Has anybody had their payment dates changed back and forth recently? My due date originally was always on the 12th, then 2 months ago it became the 11th. Then, last month, it became the 10th. Both times, I got duped into having to pay late fees. It's my fault for always waiting for the last minute, but damn, changing the dates on me is BS. My other card company did the same thing last month. That's about 100 bucks in late fees that I don't have. Man, these next few months are gonna be quite a black mark on my credit history. I can't work during the holidays since I'll be traveling with the family. Anyways, as I was typing this something caught my eye on MSN's website that explains what happened to me. http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/Yourcreditrating/P51865.asp Due to the low interests rates, CC companies are doing whatever they can to prevent people from saving money. Dirty bastards. I need to take on a 3rd card and see if they'll absorb my balance from one of my cards. I got something from Citi Bank that specifically says they'll do that and give me 0 APR until this June. I could have sworn some others are offering 0% for a whole year though. I'll need to look into that.
I carry one with no balance. Just like that article said, pay it when you get it. I know this is easier said than done, but once you get there you will feel better not having to worry about it. Look into online bill pay as well and use MS-Money or Quicken in conjuction with your checking account. It really helps.
You just figuring out that credit card companies are out to get your money? Hey, if you can pay it off at the end of the month, you can pay it off now or wait until you have the money. Credit cards are the devil.
Yes! They can change the due days by a few days by adjusting the pay period as a result of how many days are in the month. Blarg - i've been hit for a late fee or two (or three) on that trick --- credit card companies are the devil And the late fees are outrageous and too many late fees raises your interest rates and puts red flags or whatever on your credit report --- then you can't buy a house. Not even a cardboard one.
What can be even more worse than the penalty is that you will lose the low APR. If your balance is being locked at low APR like 3.9%, you have to be very careful. The APR may jump to 19.99% if you are late for one single payment. Watch out.
Get this, I have a Chase CC and I normally pay my bill at the last minute also. So instead of sending it in the mail, when it would be late, I go to a Chase Bank and make the payment. Next bill I notice a late charge on there, I call Chase/CC and they tell me that payments made at the banks locations ARE NOT the same as paying the CC company so I was still late. What BS. I even talked to a manager. I don't understand why the Chase branches can accept the payments if it's not the same.
Guy's, here is a wacky thought. Some of you probably have computers. Why don't you pay them online? You can even have them email you to notify of an upcoming due date. this crazy newfangled technology.......... oh yeah, use a firewall and don't post pictures of your credit card online.
I have one credit card that I pay in full every month the same day I get the bill. I pay online and it is credited that night at midnight. I've done this every month for about 2 years now. I'm using it to rebuild my credit. I'm looking to buy a house this summer. I think the reason why your payment date keeps changing is because many companies have a due date every 30 days. If a month has 31 days (I'm not looking at a calendar at the moment) then your date will be a day earlier the next month. Credit card companies are evil (I know, I used to work for citibank), but if you are responsible you shouldn't have any problems. If you're not, you are their bread and butter.
I got in some bad credit card debt, and now I don't use one at all. My wife and I share one credit/debit card, and so the money is never really charged. I'm slowly but surely rebuilding my credit with two car payments. It took me a long time to get out from under my credit card debts, and I abhor them now. I never use a credit card.
Here is a good trick. My MasterCard bill had a late fee, so I called the bozos up and told them to cancel since I was tired of their BS They apologozed, dropped the charges and admitted publicly that they were indeed my b****
I pay off my entire monthly balance as soon as I get my online credit card statement via my online banking service. It takes all of five minutes, just becase I save all of my monthly receipts and double check every purchase on my statement to assure its accuracy. If I wasn't so anal, it would only take a mere handful of seconds.
Online credit card payments for my Mastercard, Discover, and Amex. Never a late fee, and no worries about lost or stolen mail.
I do NOT recommend paying online. We mail checks, and we have the cleared checks sent back to us. I highly suggest that you have a paper trail of your payment. This applies to any bill. We have, countless times, had to verify through our cleared checks that we did indeed pay a CC company, insurance company, etc.. If you pay online you can generate a printed receipt, but that doesn't amount to a hill of beans when you have to prove your payment. I could care less about my CC interest rate. My wife and I am extremely cautious about using our cards, and I pay off our cards each month, so we pay no interest at all. In all things in your life, avoid paying interest as much as you can. In that MSN article, it says that "the only way to win the interest-rate game is not to play it." They're wrong. The best way to win the game is to avoid paying interest as much as possible, and instead COLLECT interest through wise and careful investment savings. -- droxford
Believe me, this works. If you call them up and b**** enough, they'll take if off. If the person doesn't remove it, hang up and call right back. You will probably get someone else and they will. If they don't, ask for a manager and threaten to cancel your card. They don't want you to cancel if you constantly have late fees and finance charges. You are a cash cow. The only problem is even if they take off the late fee, they will still ding your credit report for a late payment and there is NOTHING you can do about it. Nothing.
They *own* me. I'm their biatch, and will be for a long time. When I was first married, we had financial problems, so we charged a lot. Now, we're paying for it. Lesson: don't get married.
They don't per say change the dates. The dates are stated in your cc ageement as saying you have "x" number of date from your 1st month to the 2nd month. So some months have less days or more days than others. Hence, the so called pmt due date will always fluctuate between a range. If this concerns you, then you can certainly call the company to change the "date". You can change it from bg of month to end of mth or however you want to coordinate with your budgeting.
Oh, another thing you can do is just post a payment online (electronically). Most cc companies credit the payment in 3-5 days..sometimes one day. And you can overnight it too.
I hate credit cards, but they're a necessary evil... 1) They build your credit for consistent payments... 2) They are an easy way to get out of a jam (S-T loan), but you have to be disciplined to pay it off... However, you shouldn't max it out at the Men's Club, as this is not an emergency... I have a number open with zero balances and couple with way too much, but I have needed them when I was severed... Bottomline: Use with caution and set up a payment plan (similar to rent/car payment) or you'll never pay them off...
This is what we usually do, and we do it a few days before the due date. A few months ago we get on to pay and the web site is down and will be down until the due date. At that point it's too late to mail it because it will get there after the due date. So we wait until the site's up thinking everything's cool, but they charge you a fee if you pay online on your due date. Took me about several phone calls and two hours of time to get my 20 bucks back. Bastards. So we close the account and go to pay our closing balance but because of interest and stuff, we still have about 3 bucks on the account. I go online to try and pay this, but you can only pay 15 or more dollars online. So I write the check and mail it off. Later we get another statement for something like 15 cents. So we mail off that check. then we get a statement for 3 cents or some ridiculous amount. So we mail off another check, otherwise, we get the big hickey for the late payment. And they still don't close our account until after we get on the phone and waste another 45 minutes. Bastards.
