Saturday, July 21, 2007

My credit card company hates me

I'm what's known in the world of credit card companies as a "deadbeat" - I pay my balance off every month so the creditor doesn't earn any interest or finance charges from me. This has caused my underhanded credit card company to try every machination in the book to squeeze some kind of revenue out of me.

First of all, I signed up for a "529 Savings Account" card that dumps 2% of my charges into a college fund for my kids. Months after getting this card, they offered me an "updated" card that only moves 1.5% into the fund. What a deal. Since 1.5% < 2%, I declined.

Next, they sent me a letter saying that people who don't carry over an outstanding balance would be subjected to a $2/month "service" charge...unless I sent them a letter saying that I did not agree to the charge. Duh. I sent the letter.

Today I opened my statement and noticed they had moved up the due date. I get paid monthly so I pay a whole mess of bills on the last day of the month. My credit card due date had been the 7th or 8th, which allowed ample time to send in payment without incurring a late fee. Now - with no warning - they shifted the due date to August 1st in a bald attempt to make me miss my payment and stick me with a $40 late fee.

Wow...just wow. I would cancel the card except I've locked in that 2% refund and they no longer offer cards with that payback level. I guess I'll just keep driving them nuts until they send me a bill with a 2006 due date.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Set up an auto deduct to be taken out on the day before the due date.
You know what charges are coming up, so you know what the deduct will be. No late fees (can't be) and no trips to the PO or stamp money.

Anonymous said...

The cases you described are unfortunately typical of devious credit card companies. Probably you should get a card of some well-known and reliable bank (you didn't mentioned your bank). It's really sad that banks try to punish us for good behaviour with credit. Unfair.