I paid off CC & now have a finance fee

[stretchmark]

Hi, I paid off citibank in full by the date it was due. I had a 0 balance and should have had them cancel the account.
Now they have a 31.00 finance fee on there from a date when I had a 0 balance. How can they do this?
What can I do about it?

[opally]

This has happened to me too - is has something to do with accrued interest on the balance you've been carrying. It seems really unfair. You can try to call and ask them to waive it, but most likely you'll have to pay.

One time this happened with a Lowes card - I paid it in full, then realized the following month that they wanted a little over $2 - some sort of interest carryover - not only did they refuse to waive it, but I realized it right as it was due, and they said if it wasn't paid, they would charge a $30+ late fee. I couldn't believe it. It really seems that if you pay the "balance due" then that should be that.

[benharperfan]

i used to work for a cc company. it is called a retail residual finance charge. basically it is the interest that accrued from the date the statement closed until the date that you paid your balance in full, based off of your average daily balance. the only way you could have avoided it is if you had paid your balance off in full on the day before or the day of your cycle's closing date. while it is a legit charge and is almost certainly in your cardmember agreement if you read closely, many credit card companies will waive it if you give them a call. usually they base that decision on what "type" of customer you are.

sorry for your frustration!

eta: you would not have had that charge if you had paid off your balance each month BUT as long as you pay the RRFC off this month, you should not see any further charges, as they cannot legally charge you finance charges ON finance charges.

[chelko]

Hmm. Trying to remember what happened. We paid off our citibank card, was charged a finance fee the next month, called and complained, they removed it. There was ANOTHER finance fee (on the finance fee) the following month. Called again, WAS NOT HAPPY, they removed that one too.

Overall, I was not happy with Citibank, raised your %, charged you fees, blah, blah, blah, if you sneezed too loud. But they work with me on the last few things.

Call and give it a try.

Good luck,
chelko

[benharperfan]

Originally Posted by chelko

Hmm. Trying to remember what happened. We paid off our citibank card, was charged a finance fee the next month, called and complained, they removed it. There was ANOTHER finance fee (on the finance fee) the following month. Called again, WAS NOT HAPPY, they removed that one too.

Overall, I was not happy with Citibank, raised your %, charged you fees, blah, blah, blah, if you sneezed too loud. But they work with me on the last few things.

Call and give it a try.

Good luck,
chelko

in my experience, citibank is the worst at fees and customer service and the least likely to "remove" anything. not sure what your personal experience was chelko, but if you were even a day late with payment or didn't pay something because there was a debate about it, then technically they could still charge you more fees. wording is very tricky too, as finance charges entail all charges (late fees, over limit fees, balance transfer or check usage charges, cash advances and the interest itself) and when i said they cannot charge you finance charges twice i was referring specifically to the retail residual finance charges and not any other type of charges. it sucks...i hate credit cards. too bad citibank is the one that we use, but we pay it off every month no matter what it takes!

[AnnMarie]

That happened to me with citibank too, but it was only $5 and change. humm I didn't really think too much of it at the time, but it seems they are trying to rip people off.

[chelko]

Originally Posted by benharperfan

in my experience, citibank is the worst at fees and customer service and the least likely to "remove" anything. not sure what your personal experience was chelko, but if you were even a day late with payment or didn't pay something because there was a debate about it, then technically they could still charge you more fees.

Oh yes, Citibank was definitely crazy with the fees.

I think the reason we were able to talk them out of the last couple of charges was because our payoff was around $4k. (we transfered to a cheaper card).

As for 'good' companies, we have been extremely happy with USAA. We do get the occasional late fees, but they have not raised our % rates in several years.

chelko

[~Megan~]

I used to work there so maybe I can help.

It depends on what you had on the card. If you had cash advances or sometimes balance transfers they accrue interest daily. So you aren't charged interest unless its paid off by the end of the month but rather for each day you carry a balance.

Also if you got the amount by calling or the internet before your statement generated it wouldn't have included the interest that is calculated at the end of your billing cycle.

I hope that makes sense

[stretchmark]

Yes it makes sense and I hope to god I don't have to pay it. I really despise citibank. They are horrible at customer service and are super quick to tack on fees.
My friend used to work for them and he was telling me all sorts of stories about them.

At least it is one more reason to not ever use the card again.

So if I pay this off, are they going to charge me another fee for having carried a balance on the amount of the finance fee? As in next month I'll think I have a 0 balance and then I'll have a % charged again.

[benharperfan]

Originally Posted by stretchmark

So if I pay this off, are they going to charge me another fee for having carried a balance on the amount of the finance fee? As in next month I'll think I have a 0 balance and then I'll have a % charged again.

you shouldn't ... that's what i was saying about no finance charge on a paid-off RRFC. that is, so long as the ONLY charge on your current statement are the 31.00 in interest only charges, not a late charge or even a $1.00 purchase or anything like that.

i would really suggest calling them before you pay it. and...if they do agree to take it off, ask for something in writing confirming that or check your balance online in a couple of days to ensure that they really took it off. because if you don't pay off the RRFC by the due date, then you never really "paid off" the card and interest will continue to accrue on whatever your average daily balance is on your statement.

again, to reiterate, as long as you pay off your RRFC by the due date, no further charges should accrue. they cannot charge interest on paid-off RRFCs.

[TiredX2]

If you can, when you call them, if you end up ending money pay it off *right then* (the full amount) with your debit card. That way the amt that is due *right then* is the amt you are paying.

[AdinaL]

Oh how that pissed me off!!!! I just paid off my card - and bam - $46 dollar in finance charges...grrrrrrrr annoyed as hell. And I DID have them close my account once it was paid off.

Citibank - some cards are good - some are not. This was one of the not good ones. grrrr...:

[AnnMarie]

Originally Posted by AdinaL

Citibank - some cards are good - some are not. This was one of the not good ones. grrrr...:

I'm going to have to agree because I paid off several cards and that's the ONLY one that charged me finance charges after I paid it off.

[AdinaL]

It's funny cause I paid off two citibank cards - both with due dates at the beginning of the month - and on charged me, and the other didn't. Oh well, the one that charged me I cancelled.

[AnnMarie]

Just a side note. It's great to pay off credit cards, but it may not be so great to close the accounts. I heard on some program the other day that by closing credit accounts you could lower your score up to 40%. That is NOT good if it's true. I just keep mine at home and don't use them now, except for one. I'll use that one and pay it off right away just to get the amazon gift certificate rewards. :LOL

[benharperfan]

Originally Posted by AnnMarie

Just a side note. It's great to pay off credit cards, but it may not be so great to close the accounts. I heard on some program the other day that by closing credit accounts you could lower your score up to 40%. That is NOT good if it's true. I just keep mine at home and don't use them now, except for one. I'll use that one and pay it off right away just to get the amazon gift certificate rewards. :LOL

:

the reason being that if you close the card it makes it look as if you are financially irresponsible, and lowers your debt ratio (the amout you have charged versus your credit line).

my dh and i have probably 20 credit cards total with a possible total credit line of like $150000, and while we don't carry a balance on anything except promotional cards (i.e. 0.00% APR for 2 years if paid in full by due date) we won't close them either. when we bought our new car last year, and got our mortgage, the loan offiicers were very impressed with our credit scores.

what we do is either cut up the card when we get it or usually what i do is put them in my bowl of water that i then put in the freezer. that way, we have the cards if we need them for emergency, but we can't just pull one out and use it for a splurge since it is in a block of ice.

[AdinaL]

Yeah - I have two cards. One that is $2800 limit and on that is a $3400 limit. I paid them both off and closed the smaller one. The customer service was crap and I hated that card. I still have a gas card (paid off) and a target card (paid off). DH has an AT&T, a Discover and a gas card...all paid off. So we still have a significant amount of credit available - I just wanted to get rid of some of it.

As for our credit scores....well, they can't get a whole lot worse - we just got DH out of a Credit Counseling Service....:LOL So I think anything we do at this point will help.

[AnnMarie]

Speaking of credit scores, I'm curious how many people here know theirs? I know mine because when I co-signed for my mother's car they told me even though they weren't supposed to.

[TiredX2]

Originally Posted by AnnMarie

Speaking of credit scores, I'm curious how many people here know theirs? I know mine because when I co-signed for my mother's car they told me even though they weren't supposed to.

I know mine from when we bought our car this January.

Here is the thread I started asking people:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...3&page=1&pp=20

[AnnMarie]

Originally Posted by TiredX2

I know mine from when we bought our car this January.

Here is the thread I started asking people:
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...3&page=1&pp=20

:LOL That's right, I forgot about that thread. I had voted in it too. :

Now I'm wondering something......will my score stay the same, go up, or go down now that I've paid off all but 1 CC? I have 6 cards, 1 never carried a balance, none were maxed out, none were ever late, and all but 1 were paid off. What should I expect to happen? Anyone know? I'm in NH so I can't get my free score until Sept. 1st. : Hopefully I will have sold my house and will be living in FL by then.