charged late fee for early payment

sjh101

I've basically been charged a late fee for paying too early on my credit card.

I've had the credit card with a specific company for about 10 or 11 months now. I send a manual payment of£15 ( just over enough to cover minimum each month). I send the payment either 13th or 15th of each month depending on when I get paid. Just recently I found that I was charged a late fee for late payment even though I sent payment the same time of the month as I always do, with no previous issues. I explained this to them and they refunded the late payment. However, I wanted to know why this had happened and They told me that I had two payments of £15 for the May statement and £0 for the June statement, as it's all to do with when the statements are produced. I'm still very annoyed about this as it puts a black mark against my name in credit ratings, and I always make sure I pay each month to avoid this. Just because the statements are produced in a way that alters things slightly, I've been penalised for it.

I'm yet to respond to them regarding this but I'd like to know what would happen if I set up a direct debit for a certain day of each month which I was advised to do. This would surely result in the same thing?? If I set up payment to come out on the 15th of each month, then for those times that the company produces a statement that's at a slightly different time to normal then the same thing would happen again through no fault of my own.

I'm still fuming that I've been penalised, not for not paying, or paying late, but paying too early. I find it ludicrous. Is there anywhere I can take it further?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

YorkshireBoy

sjh101 wrote: »

...I'd like to know what would happen if I set up a direct debit for a certain day of each month which I was advised to do. This would surely result in the same thing?? If I set up payment to come out on the 15th of each month, then for those times that the company produces a statement that's at a slightly different time to normal then the same thing would happen again through no fault of my own.

The card provider sets up the DD, not you. They're in control of when it's called. They'll tell you on your statement when they're going to collect it. With a DD, you can actually pay 2, 3, or even 4 days 'late' (when weekends & Bank Holidays get in the way), and still not be 'late'!

To your issue...it's 100% your fault (on several points), so I'd say take the refund - and the learning point - and move on...safe in the knowledge that, now you know how it works, it'll never happen again.

[Deleted User]

Always pay according to your statements, not your payday.

saver861

As above ..... good lesson to learn. Its worth while taking time to understand about your credit card statements, due dates etc etc. Statements usually come a couple of weeks before the due date. Items that you purchase on or around the time the statement is printed will appear on the following months statement. And so on.....

Certainly a Direct Debit is the much better way to do it as YB says. Credit Card company then asks your bank for the money on the due date and you don't need to do anything.

Out of interest, are you just paying the minimum amount and then paying interest on a balance? If so, you would do well to look into that and see if you can get a new card with 0% interest, usually 18 months or more. If you do a balance transfer then you wont be incurring interest, if you are currently.

Incidentally, if you do go down that route, make sure you make the payments on time or you will lose the 0% deal as well as getting a late payment fine.

Caz3121

you receive a statement on x date and it tells you that you need to pay before y date.
It appears that the June statement was produced after you had made your payment. Did it not show 2 payments on the statement?

jonesMUFCforever

I think the title of the thread is misleading - you have been charged not for paying early but not at all.
As others have said you will have 2 credits on previous statement.

What can you do about it?
If first offence phone them up explain what happened politely and ask if they will refund as a gesture of goodwill (most will) and offer to set up a direct debit for the minimum payment.

Once the D/D is set up it will not matter when you make the manual payments.

YorkshireBoy

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

What can you do about it?
If first offence phone them up explain what happened politely and ask if they will refund as a gesture of goodwill

It's unlikely they'll refund twice!


From the OP...

they refunded the late payment

GingerBob_3

Take the refund. Then, if they won't de-blacklist you at the CRAs close the card. And tell them why.


Yet another example of dysfunctional credit reporting that's permitted in this country.


What is the purpose of credit reporting? To identify people who borrow money and don't pay it back. Of course since CRAs came into being there's been a massive scope creep in credit reporting to the extent that even something like this is now held against you. It's now mainly a blackmailing system to force you to accept everything the lender/utility provider/miscellaneous other throws at you.

jellie

GingerBob wrote: »

Take the refund. Then, if they won't de-blacklist you at the CRAs close the card. And tell them why.

So tell the card company that they are closing their account because they didn't bother to find out when they should make their payments?

GingerBob wrote: »

Of course since CRAs came into being there's been a massive scope creep in credit reporting to the extent that even something like this is now held against you. It's now mainly a blackmailing system to force you to accept everything the lender/utility provider/miscellaneous other throws at you.

So someone takes out a credit card, uses it, doesn't bother to find out how it works and when their repayments are due. And this is the fault of the CRAs?

saver861

GingerBob wrote: »

Take the refund. Then, if they won't de-blacklist you at the CRAs close the card. And tell them why.


Yet another example of dysfunctional credit reporting that's permitted in this country.

You can't have it both ways.

In this case the borrower was clearly at fault. Obviously unintentional on the borrowers part, and the CC has refunded the late payment.

There is no fault on the CC company in this case.

GingerBob_3

saver861 wrote: »

You can't have it both ways.

In this case the borrower was clearly at fault. Obviously unintentional on the borrowers part, and the CC has refunded the late payment.

There is no fault on the CC company in this case.

Exactly my point. Unintentional. A mistake of the most trivial kind that involved no loss whatsoever to the card company. Nevertheless, they've put the punter on a CRA blacklist.


The problem we have with the current CRA regime is that it doesn't differentiate between trivial mistakes and borrowing malpractice. And it's worse where utility companies are concerned. All sorts of issues there can cause unjustified blacklisting.