I am usually on top of all my credit card bills and set them on autopay. Contrary to what people think, I think it is safe to put the credit cards on autopay if you review your charges frequently. I review my charges about once a day or once every two days to make sure all my charges are legitimate and there are no suspicious transactions. I easily do so, using my favorite expense tracking app on my phone called Mint. You can load all your bank accounts and credit cards and track every transaction that goes in and out. Saves a lot of time in your lifetime! When setting autopay on all my credit cards, there might be a time where I forget to set up autopay and get charged a late fee. What do you do with credit card missed payments and late fees?
Mint.com sends late fee notices through email.
A few days ago Mint sent me an alert that I had a late fee charge and interest charge on my Citicard Executive credit card. Apparently my autopay was never set up (my mistake). I hate unnecessary fees so I did what I could to avoid the fee. I called the number on the back of the card. The phone call went like this:
“Hello, welcome to Citicard how may I help you?”
“Hello, I was charged a late fee on my credit card and I mistakenly forgot to pay it. However, I just paid the full balance and was wondering if I can have a one time courtesy fee waiver.”
“I can certainly do that for you.”
“Great, thank you appreciate your support.”
That was about it, all I had to do is tell the truth and ask for a courtesy fee waiver. I’ve probably had to do this about one or two times a year because I often forget to set up the autopay or the autopay doesn’t register for the first payment. The best way to handle late fees is being able to catch them right away and calling right away for a courtesy fee waiver. I did have an instance where I didn’t catch it and waited a bit to notice with my AMEX Blue Cash Preferred credit card. The agent wouldn’t waive the fee, but I was able to tweet AMEX and they solved the problem for me. So, I still have a perfect record in never paying a late fee, thankfully. Make sure you call for credit card missed payments and late fees!
Have you always been successful not paying late fees? Or are you a lot more organized than I am?
