Credit Card Companies Are a major problem in this country
My patience for just about everything this year is completely SHOT.
Last month I login to the Capital One online thing to make a payment, which is really the LAST thing on my priority list to pay right now, but I hate being behind on bills. So I go online and the website doesn’t work. I think I’ll try back later, but I forget….. I get charged a 30 dollar late fee which I’m not happy about. But I swallow it.
Now my full amount owed was due on October 14th, so I go to the site and login and decide to pay the full amount so I don’t get some crazy late fee again. I pay 300 bucks or so to get it all caught up, It says my payment is posted on October 14th, but the numbers didn’t change. Hmmm. I think I’ll try back in the morning and make sure…. for two fucking days I can’t login to my account. When I do, it says I’m now charged ANOTHER late fee because the payment went through on October 15th, when it clearly says the payment was authorized on the 14th.
I login this morning…. and WHAT??? It now says I owe TWO late fees, 60 bucks!!!??? I see that my reply from them was to call their 800 number so I immediately do that because now I’m totally pissed.
- After FOREVER trying to go through their automated bullshit phone thing, I finally figure out where they are hiding the “Get a live person” on the phone line. And when I do, surprise surprise, it’s a lady in India with a bad accent, so I try my best to focus and not give this lady a bad time…
- She politely tells me that the reason I was charged the late fee was because my payment posted after 3PM on October 14th??? WTF? I say, well, I posted the payment on October 14th, it says right on my screen..I’m almost sure it was the fucking morning HERE when I did it.
- She gets a weird tone in her voice and tells me that I should read the terms and conditions on the website that say the 3pm thing, as if she’s schooling me because I did something bad. I don’t know how to respond so I’m silent for a minute and then I kinda erupt…
“So I login on October 14th and pay my FULL AMOUNT so I don’t get charged late fees, and now it says I still owe 60 bucks?? Why the hell did I bother even paying? This seems like a goddamn scam to me. I AM NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS.” — And then I’m quiet waiting for her response to my upset customer voice.
- What do you know? She must have a script that says “If customer raises voice and gets angry, click here”- because she immediately says that she will look into this, and then she says they will FORGIVE the charge, but only this ONE time. And the tone in her voice was as if to say I was DUMB, I was the one that was wrong here for not paying the amount before 3pm, and that they were only going to forgive this ONCE because they are so mighty fair. She never explained why I had TWO fucking late fees added in the past week.
So… fuck you, Capital One! This is why people can’t pay their damn credit card bills. I hate credit cards and I can’t wait to get rid of this one. I don’t even remember why I got it, I think I was trying to surprise my wife so she couldn’t track what I bought her one year or something. But this is ridiculous. They only did the RIGHT thing when I yelled and got angry.
A much younger me, out of anger or spite at the credit card company, would have taken the card out and ran it up, buying a bunch of nice things, and then cancelling the card and not pay it. But I know that doesn’t hurt them, it would only hurt my credit and send annoying collection agencies after me. (been there, done that!) . I think the minute my balance says ZERO, I’m cancelling this card.
I wish a lot of other Americans could do the same. I don’t know the specifics of the mess we’re in financially, but I think these credit card companies have a lot to do with it. Imagine what they do to people who aren’t paying attention???
Suddenly the ending of Fight CLub doesn’t seem so damn bad.
11 comments11 Comments so far
What I wish everyone would do is cancel their debit cards. Believe it or not DJ, THEY are the most significant source of fees for the bank industry. Why do you think they push the use of debit cards so hard? even though they don’t make “interest” on them. The banking industry made: not millions… but BILLIONS on late fees, over draft fees, etc.. etc. I know how good you are on internet research. Go see what your legal rights are on debit cards versus credit cards. The trick for the credit cards is to pay them off every month. (and don’t try to do it on the last possible day, it’s not worth the hassle) Now, if you are going to carry a balance. setup an auto pay thing on your on-line banking to make a minimum payment every month, then just pay extra when you can.
Of the two cards, credit cards are way better, IF you can use them correctly.
Oh, and I’m sure that Capital One has already noted your “late pays” on your credit report which will lower your credit score and of course, make credit more expensive and hard to get for you.
Sorry 8(
I could honestly care less about their late pays on my credit report, I think our on times on everything else will cancel it out. Plus… I don’t think we need loans or ANYTHING. We don’t like living beyond our means here. If we don’t have the cash for something coming in, we don’t need whatever it is.
Weird… my Debit card from our bank, maybe since it’s small local bank, we don’t have any fees. I’d imagine if we were out of money in the bank, they might charge us a standards overdraft, but again, I don’t like paying when we don’t have cash to cover it.
Wait, are you telling me that since they already reported me I should just go buy something nice and say FUCK YOU to them? It’s tempting… hahahaha (i kid!)
You can cancel the card now — you don’t have to wait until it’s paid off. The account just turns into a loan until it’s paid off — with the same repayment terms as your credit card had.
I don’t have any solid knowledge of the credit card industry in the US, however, in Canada, it pays to keep as much business with one bank as you can (of course, Canadian banks aren’t on the brink of collapse..).
This allows you options such as:
- automatic full or minimum payments to your credit card.
- quick transfers from one account to another (e.g., paying off your credit card bill in full every month with a combination of cash from your bank account and from your line of credit*.
- it gives the bank an incentive to be nice — since you can threaten to pull your mortgage, banking, credit card, etc. all at once and bring it to another FI that’d be happy for the business.
*this is a great way to avoid interest charges. If you leave a balance on your credit card, you pay interest (backdated) from the time you purchased the items until the time they’re paid off. If you pay your credit card off in full each month and put whatever remains on a line of credit, then you don’t start paying interest on your new purchases until the reduced amount lands in your line of credit. The result is interest paid that’s:
1. at a lower rate.
2. for a shorter period of time.
3. on a lower balance (since you’ve paid off at least some of it already).
e-mail me if you’d like to see the numbers for how this works. It’s saved me hundreds of dollars for those months when I’ve had to carry a balance.
In the short term you could “not care about your credit score”. Here is the point about them in the long term. Depending on where it’s at could affect your wife’s ability to get a job with companies that take it into consideration. (Yes Calypso, I know you work in health care and so you can get a job anywhere, so does my wife. Being a nurse make getting a job about the easiest thing due to shortages) It can affect any loans you DO have depending again on conditions. It could affect your ability to get loans for college expenses.
You know that I own rental property and of course, I borrow money for that investment vehicle. So I do take my credit score seriously, though I really DO have an issue with the power that the credit score is being given these days and the arbitrary and secret way in which it IS determined. Paying on-time is considered neutral to your score, doing things wrong is negative of course. The only significant way to boost credit scores is to successfully use credit over and over. My score get a hit for all the loans I have out and then gets a plus for all the loans I have out. (accounts, and CEO are really quite insane!)
One late payment could drop my score even if I made 100 on-time one’s before.
But don’t take my word for it all, feel free to search the old net and see what sort of reports you will find on the activity of bank in this regard. There are quite a few people that are upset with the present way that banks deal with things. The idea of handing someone a debit card that connects to your CHECKING ACCOUNT is insane. Picture the poor slob that is out on Saturday night, needs some cash, goes to the ATM, pulls some out and then forgets to write it in the check book. This is done 10,000 times a day and triggers bounced check charges (sometimes multiple charges) on each account. That $20 Saturday cash withdrawal could cost $30 to $120 in fees by Monday afternoon. This happens constantly. When I open a checking account, I refuse the debit card. Strangely enough, the bank sends me one anyway. I wonder why??? Shred Shred Shred…
I suspect any system that makes billions of dollars on their customer’s mistakes.
err… “accounts = accountants” sorry
A quick note from a guy who spent years working for credit card companies:
1. Don’t be so sure that Cap One dinged your credit report. Usually, credit card companies only do that if you’re more than one pay-cycle late. If you were only a day or two late, which seems to be the case, they probably didn’t bother reporting that to the credit agencies. But be sure. Get a credit report check.
2. If you’re not happy with the response you got from Cap One, try calling again and asking them to cancel your account. They may try to reduce your interest rate (they did for me), and may remove that second fee after all.
3. If you’re going to get mad, try not to take it out on the minimum wage Indian customer service guy. They make nearly nothing and work awful hours. Take out your frustration on something else- heck, draw an anti-Cap-One Yirmumah strip. At least you might get some pageviews and/or money out of it. And anger never really helps. Trust me.
4. NEVER pay your bill on the due date. Just don’t. If it says the 14th, pay it on the 12th. Every credit card company under the sun will ding you for this. Yes, it sucks. But it’s their money, and their lawyers are richer than yours, so it’s hard to fight it.
5. Be glad you’re not living in the time when I was a collector. I’d have made you Fed-Ex me a money order or I would have closed your account. And yes, my karma has been irrevocably stained from that job. Luckily, the bank in question no longer is in the credit card business. That was an evil place.
Ray, I always try to be as nice as possible to the call center folks. But this lady struck a weird “talk down” tone with me that I didn’t like. If I had backed down and said “my bad” the call would have been over. I think saying I was pretty upset actually made them take the credit off there. Maybe it’s true what they say about nice guys finishing last or having terrible credit! ha.
but yeah, i always try me best to be courteous on the phone. Have you ever seen the the episode of 30 days where the guy goes to India and works at a call center? Those jobs over there pay well for their areas and are highly sought after as REAL careers. I know that’s sad, but that’s a job a lot of these people REALLY look forward to doing. That episode of 30 days was really enlightening.
My mom recently paid off her credit card bill (Capital One!). The next month, she gets a statement for $16, cause her last payment was a day late. She sucked it up and wrote a check for the $16 and sent it back the same day. Her next statement came, and the new amount was $39…another late fee cause they said the $16 payment was late (she sent it the same day she received the statement)…so she got a $39 late fee on a $16 late fee on a full payment she made. She called and they forgave the second fee…but makes you wonder how they set their late fee rates…anyway, credit card companies are the devil…legalized loan sharks. I hate them.
I can understand how frustrating this kind of exchange can be, but don’t forget that you are the customer and the power is in your hands.
Don’t like the way Captial One is treating you? Tell them in plain English that you’re canceling the card and taking your business to a competitor. They’ll bend over backwards to keep you on their side.
Even if they try to give you a superior tone and tell you “We’ll drop the fee, but just this one time!” tell them, “I don’t like your tone. I’m taking my business elsewhere.”
Nobody WANTS to be an asshole customer, but when you run into poor customer service like that, you have to assert your rights as a consumer.