I thou
ght I knew a fair amount about banks, having covered them over a 30 year career. I even thought I was up on the Megabank’s devious credit card practices. But I guess not. If you cancel a credit card, pay off the balance in full and cut it up that’s it right? Apparently not. I got off the phone on Dec. 12 with Lilly in Missouri who told me Citibank accepts charges on a cancelled account if the charges seem to be regular one, like dues or monthly fees. Who knew? I cancelled a Citi managed American Express card in August with a guy named Tony in Manila. No further statements were sent. Nada.
Are you Tony?
Then a computer at Citi noticed there were charges that we not getting paid. Voila!. The collection machine, actually a robotic phone dialer, went into action delivering 42 automatic calls of concern with no one on the other end. Then one day a woman in Missouri named Lilly was on the other end and we started to make progress. I’ve attached the story written for the Stuart News.
But it gets better. A few days ago I was about to automatically pay off a United Airlines card managed by Chase. The $2,880 balance would automatically come out of a Wells Fargo checking account. Then the little buzzer went off in my head and I decided to look at the charges carefully. There was a $25 late fee and a $31.26 interest charge. I slogged through the Chase telephone tree and reached a Chase rep. named Christine Stuck in Missouri. She said the payment, due on Nov. 24, was late even though it was paid AUTOMATICALLY on Nov. 24. Chase didn’t credit the payment until Nov. 26 “But this was a keystroke payment, how can that be” I asked. She said it seems Wells Fargo didn’t release the funds for two days. If I had the account with Chase it would have been credited that day she explained.
If I had paid by voice, reading my check book number into the Chase computer, it would have been credited on time. But Chase and Wells move billions with a keystroke every minute, I thought. Then I thought: “never mind”. In the old days crediting payments late was called “playing the float”. I thought the Fed had eliminated that game. Guess not .
But it gets even better. By paying off the current balance in full on Dec 14, I delivered to Chase 10 days in ADVANCE. Even Wells wouldn’t dare play the float that long I figured. But with Megabanks nothing is really over. Christine warned I’d likely see another interest charge on the next bill because the $56.26 she was removing would not register with the computer. She couldn’t explain how this “residual ” interest fully works, but told me to call again next month if I wanted to get it removed. I’m starting to believe these gals in Missouri might work for a third party card management service and during rest breaks probably gossip about a lot of funny stuff that goes on as Chase, Citi, Wells, and Bank of America cook up new tricks to shaft the customers. Give those gals immunity from prosecution and they might offer an interesting day of Congressional hearings. But then what?
Right now if you are determined enough to wade through a telephone tree each time there’s a mistake, they will usually waive the fee. But for the millions of customers too w0rn out, enfeebled or unaware, the banks win every time. Maybe what’s needed is a Megabank Malpractice Act that imposes fines of say 10 times what the banks had to refund when they screwed you. Combine that with a rule that makes CEO’s personally be responsible when there was intent to defraud and you’re getting somewhere. Then I remembered most of Congress runs on Megabank campaign contributions. But there’s always the President–who just delivered a rip snorting blast against the banks in Kansas last week. Then I remembered that the guy who sits outside his door, Chief of Staff Bill Daley, was Chase’s chief bank lobbyist until this year. It might be hard to get an appointment.
