Removing Finance Charges From My Chase Freedom Credit Card

cutting-the-credit-card-cakeAfter two months of procrastination, I finally called Chase to ask that they fully remove any finance charges related to my first time late payment offense.  Did I ever mention that I hate making phone calls even if it is just calling a service rep that I don’t know to get late fees and finance charges removed?  The introvert in me often hopes that avoiding the calls will make them go away…that rarely works.

The thing about this charge was that it left me seething.  Every time I thought about it, I got upset.  Upset because:

  • One 8 hour late payment resulted in about $100 in late fees and finance charges, $39 late fees and $51 dollars of finance charges that were spread out over two months of statements.
  • The bill was due on a Sunday and the payment was ready to be picked up on Sunday, but they don’t process payments on Sunday.
  • As someone who has paid their bill on time for the good part of ten years, I don’t like being treated as a delinquent.
  • My attempts at removing the fees(5 emails) had failed thus far and I suspected that if I talked to the right person they would remove the fees.

The only thing that kept me using the card is $500 in cash back in just  one year of using the card.

After some prayer I was finally motivated to the point of action.  I armed my self with all the relevant information which included the statements for the credit cards and for my bank payment.  holding strong to the fact that they thought of me as a valuable customer.  They had just raised my limit to $5,000 in a slow economy.  I didn’t even plan to try and use ‘I own a personal finance site that talks about your company’ line.

When I called I got a reasonable customer service rep who listened intently as I laid out my case as strongly and politely as I could. She started to give me an annoyed scripted response about how the due date can fall on any day, but I politely persisted and said that she had to get a manager to remove the fees.  A friendly manager came on and I politely told the story again and added stronger language about how I have one credit card and switched to Chase because of their service, but now every time I use the card I want to cancel.  I continually stressed how I was a good loyal customer and how if this was resolved I would be a loyal customer again.

She relented and offered to remove half of the fees($26). I was placated.  Not completely happy, but placated nonetheless.   If I wasn’t averaging $40 a month in cash rewards from the card, I would be much more upset.  Plus at $26 replaced in ten minutes, it feels like earning $156 an hour.

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