Monday, March 19, 2007

F***ing Credit Cards

I'm so pissed off right now. But that's nothing new, right?

I have one credit card to pay off. ONE. And it's the one I've been procrastinating on because it has a fairly substantial balance (I would love to actually give the exact amount, but I'm working on becoming more mysterious. We'll see how that works out).

Anyway, this particular credit card is one of the really stupid financial decisions Scout and I made a couple of years ago. "Yeah, let's go on vacation and put it all on a credit card." Super idea.

Well, I went to make a payment of about 1/3 of the balance a couple of weeks ago, and the piece of shit company that I pay my bill online through (www.mycheckfree.com) screwed up the payment. I ended up on the phone with Bank of America for four days trying to straighten up the mess that I DIDN'T MAKE (including explaining the fact that there was more than enough money in the account to cover the payment).

So tonight I'm going through the bills I have to mail out tomorrow (including the Bank of America credit card that I USED to pay online), and I notice that not only is there a $39.00 "returned check" fee, but I'm being charged 24.24% interest on $224.44 of my balance, which is listed as a cash advance. I have never used my credit card for a cash advance, and I have never paid 24% on anything. But because this stupid online company fucked up, I'm paying a hefty amount in penalties and interest.

So I call Bank of America (and punch in 78 different pieces of information, and then wait on the line for ten minutes), and the lady answers the phone and (seriously) says, "How can I provide you with excellent service?" So I tell her the story and she connects me to an office that isn't open. So I call back, punch in the same 78 pieces of information, wait on the line, and the second person I talk to says I have to call back tomorrow. So much for excellent service.

So now I'm wide awake, trying to find a credit card that I can transfer the balance to without paying $800,000 in "transfer fees." I cannot wait to be out of this mess we got ourselves into (which, surprisingly enough, is not the most irritating mess we've gotten into lately. More on that later).

But there is good news: I will be knitting for the next 48 hours.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wanted to comment a long time ago but didn't. Count's absolutely right -- Bank of America SUCKS. To make a long story short, I tried to pay them. We had no problems paying online for EVER until we moved to Germany and had no computer for a month. When we finally got settled there were late fees and all sorts of yuck. Seeing that I had been a faithful customer for NINE YEARS, I called them to explain the issue.

Yeah.

Not only did they not cut me a break on fees (which I have to admit was all my fault, but I was seriously hoping that my track record would at least gimme something) but the chick was rude. I ended up cancelling my account.

Well, you can't pay a closed account online which presented another problem -- trying to pay those fuckers on time was a magic act with the overseas snail-mail. And each time I called, it was the same thing. No help, rude service, me flipping out....

At one point my interest rate was like 29%..... it was ridiculous. And I am NOT a bad bill payer!! I still get mad thinking about them.

-Allicadem