MBNA leads the way for banks ripping people off by inventing new fraudulent business practices which are executed through the collection of highly dubious fees.
I have a credit card account through MBNA which I use to help finance my small business. I have good credit and work hard to pay my biils on time. As such, I am usually granted low interest rates on all types of loans, including credit cards.
As many Americans have found out the hard way, being one day late on a credit card payment on only one occasion will result in your interest rate being jacked up sky high, which could mean over 30%, a rate only a Mafia loan shark would be proud of. No excuses or explanations are accepted if they catch you being late. No appeals to the hundreds of on time payments you've made previously will be heard.
Apparently, it is more in MBNA and other credit card companies' interest (no pun intended) to have people be late in paying rather than having them pay on time. Already it is a common occurrence for payment due dates to be made to fall on a holiday or weekend (when banks are closed) resulting in a significant number of payments coming in late. The customer is in every case held responsible for late payments no matter what. Who benefits from such practices? Who wouldn't rather collect on a debt at 30% than at 6.99% if given a choice?
Many credit card customers like me have tried to avoid the dire financial consequences of being late by setting up online payments, which occur as nearly instantaneous electronic transfers from your bank account. Banks have mightily encouraged customers to use these online services in order to speed up transactions and cut down on bulky time consuming paperwork.
With more online payments, however, companies like MBNA must have seen a downturn in the amount of late payments (and the associated late fees and higher interest rates imposed upon their victims) and has therefore recently perpetrated a new rip off scheme in which you must pay an "expedited payment fee" simply to make your payment ON THE DUE DATE. Here's how this latest scam worked on me:
I recently went online at 9:52 Eastern Time on the due date, (Friday the 2nd) to make my MBNA credit card payment. Their website shows a message which reads "payments made prior to 5 PM Eastern Time on a business day will be posted to your account that business day."
Since I know I'm on time, I'm feeling good and I go ahead and make my online payment. Suddenly, their computer refuses to accept my payment and a big red exclamation point appears on the screen with a message stating "unable to process payment... Too close to today's date." Another message appears in miniscule print at the bottom of the screen which reads "in order to process your payment today, you must agree to pay an additional $12.00 expedited payment fee." Underneath that, there appears a check box for me to agree to pay the extra $12.00.
What choice do I have? $12.00 seems like very little to pay to keep my interest from ballooning up to 30%, so I go ahead and check the box while vowing never to wait until the due date to make my payment again. How many hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of Americans will be forced to make the same choice this year, and the next, and the next... DO THE MATH!
Apparently, "on or before the due date" has been selfishly and secretly changed into "before the due date or else" by MBNA. Anyone out there besides me find this extremely disturbing?
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