Comments on: From U.S. News: Five Nasty Credit Card Surprises http://allfinancialmatters.com/2007/08/31/from-us-news-five-nasty-credit-card-surprises/ A personal finance blog dedicated to discussing such topics as budgeting, asset allocation, 401K, IRA, cash flow, insurance, financial planning, portfolio management, and other areas in personal finance. Sun, 21 Mar 2010 02:52:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Chris http://allfinancialmatters.com/2007/08/31/from-us-news-five-nasty-credit-card-surprises/comment-page-1/#comment-135187 Chris Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:34:50 +0000 http://allfinancialmatters.com/?p=1997#comment-135187 Companies everywhere are raking in with late fees, not just the credit card companies (though they are pretty blatantly screwing their customers as much as they can). It's gotten so bad that a few of my bills (my electric company in particular) actually puts in bold the bill AFTER a late fee has been assessed. The actual bill amount is before it in smaller print. Others already include "payment owed after due date"...how convenient that my regular bill already includes the amount I owe should I pay late! I keep track of when my bills are due and I have an alert system on my computer that tells me when bills have arrived already, letting me call and ask the company why they are late sending the bill. I also keep a pool of money for paying bills so when a bill comes I just pay it that minute, electronically through my bank (not using their electronic services - I'd rather have my own bank verify when it sent payment thank you!). In my opinion every company out there with more than 10 employees are greedy crooks. You have to be ridiculously paranoid with your bills to avoid whatever idiotic fees they try to hit you with. Rant over! Companies everywhere are raking in with late fees, not just the credit card companies (though they are pretty blatantly screwing their customers as much as they can). It’s gotten so bad that a few of my bills (my electric company in particular) actually puts in bold the bill AFTER a late fee has been assessed. The actual bill amount is before it in smaller print. Others already include “payment owed after due date”…how convenient that my regular bill already includes the amount I owe should I pay late!

I keep track of when my bills are due and I have an alert system on my computer that tells me when bills have arrived already, letting me call and ask the company why they are late sending the bill. I also keep a pool of money for paying bills so when a bill comes I just pay it that minute, electronically through my bank (not using their electronic services – I’d rather have my own bank verify when it sent payment thank you!).

In my opinion every company out there with more than 10 employees are greedy crooks. You have to be ridiculously paranoid with your bills to avoid whatever idiotic fees they try to hit you with. Rant over!

]]> By: Velvet Jones http://allfinancialmatters.com/2007/08/31/from-us-news-five-nasty-credit-card-surprises/comment-page-1/#comment-135171 Velvet Jones Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:13:35 +0000 http://allfinancialmatters.com/?p=1997#comment-135171 <b>Pay to pay. Close to your credit card due date, you decide to use pay-by-phone or an online payment at the bank's website instead of the mail to get the payment in on time. Expect to pay a fee of $5 to $15 for the convenience.</b> I'd never heard of that before. That's bananas! I read the "credit crackdown" article also. It would be nice if the powers that be would at least attempt to straighten some of this out. Just because a company discloses that they are going to take your arms, legs, and two eye teeth for a late payment, doesn't mean they should be doing it. Really now, enough is enough. Pay to pay. Close to your credit card due date, you decide to use pay-by-phone or an online payment at the bank’s website instead of the mail to get the payment in on time. Expect to pay a fee of $5 to $15 for the convenience.

I’d never heard of that before. That’s bananas! I read the “credit crackdown” article also. It would be nice if the powers that be would at least attempt to straighten some of this out. Just because a company discloses that they are going to take your arms, legs, and two eye teeth for a late payment, doesn’t mean they should be doing it. Really now, enough is enough.

]]>