My husband has a Chase credit card with a balance of around $1700 that we have been paying on even though the account is closed. We closed it because they sent us a letter stating that if we wanted to continue our account services with them we would have to agree to a new finance charge, increasing from 9% to 29%, for no reason whatsoever. We had no other delinquent cards or accounts on either of our credit reports, no changes in credit score, etc. We would not agree to that and settled on closing the account and paying off the card at the current rate of 9%.
So, everything is fine until the other day, two days before my payment was due, I added another bank account online to pay the payment with. I made the payment and even got an email saying it had posted to his account. A week and a half later we receive a letter in the mail saying the payment had been returned because of an error in the bank routing number and they had hiked his interest rate up to 29.99% and also charged a $39 late fee, a $35 return fee, and the original payment amount including the new finance charges adding up to a total of $140 in all.
My husband called Chase in Wilmington, Delaware and was told there had been a 'human' error in entering the routing number for the checking account. And my husband was like "Well, since we have never made a late payment, and we did, in good faith, attempt to make our payment before the due date, couldn't something be done on your part to help us?" And no one was willing to help him or remove the charges, even though we have been faithful, on time customers of theirs for several years!
He finally talked to a "Supervisor" (yeah right!) and he said he could put our account into review and try to get the finance charges back down to the original rate but that there was nothing he could do about all of the other charges. He said "Even though we can't prove you made the mistake, the charges are still valid". What the???!
In all honesty, I think most Credit Card companies are crooks. But we have another account with Capital One and have never had any problems with them and can only hope that we don't. But, after we are able to pay off this account in full we are certainly never using Chase again! There is something not right about their practices.
Ya know, you try to pay your bills, keep your credit score up, and build up a good reputation with your creditor only to be shoved aside and screwed over because of a minor error. They know they have people "over a barrel", and they don't care. I only can hope that some of them are in need of some mercy someday and they can understand what it feels like to be pushed into a corner with no way out and no helping hand.
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