash the cheques, but not apply the payments to the accounts for a couple of weeks, when they were overdue. evil
Apparently there is a regulatory organisation but it's the usual ineffective cronyism roll

from your description sounds like as much a fault of your banks payment system as the credit card company.


6 of one, half a dozen of the other.....

I only have two Credit cards. Amex and Presidents Choice Mastercard ( Loblaws) and neither have yearly fees. The Amex gives me Air Miles which I use to get gas and the PC pays out points on all purchases which can be used to buy groceries.

I always pay on time through the internet. The Amex I have automatically deducted from my bank account in full each month.
My PC I pay the full amount each month through the internet. ( 4 buisiness days before) They recently changed my interest charged on purchases and cash withdrawls to 5.7%.

The only problem I've had was with a Mastercard account, many years ago. On one monthly billing there was a credit of $300. I phoned and told them it was a mistake but it was never corrected.

The fees are enforceable, Better to pay as they will cause you grief beyond the value.

I have a card that gives me a penny back on the dollar and I can have it in cash! Mine's an AARP card with Chase, but Chase has many different cards with equal benefits. I use mine for almost everything, supermarket, doctors, drugstores etc. I pay by check, but you can arrange for them to take the money from your bank account if you wish, then it's up to them to take the money on time, not your bank. I don't know what the interest rate is, I always pay it off.

Well hope it was worth it for them. Obviously, they aren't keen on refunding the charge.

I won't use the card any more and the next (final) payment will be accompanied by the card, in several pieces. I have another card with the credit union who are a little less corrupt so no great loss.

I'll certainly take it up with the union as they are always going on about how they protect their members etc. Doubt it will get very far as they are getting a cut somewhere but it gives me an excuse to dump them and at least some of the miscellaneous fees they charge me each month - sadly not all as it is a 'fair-share' system.

Anyway, score another point for British banking laws over US ones.

effing, sodding, bloody, barstewards.

I have a similar issue. We have a credit card that is interest free for a year. We pay by internet banking and my wife accidentally missed a '1' off of the payment figure and didn't catch it until a week later, so we underpaid. We imediately sent another payment and informed them of the accident, but the credit card company has cancelled our interest free status and thrown on late fees galore.

So I dipped into the nightstand where we have 50 other companies offering us interest free credit cards and transferred the balance and cancelled it...bastards!

This is what I'm talking about - businesses that are out to effectively trap and cheat their way to more millions of dollars.

When I cancel the card later this month, I'll do it by phone. Most of the big companies have an 'Account Closure' department that is there to let you do anything but close the account. I'll see if they will remove the fee and if not, close the account. Even if they do remove the fee, I'll close the account down the following month as I have no wish to do business with them again.

I don't really need the card - it was a convenience but I never actually put on it what I didn't already have so the charging of interest is a big no-no for me and defeats the purpose of owning the card.

According to the latest issue of consumer reports Auto insurance companies are using credit card info to set your auto insurance.They rate you on how many cards you have,how many closed down and whose cards they are.Some cards get a better rating than others.According to CR it is a real Kafkaesque(sp) system.Regardless your auto insurance rate goes up and it is impossible to figure out why.

My auto insurance keeps going down, ironically. It is up for renewal later this month and since I went with AAA a few years ago, they've been pretty good. Most likely, this is due to the car aging as it's amost five years old (and the last payment on it is made in August - still looks and runs nice).

You're right though - all auto insurers make regular checks on your credit and somehow are able to correlate credit to whether you will be a bad risk behind the wheel.

Pay the bills on the service's site, not via the bank. Just about all our bills can be paid online using a Visa or checking account number, and they go through within a couple of days.

Most of the sites will store your account details so you just say "pay with this account" and on you go.

It's not automatic but it doesn't look like that helps you much anyway.

I've never considered paying my bills through the bank as (a) they charge too much and (b) they always state a minimum of 5 days for the payment to go through. Waste of money, and typical of banks' greed. They get to keep a hold of your money for a week, whereas when you charge something off the account or write a cheQUE it can go through in less than a day.

Ask for a letter acknowledging that they have received your card and closed your account. Do not allow them to fob you off with "we never close an account because you could still charge to it even without the card". Tell them you want is closed and stopped and a confimation letter. Also check that it comes off your credit reports.

Yeah thanks. I've closed down accounts in the past and know the tricks they can pull at that point. You should also tell them to list a closed account as closed by your request - otherwise, it can look like the bank just dumped you.

The bill payment service is free through the credit union. It works out about 99% of the time and other than two occasions with this credit card (last two months) and once with a former landlord a few years ago, payments are made very quickly, usually electronically and almost never late. I am very suspicious of the credit card company as they have the most to gain by sitting on payments from time to time. They are constantly sending me cheques to try to push the balance up and I haven't bitten so I guess this is the next phase in their battle for my cash. Of course, it has backfired as the card has been removed from my wallet, the account is going to be paid off in full Monday or Tuesday and then closed down altogether shortly thereafter.

Good idea. They used to do this for a fee but I looked a few minutes ago and now it is a free service.

Oh well - I'll use it in the future maybe if I ever sign up for another one but I'm done with these guys. Thanks for the idea.