Monday, May 11, 2009

1 day late. yes, please make my life difficult.

So today I had a call from the local park and rec people, saying that my credit card was denied for swim lessons. So I got out my debit card, which has a visa logo, too, and that was denied, too. So I had to go transfer some money to my debit card account from savings so I could pay for lessons.

So I called my CC company. Turns out that my available balance with the visa card I PAID OFF IN FULL a few days ago is $16. Because I was late on $300 of that and it was a "bigger payment than usual" even though I've made much larger purchases and payments on that card. They reduced my limit by 90% and won't even let me use that for another week.

So here I am without access to that visa card. I have another, so this one is going in my "last ditch emergency" pile and the amazon one is going into my wallet. I mostly use my discover card because the rewards program works for me.

Oh, and they say they called me to tell me that I was late before they sent the email notice saying that I was about to go into collections. Except they called and didn't leave a message. Because then they can say they called even if they didn't really and they get to collect extra late fees? I mean, if someone owed me money and I want to talk to them and ask for the money I would leave a message, wouldn't you? Well, not if I were running an illegal loansharking business and messages could be used against me in court. Oh wait. Ya think Target national bank is....? Nah. The emails could be used too, I guess.

I was rude to the customer service person and to her supervisor, probably. My apologies to the universe. The original customer service person was rather rude to me to start with, which is not an excuse. But dang. My kids almost didn't get to have swim lessons because they won't let me use my card, even though they had most of the money from my bank account already. Luckily, the parks and rec people were patient with me. But yowza.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Plus there's that whole embarrassment factor where you feel like you have to explain that you aren't some sort of deadbeat. Hate it. One of the reasons that we stopped using credit. We only have one card now because of all this. My only advice is -- if you can -- make your bank account send an automatic minimum payment on your cards so that they get paid regularly and then you can always send an extra payment for more if you like. Credit Card companies suck . . . glad Obama is going after them, even if just a little bit.