I third the reco for online banking. You can access your checking account and BillPay from anywhere in the world that has internet access. The lender sends the bank a little e-bill, you click on it, tell it to pay it in full on the due date, and voila! Plus, you have tangible proof that you attempted to pay on time. And if a vendor disputes it, you can have the bank run interference for you.
I do agree that the credit card company should reward loyalty by allowing a one-time reversal of the fees and % hike. If they decide not to do that, desist doing business with them, or suck it up.
We don’t only make minimum payments, but we did that month, and I think that was reasonable behavior considering I had been laid off and we were moving across the state. The extra irony was that we actually paid early that cycle in order to mitigate against anything going awry, prior to receiving our statement where the exact amount of the minimum payment for that cycle is made available to us. Our estimate was informed by what had been the minimum payment amounts for the past few months, not the amount we had actually paid for the past few months. As for asking for it by carrying any balance whatsoever, I posit that this was again reasonable behavior for people in our situation with severance package funds arriving who knows when because the entire HR department is on mandatory holiday vacation.
Eonwe, you are totally getting my drift. It was a late fraction of a payment of which the lion’s share had been paid early in good faith and which was fixed within days of discovering we had underestimated.
Did we behave reasonably? I think so.
Have they behaved reasonably? They are empowered to enforce their terms, but if they think our behavior was so risky that it warrants taking more interest from us, when that decision results in our closing our account completely and going elsewhere, drying up all future interest from us, their approach is backfiring.
Is it reasonable to treat them with the same level of courtesy as we have been treated while walking out the door with our business? Damn skippy.
Yes. I tried to withdraw money from the ATM, and it said, “could not complete transaction,” or something vague like that. I thought maybe I had made a wrong selection so I tried it again, but got the same response. That’s when I discovered something was up. I ran my balance and saw I was overdrawn. I was charged a fee for both attempts to withdraw cash from the ATM (that belonged to my bank, I might add).
Recap: Cookies had a considerable credit line with Chase. Cookies no longer has a considerable credit line with Chase because of their douchbaggery. The customers that walk when stuff like this happens have the financial resources to go elsewhere. Is losing a customer with the actual ability to pay their loan really in Chase’s best economic interest?
This situation doesn’t involve the company unilaterally changing rules. I realize that strawmen are easier to argue with, but I’d thank you for not *completely *misrepresenting what I’ve said.
I have a problem only with the general sense that she deserves sympathy for being screwed over by “big bank bullshit.” I don’t have any heartburn at all with her decision to take her business elsewhere.
Then Chase will suffer the consequences. I assume they have figured out their losses from customers walking away will be less than their profits from acting in this manner. You disagree. But it’s not your call – it’s theirs.
That’s not what I asked, though. What I asked is whether or not we think the bank is going to play it by the letter of the rules or not. We’re not exactly talking about your friendly neighborhood bank here. It’s certainly not the bank that knows its customers by name and can make value judgments from time to time about waiving fees (and do that in a consistent manner so that the rest of its customers are receiving consistent treatment). You want Mr. Banker to waive a fee because he sees you in the branch every two weeks depositing your paycheck? You stick with a local bank or credit union, as I’ve done.
Why would you expect Chase to make a reasonable value judgment? They’re making business decisions based on data supplied by actuaries, not by whether or not individual customers can be considered loyal or dependable. Add the new credit card regulations into the mix and you’ve got a situation where banks are going to play to the rulebook. How anyone can expect a different outcome is beyond me.
My credit card companies have screwed me, too. BUT I willingly entered into the agreement with them. I, and I alone, am responsible to making my payment on-time to avoid any number of draconian responses by them.
The OP did not act reasonably, IMO. Even in the face of uncertainty (moving, losing a job) there was a guaranteed way to make sure their minimum was paid and they did not do it. Period. That’s on them.
I abolutely loathe credit card companies, and (I’ll say it again) Chase is particularly bad. But the OP fucked up and, frankly, won’t own it. That’s no fault but hers. That’s what pisses me off. It the OP had been “Jesus, Chase sucks! I know that we didn’t meet our obligation, but holy cow! What a buncha’ goat felchers!” my response would be different.
(And, might I add, I’m confident that Chase will continue to make a shit-ton of money regardless. You can, and should, take your business elsewhere, but there’s millions of Chase customers. Expecting them to give a shit if you leave is not… realistic.)
I’ve owned up. Every post has included some version of “we underestimated our minimum monthly payment”. There is a pretty damn good way of keeping customers, and they did not do it. Period.
Expecting anyone to give a shit about how I vote as an individual is not realistic either, but I still do it. As sinjin so wisely says, vote with your feet. It is exactly this situation that holds up the move-your-money analogy that consumers are in an abusive relationship with big banks, and exactly why I explicitly chose the to describe it as what it is…bullshit.
You don’t estimate your minimum payment. You make sure you know what it is. There are any number of ways to do that. You didn’t do that, you fucked up. You won’t own it. You’re bitching because you want to transfer the responsibility to someone else.
Just because they’ve decided they can still make an obscene profit treating their customers like shit doesn’t mean I can’t call them douchbags for it and urge people to take their business elsewhere. That’s my call.
We are responsible for the error. The bullshit ensues when a matter as trivial as $41 in light of the total credit line is used as justification to potentially charge us thousands more dollars in interest. Yes I know that we can split hairs about where they should be expected to draw the line and still stay in business, but I’m quite comfortable in my belief that they crossed the greedy asshole line that I have in the sand.
If they had charged me a late fee or something there would have been no OP. That would be reasonable.
I also don’t really see how my OP is so vastly different from the goat-felcher comment or sinjin’s paraphrasing which seems to be seen as reasonable by the people who think I’m a whiny crybaby who had it coming.
Not around here (San Fran peninsula). They are overall more expensive than Safeway or Trader Joe’s, but they have a great salad bar and prepared food section. They also have decent specials on fruit. There are several other chains in the same range (Piazza’s and Lynardi’s) and at least one (Dreager’s) that is even more expensive. I do most of my shopping at Trader Joe’s because they also pay a living wage and provide benefits. Corporations being what they are, more would be good citizens if more of their customers rewarded them for it.
