Late payment fee due to easter B/H

Your statement will tell you when to send your payment to ensure it arrives (and clears) by the payment due date. You generally have to allow 4-5 days for this to happen - you left 2 days! (don't forget we had Good Friday as well). So, you can't blame your bank.

You might try phoning the card provider and asking for the fee to be waived. If they refuse, apparently you can threaten to take them to court and they will re-imburse you at the last minute. This will involve you writing them a couple of letters, and filing a claim with the courts service (fee payable but apparently you get this back when you win your case).

Alternatively, you could put it down to experience, learn from it, and either send your payment in plenty of time in future or, better still, set up a direct debit (which in your case would have been collected on the 18th anyway - WITH NO PENALTY).

BTW, they didn't 'choose' Easter Monday. They chose the 17th April, which just happened to be Easter Monday, based on it being x days after your statement date.

I'm with Capital one, who have waived the fee for me a couple of times plus interest charged as a result of paying a few pence too little on one occasion.

Once when my mother died I completely forgot to pay that month's CC bill. I received both late payment and interest charges on the next bill. When I explained to the call handler why that month had not gone according to plan, he simply waived both charges.

I suggest you phone then CC company up and ask them to waive the fee. If they don't, pay off your account and move the balance (if you have one) to Capital One.

H