attgig

So, I saw some finance charges on my amex blue associated with a month where i had high expenses (putting round trip flights on there, that I later expensed to my company).

I had about 4k in that monthly bill.

I paid about 3600 bucks of it before I left (i knew a paycheck was coming in while i was gone, and didn't want to move my money around from other accounts for a couple hundred bucks).

after I came back, i paid the 400 or so remaining on the balance.

so, didn't really think about it, till just couple days ago, went through my recent statements, and saw that i got charged about 20 bucks in finance charges.

so, i call them up, cuz from my calculations, 400 bucks should net about 3-4 bucks in finance charges. But according to the guy i talked to, he said that if i pay ANY of it late, the finance charges are applied to ALL the money that i charged onto the account, not just the 400 bucks that i paid late.

do all credit card companies work like that? or is this guy just sh*tting me?

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VTGreg

No idea if this is par for the course for the credit card companies, but if you are a long standing customer with Amex they will probably give you a credit for the finance charge.

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InfiniteNothing

Oh yeah... that's how they all work.
The grace period is really sort of a gift.... (a legally mandated gift, but a gift nevertheless). If you don't pay in full, the finance charges begin accumulating from the day of your purchase. (so you pay more for things earlier in the month)

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Merlin

Typically that is the way it works. If you don't pay off your full balance you'll pay interest on the Average Daily Balance, which in your case was pretty high.

If you call and raise a fuss about it they will probably give you a break - a one time courtesy or some other such foolishness.

Be aware of your dates, the credit card companies love to make money off big fees for stuff like this.

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attgig

FREAKIN Average Daily Balance. that's what I didn't calculate. forgot that they used that....

so, essentially, i paid for the average balance i had on my credit card over the course of the whole month rather than just the part that was left over from the grace period.

grrrrrrr.

got that for next time. not going to let them screw me over like that again.

thanks.

Butch

Hate to be the SOB to say it, but they didn't screw ya over . . . they told you up front that's the way it worked . . .

I would have referred to the $20 you paid as the "stupid tax." (Not calling you stupid, of course)

Whenever something like that happens to me, I pretty much always tell myself "Oh well, I just paid the stupid tax" . . . everyone pays the stupid tax from time to time . . . so the best bet is to minimize the number of times you have to pay it . . . easiest way to do that is to not make the same mistake twice, of course

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InfiniteNothing

Don't taxes usually go to the government? More like a stupid fee

Butch

Bah, I've considered calling it the "stupid fee," but I felt that the "stupid tax" sounded better . . . you know . . . from a marketing perspective . . . it's really all about the concept . . . by the way, I consider the concepts of both the "stupid tax" and "stupid fee" copyrighted by ME . . .

Figured I should explictly state that now so that I don't pay the stupid tax/fee because someone sees this and decides to take the idea and write a multi-million dollar book/self-help seminar . . .

zippyjuan

Looks like I could get hit for this. I put my credit card bill and my utility bill in each other's envelopes- with my address showing in the windows instead of the payment address so they got mailled to me! I would have been close this time anyways, but this guaranteed that they would be late. Darn it!

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Merlin

See if you can do an online payment. That might get you through in time to avoid the late fee. If not call them and say the payment was returned. Maybe they'll let you slip.