On May 15th I made a $1,000 payment to my Home Depot credit card, on a $2,700.00 balance. On May 25th a payment posted to the account from a balance transfer I had made, leaving me a balance of just over $200.
On July 6th I received a call from the Home Depot Credit Department telling me I had missed a payment and they were going to charge me a "late payment fee." I pulled my records and gave them the information from the two recent May payments, certain they would then correct their records.
To my astonishment, I was told that because I did not "note" that either of the two payments was for June, both were applied as May payments and I still had a missing June payment. No amount of logic could sway the representative I spoke with. I was incensed that I could pay almost my entire balance and this company would regard me as "late." That same day (July 6th), I sent a check for $300.00, knowing I had charged a few small items since my last statement.
Then, on July 12th, my assistant sent another $25.00 check for the July 20th payment due, failing to realize that the "minimum payment due" amount was my entire balance (which included almost another $200 worth of purchases).
Two days ago I went to Home Depot to buy a bag of potting soil ($10.88) and two small plants, for a total of less than $25.00. The cashier said she had received some sort of message to "call in" and did so. She told me she was hearing all my credit information: that I had a $7,000.00 line of credit and a current balance of $85.20. She was certain there was some mix-up with my account. When the credit representative asked to speak to me, she handed me the phone.
Again, I was amazed to hear this person tell me that I had an $85.20 balance and a "late payment" due of $85.00. He said they could not authorize my charge. When I explained how much money I had owed, and paid, in the past two months, he said it didn't matter.
Yesterday I spoke with a very nice woman at the credit department who reviewed my files, spent 20 minutes talking with her supervisor (leaving me on hold), and came back to tell me that what her supervisor "explained" to her made "no sense at all." She said that they did, in fact, show my total balance as $85.20 and that it was, as of yesterday (not the day before, when I tried to use my card), past due. I told her what I thought about Home Depot's credit policies and the way they were treating a very good customer (I purchased over $20,000.00 worth of merchandise from them in the past year), and she replied, "Now everything YOU'RE saying DOES make sense!"
I bought my potting soil at Lowe's and was pleased that it was actually $2 less than the Home Depot price, but at that point I would have paid double. At 22% interest I try not to carry balances with this company for long, but when they accept four payments from me in three months, tell me I'm "late," and refuse to authorize a purchase, I know I am doing business with the wrong company.
I will be paying my balance "in full" to Home Depot when I send them my credit cards and cancel my accounts!
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