Due to the hustle and bustle of the past few weeks, I paid my credit card bill 3 days late. That means I was subject to paying a “stupid tax” of $39.00 in late fee and $8.56 in finance charge. *grimace*
I shouldn’t have forgotten. Still, I called the credit card company, spoke to a nice man, and explained my situation. I feel kind of stupid to make the call (as it was clearly my fault), but I figured it doesn’t hurt to ask.
Here’s the basic gist of the conversation:
Me: Hello, I am calling in regards to my credit card payment for the previous month. I had a really busy time and paid my credit card bill late. I understand it’s my fault. But I’ve been a good customer and have always paid my bills on time, can you waive or decrease my late fee?
Customer Rep: Yes I see that you’ve been with us for a long time. We certainly appreciate your business. Let me see what I can do.
Me: (listens to music for 10 minutes)
Customer Rep: Thanks for holding. Can I ask what happened during that the last payment date that made you late?
Me: Things were just really busy and I forgot about the due date until two days afterwards. By the time my payment posted to the account, the bill was 3 days overdue.
Customer Rep: I understand, these things happen. But I see that you’ve been a great customer, and so I will go ahead and credit your late fee and finance charge.
Me: Thank you!!
It’s not often that you get off a call to a company in a better mood than you got on, but I was very happy with my customer service experience. Now, I know that not all experiences will go like this – I’ve heard of accounts where people had to escalate the matter to managers or threaten to close the account before they can get the fees waived. Maybe I got lucky with my representative (I suspect he’s a manager), but I think the key to getting late fees waived is:
1. Be a good customer (i.e. one who has a history of paying on time).
2. Be polite to the representative – nobody wants to help a jerk.
3. Acknowledge your responsibility and don’t make excuses – keep it short and simple.
4. Ask nicely (but ask!). No matter how great a customer you are, the company won’t offer to waive your fees if you don’t ask.
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Some great advice and congrats on getting your charges dropped. My bank did the same for me when I went into the branch and told them I thought my overdraft limit charge was unfair.
That’s good that they value you as a customer….just the other day I had to battle with Comcast to see if they could change up our cable/internet/phone package to try and save money, and I had to bring the b**ch out and got nowhere in the end. It was incredibly frustrating, since they are basically a monopoly and I cannot get cable anywhere else.
Good pointers. I just helped my Girlfriend through a similar situation and she got the fee waived too. Most people don’t know a quick phone call can save ‘em $40 bucks.
I think those are great tips! That’s great that you found a helpful customer service rep.
I like this, great advice. I’ve asked 4-5 different times for various companies (I used to travel ALOT for work and did not have auto pays set up), and normally have found helpful people, which is great. I think you hit the main point about having a good history and then asking when something goes wrong.
Good job on getting the fee waived. It probably helped that you admitted it was your fault and you were pleasant.
- SingleGuyMoney
That’s awesome. Most of the time if you do call & explain, they are more than likely to waive the fee at least once. I used to have two bank accounts and I accidentally deposited the wrong check in the wrong account so one of my accounts was overdrawn in my main account. I was so bummed but I called my bank (Bank of America) and explained the situation and after reviewing my history with them, they waived all of the OD fees that I was charged for that one incident.
I also learned that I don’t need two checking accounts and closed one of them. =)
In this day and age, your story is a testament that every credit card issuer is not out for blood. While I don't blame a company for wanting to earn a "reasonable profit," some just take it a bit too far.