My credit card company screws up, and makes me do all the work to fix it.

[Boozy]

A few weeks ago, I got a call from my credit card company telling me there's been a "security issue" and they are replacing my card and my card's number. Although we quickly confirmed that there had been no fraudulent charges, my credit card number had been "potentially compromised".

After some (relatively polite) pestering on my part, they finally admitted that the "security issue" had been on their end. I didn't get angry; I just wanted to make sure it wasn't my fault. If the issue had arisen due to something I had been doing, I wanted to know about it so it didn't happen again.

And so it began.

I got my new card in the mail and had to spend over 2 hours on the phone attempting to activate it. The automated system kept hanging up on me. Finally, I had to wait in queue for a real person; this took up the bulk of the time.

The next day, I went to pay my bill online. Their online system didn't recognize my new card as valid. After another hour on the phone, we fixed that problem. Only to realize that they hadn't transferred my balance yet. So I had to wait a few days for that to go through.

Today, I go online and my information has been transferred. I have a small balance on my card. Because we were paying 0.97% as a promotional interest rate until the end of August, I had left the balance sitting there. Our savings account offers nearly 4% interest, so that's where my money will be going until the credit card rate expires.

Except that when they transferred my new balance, they didn't transfer the promotional interest rate. I was hit with an interest charge amounting to almost 22%.

Another hour on the phone. The woman I spoke to said she can't fix it herself, and that they will "review" the charges and get back to me in a few weeks. I have no doubt that they will see it my way, but I'm not happy I had to call to begin with.

I'm trying very hard not to get angry. They screwed up - and it has cost me almost four hours of my time. And a lot of stress that I really and truly don't need right now.

I'm thinking of writing a complaint letter. Their CSR's have been great, but their overall system is terrible. My feeling is that if they make a mistake, it's up to them to make sure that the problem is fixed. In the case of security issues, why not set it up so that the online banking department immediately follows through to make sure everything goes smoothly? Why do they not have a system in place to make sure that promotional offers are transferred? They made sure that every red cent of my balance was transferred, but they don't care about the offers that save me money.

And their automated card activation system is just balls.

Banks. Argh.

[katie kaboom]

The more i deal with banks the more tempted i am to just keep my money in a shoebox under the bed.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I'm having problems with my credit card company right now.

I logged into my bank account Friday to see how much my check was, and noticed my credit card payment hadn't been made, even though I could've swore I scheduled it and even deducted the amount in my check register. No problem, I'll just go online to make the payment....

Dammit, the online payment service is down. Okay, guess I'll choose the pay-by-phone method. I spent 10 minutes punching numbers on my cell phone for a computer, and got a confirmation number.

Checked my account again yesterday and the payment still wasn't applied! I'll bet, though, that the $15 charge to pay over the phone shows up on my account just fine. I called customer service but got nowhere because the CSR asked me for a password I do not ever recall being asked to set, let alone remember, so he couldn't talk to me.

So I had to try the online bill-pay again, which fortunately was working, and scheduled my payment for today, the due date, and printed out the confirmation sheet. The money will be taken out of my account tomorrow but the payment is dated for today, at least according to the credit card website.

If I get a late payment and all the wonderful charges that go with it, I'm going to be very unhappy.

[Crazeyal]

I'd send them an invoice for the four hours. Nothing will come of it, but you'll feel better.

[Evil Queen]

*shrugs* I pay my bill before the due date. (Bill is due on the 15th of every month but it usually allows me to pay it on the 25th of the previous month.

[FenigDurak]

The more i deal with banks the more tempted i am to just keep my money in a shoebox under the bed.

A great big ditto to that. I actually mused about inventing a mattress that pays interest. I mentioned it to a friend who then used it to twist out a joke about making money ON a mattress rather than with a mattress. Jerk.

[Jack7957]

One time I was refused to make a payment, because I had already paid too much that month.

The cc company would only allow you to pay up to double the amount of your credit line. Since I was using this card for work, I was running it up and paying it off almost every week when I'd get my check for expenses. So the third time that month that I went to make a payment, I got the "too bad, so sad" from them.

[bainsidhe]

Boozy, to you have the option of just cancelling the card? That may make you feel a lot better. At the very least, their retention department may suddenly be able to do the things you were asking for before. I mean, their job is to retain, right?

And don't hold your breathe that they'll get back back to you in a few weeks. This is their way of brushing you off so that you'll hopefully forget about it. I still need to follow up with my chase card and ask about my missing reward points. I called a few months back because they weren't calculating correctly and I was told there'd be an investigation and they'd let me know in a few weeks. I'm still waiting.