Well, I went in to Fifth Third and talked the situation over with them. The rep there was very helpful, and admitted that Fifth Third should have a better way of notifying people that their account can't be used because of inactivity. Then he called HSBC, and explained the situation, that it was the bank's fault that the payment was late.
HSBC was willing to remove the late fee. The interest rate, however, is stuck at 20.5%; they will not bring it back down to 4.99%. Their rep did say I should call back in from time to time to see if a special rate had become available.
I learned something, and am going to be taking Mike's advice. If you pay on-line, do it from the creditor's side, not from the bank's side. It should post that same day, without any delay. Also, deposit a dollar from time to time in any accont you aren't using much.
I also made it a point to pay more than was owed on a final payment. This forces the credit card company to keep sending you statements with a negative balance for a while. Serves them right for charging interest on the average daily balance for the previous month when the balance has been paid in full by the due date.
And ... I've been making sure they keep mailing out statements, instead of just e-mailing them. Safety in redundancy.
After a Decade
6 years ago
if you look around online, i bet you can find another 4.9% to transfer it to, or a pretty cheap HELOC whose interest would be tax deductible. i have relied very heavily on auto bill payment systems that deduct automatically from my checking acct, all of them set up from the creditor/utility side. gives me peace of mind that the bill will get paid on time when i am out of town or whatever and i won't have late fees, and keeps the $ in my acct making interest all the way until the due date. the only bills i physically have to pay are my corporate credit card which will not allow auto payments or internet payments (strange), but will allow telepay payments, so i have to call that once a month. (if it was a personal acct i would have closed it eons ago just for the sheer pain of having to call their system every month to pay.) i rarely write checks anymore accept for property taxes, individuals, and charitable organizations. why pay for a stamp and a check and have to take the time to write it and remember to mail it X days before due date every month? if you have bills you want to control how much is paid on each month, then this option won't work for those. but it is certainly convenient and worth setting up for those you pay in full every month (gas, elec, phone, internet, house, etc).
ReplyDeleteWhy would you pay MORE money to a creditor, when you are basically ensuring that they are using your money to send you the statement? Why not just close the account?
ReplyDeleteEventually they give up and send a check for the negative balance. They are stuck with the postage. In any event, the negative balance is usually something less than a dollar.
ReplyDeleteAnd the idea is not to close the account. It is to bring it to a zero balance. It's just that the CC companies will charge interest on the average daily balance, so even if you make the final payment in full, you get a bill the next month for the pidly interest that accrued from the statement date to the time the payment posted. So, you figure out what that interest is likely to be, add it to that final payment, and add fifty or seventy-five cents more. Then they are stuck sending you statements with a negative balance for a few months, until they figure out you aren't going to charge anything in a hurry and use the accrued credit. In a few months time they spend more on postage than they owe you. One good turn deserves another? The only down side is that they will not pay any interest ( not even their minimum finance charge) on the few cents negative balance. There oughta be a law...