I find I have late fee on my credit card that I don’t think I deserve. So I call my credit card company to dispute the $29 late payment fee because I tried making the payment online (in plenty of time) but their online payment system was going bonkers.
After spending an hour last night getting the right number (because apparently there’s a special 800-number for online payment disputes and it’s not accessible via their annoying main menu on the phone), I steal time away from my busy as hell day here at work to call them (as they’re only available during working hours) . So I call them, asking about this charge. The payment was a day late because their system was screwed up (somehow it takes four-days for online payments to clear, which is horsecrap). So I asked why I was getting charged a massive late fee when it was their site that was screwed up? The lady says to me that if I “would’ve called when the problem was happening, they could’ve done something.” Oh, that’s good to know, and where was this information? Considering I had to wait on hold for an hour last night just to get the 800 number for the online payment department, I doubt this information was easily accessible somewhere.
And then she says what every Web and computer geek like me hates to hear:
“It was probably a browser issue and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
What a bunch of crap.
“I tried to access the site in four different browsers on two different platforms, two different net connections, ran a traceroute and tried accessing it directly via IP address (after I ran a lookup on the server it was trying to access). The server was down, and was for several hours that night. This was not ‘a browser issue.'”
I was pretty fired up.
“There’s nothing you can do about it?”
“No sir.”
“OK, then I’ll be cancelling this card next week and calling Citibank.” (CitiBank was the only one I could think of off the top of my head)
I was expecting her to say “Oh, we’re sorry, sir, here’s a refund on the late payment.” What did she say?
“That’s fine, thank you for your business.”
I can not truly believe that this lady is throwing away business. Generally, credit card companies want to keep their folks as much as possible (it is a billion-dollar industry, after all), so I was totally floored when she said that.
True to my word, however, I’ll be paying the late fee, and will be cancelling this card next week. I have a credit score of 780, so I don’t think I should have to put up with this crap. And I won’t.
Anybody have any good recommendations for a credit card?
