I first learned of Care Credit at my oral surgeons office. It was the only way I could afford surgery for my daughter. I was told that it would be a low or no interest credit card. The surgery was in April, the original amount was for $1,589.00 and I had to start making payments as of 6/7/08.
I made the payment online for $59 on that day. Then that month I received a late fee. I was told that I had not made my payment by the time cut off for an online payment. They reversed that late fee and from that day forward I have paid on the 7th or before.
I have paid $59 (6/7/08), $100 (7/7/08), $100 (8/7/08), $100 (9/5/08), $50 (10/7/08) and finally $100 (11/5/08). They state that they did not receive the November payment until 11/6/08.in my book, that is still before the 7th. That totals $509.00 in payments. $1,589.00 - $509.00 = $1,080.00. I did not receive a statement for November, so assumed I would still be okay as long as the bill was paid by the 7th.
Online it shows my current balance as $1,083.00 with a deferred finance of $180.42, and no late fee appears for November. However, when I received my statement today, it shows my balance as $1,143.50 with a November late fee of $39 and the next due date is 12/06/08. The due date was on the 7th of each month for June, July, August and September. I do not know when the due date was for October or November, as I did not receive statements. The balance on this month's statement is $60.50 more than what is shown online.
It makes me upset that credit cards (Chase, too.) can prey on people by offering good deals (low or no interest for the life of the loan) to people in need and then playing the switching game with the due date each month in order to charge late fees and cancel out that good deal and charge the highest interest rate possible. At that point, a person feels that the bill will never get paid off, even though they are paying more than the minimum amount due each month.
How can a person budget for paying a bill when the date is constantly changing and being increased by astronomical interest rates?
I feel that Credit Cards need to be regulated so that they can not prey on people in their time of need! Credit Card Companies are making their fortunes from the people that can least afford it! We the people of the good ole USA need to stand united on this one and tell them we are not going to take this anymore!!! We need to write our government officals about this problem and ask them to regulate the credit card companies and make them stop the monetary bleeding being caused by them.
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