Washington Mutual's credit card services allow you to schedule payments online. Last month, I scheduled a payment of $600 to my credit card to go through several days before the due date. I received no confirmation, as usual. I checked my account on 2/21 in order to schedule a payment for 3/11, and I see a notice that my account is overdue. My scheduled payment had been removed. My credit limit had been slashed. No doubt, now, that my credit score will suffer even more due to this deliberate act.
The site has it set up where they send you notifications 6-7 before the payment due date, asking you to make a payment, EVEN IF YOU ALREADY SCHEDULED A PAYMENT. They do NOT send you notices saying your payment is late. They do NOT allow you to see a history page of when your payments were scheduled and for how much. This is intentional, so they can hope to catch you off guard so that they can quietly cancel a payment, jack up your APR (mine was last at 31.49%. Let's see how high it goes NOW), and slash your limits.
I had been paying well above the minimum for the past eight months, and Washington Mutual saw fit to punish me for this. If you're looking into getting your first credit card, avoid Washington Mutual and Providian at all costs.
0 comments