late credit card payment fee

burnaby

I've never been late for a payment before & naively didn't think about charges, so when my balance this month was 50p I decided to leave it & pay it off with next months payment.
Now the credit card company have charged me £12.
Is there anything I can do about it? It seems very disproportionate to me.

thriftymomma

You chose not to pay and wonder why they charged you? Yes disproportionate but its in the t and c's. As it is your first offence you may be able to get your charge back quite easily however. Good luck.

sujman

Pay off the 50p immeadiately and ask nicely to have the £12 reversed.

Remind them of your previous good payment record. Always works for me when I missed the dates a couple times in the past!

Dont mention the charge seems disproportionate (think £12 has been ruled as a fair charge, down from £25+ they used to charge in the past) as that'll just get their backs up.

chattychappy

sujman wrote: »

Dont mention the charge seems disproportionate (think £12 has been ruled as a fair charge, down from £25+ they used to charge in the past) as that'll just get their backs up.

Willing to stand corrected on this, but I think that £12 is just an OFT figure above which they would consider the amount unfair and would investigate themselves. They never said that a figure below this in a particular case would be fair. Despite this, the figure has since become a de facto standard.

Under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, the fees should not be greater than the costs to the bank as a result of the customer's breach - ie damages.

Given the amount concerned was only 50p, it does seem that a bank would have a hard time justifying that they reasonably incurred £12 in this case. Or perhaps they could..!

There were some cases batting around the courts. Not sure if what I have said is the up-to-date position.

Anyway, a negotiated settlement would surely be the best solution. If they won't waive it, why not offer them a fiver?

sujman

chattychappy wrote: »

Willing to stand corrected on this, but I think that £12 is just an OFT figure above which they would consider the amount unfair and would investigate themselves. They never said that a figure below this in a particular case would be fair. Despite this, the figure has since become a de facto standard.

Under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, the fees should not be greater than the costs to the bank as a result of the customer's breach - ie damages.

Given the amount concerned was only 50p, it does seem that a bank would have a hard time justifying that they reasonably incurred £12 in this case. Or perhaps they could..!

There were some cases batting around the courts. Not sure if what I have said is the up-to-date position.

Anyway, a negotiated settlement would surely be the best solution. If they won't waive it, why not offer them a fiver?

You're likely to be more right than I am. I was just thinking about something I read somewhere recently.

The main point of my post was that almost always the best way to get the resolution in cases like this (only a 50p misdemeanour) was not to start quoting OFT, UTCCR 1999 and all that good stuff to the call handler on the other end of the phone - but to simply ask nicely and appeal to their better nature.

I missed a £1,000+ payment once by 2 weeks. I got charged the late payment fee and some interest.

3 months AFTER all these charges were applied, I finally got round to calling the CC company up.

5 mins of sweet talking later, I had everything refunded.

chattychappy

sujman wrote: »

The main point of my post was that almost always the best way to get the resolution in cases like this (only a 50p misdemeanour) was not to start quoting OFT, UTCCR 1999 and all that good stuff to the call handler on the other end of the phone - but to simply ask nicely and appeal to their better nature.

Agreed!

This kind of stuff I would only stick in a letter if the nice approach fails.

youknowwho

burnaby wrote: »

I've never been late for a payment before & naively didn't think about charges, so when my balance this month was 50p I decided to leave it & pay it off with next months payment.
Now the credit card company have charged me £12.
Is there anything I can do about it? It seems very disproportionate to me.

Your terms and conditions says that you have to make a min payment each month if you have a balance, you admit you had 50p to pay, and u just ignored it??? you therefore didnt make a min payment and were charged the stat late fee. you have no grounds for complaint, you chose not to make a payment, you chose not to read your terms and conditions and have now breached them, therefore you are lliable to the penalty, get over it and learn and set up a DD next time!

chattychappy

youknowwho wrote: »

Your terms and conditions says that..... you have no grounds for complaint

Terms and conditions get modified in all sorts of ways by the operation of law - especially with respect to penalty clauses, exclusion clauses etc. Terms can get inserted, removed, elevated to condtions etc. This can happen by statute law - eg Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, Sales of Goods Act 1979, the regs mentioned earlier, CCA, etc., or common law.

Just because the bank write something down and you sign it, doesn't mean you're bound by it. And if you're not bound by it, then you might have grounds for a complaint.

The contract you're bound by could be a superset, subset or something that overlaps with what was signed.

Lawyers often draft contracts knowing that some parts may be unenforceable. They rely on people not realising that what is written down may not be the last word on the matter. That is why the banks are now writing in £12 when they used to write in £25 or so.

The concept that someone can read something, sign it, and then might not be bound by it might cause some moral outrage, but that's the way the system works.

Patrick20

Give them a phone and be as nice as possible BUT stand firm and don't let them make you hang up, if they don't accept that its unfair, then start using all the information everyone here has given you. Even if at the end of the call you dont get it refunded make sure your call has cost them £12 worth of valuble time. :beer:

whittyandy

'youknowwho' why are you always so rude when replying