Late Payment Fees: 3 Tips To Use When It’s Not Your Fault

Your phone rings and you’re surprised to hear that it’s your credit card company telling you that your payment isn’t large enough to cover your minimum monthly payment - and now you have late payment fees. You very confidently tell your credit card company that they’re mistaken and you demand that they double check their records. They do and the response is the same.

According to their records you’re late – and as a result you’re being hit with a late payment fees and another ding on your already-battered credit report.

You angrily hang up vowing to call your bank and prove them wrong. When you get off the phone with your bank you’re a little weak in the knees because it turns out your credit card company is right – you are late – but you know you made the payment in the correct amount. Your canceled check, however, tells a different story.

Your $15 minimum payment – the amount of your check – isn’t what was paid by your bank. They paid $1.50.

So what do you do?

The first thing is to realize that out of the tens of millions of bank transactions recorded every year, a mistake will occasionally happen. If this happens to you, don’t panic. Mistakes can and do happen, but they can be corrected and life as you know it won’t end.

Here’s what you need to do to get the mistake corrected:

• Call Your Bank – This should be a simple fix. You can usually get the mistake cleared up within a minute or two by calling your bank and explaining to them what has occurred. That’s the good news. The bad news is that your credit card company has charged your account for paying late. Normally, your bank will be extremely apologetic about what has happened and they’ll be willing to provide you with a letter explaining the mistake. They won’t volunteer to do this, but if you ask politely they’ll usually agree.

• Call Your Credit Card Company – Once you have the letter from your bank you can call your credit card company and try to get the late payment fee reversed. With the letter as evidence, many credit card companies will be willing to reverse the fee.

If the customer service representative can’t or won’t help you, ask to speak with a Supervisor. Be polite, and acknowledge that the late payment isn’t their fault, but explain that it’s not your fault either. Ask that they extend to you a courtesy fee waiver. Many credit card companies will do this in the interest of keeping you happy, although they aren’t required to. If they refuse, you have another option.

• Get it from Your Bank – Since your bank made the mistake that caused the late fee, it stands to reason that they should be willing to pay for it. Most will reimburse you for the late fee once they have proof that one was charged. Keep all correspondence, though, because you may have to wait until the following month when your credit card statement comes out to see the fee on your billing statement.

A minor banking error doesn’t have to spell the end of the line for your creditworthiness, but you may have to go to bat for yourself. If your bank won’t take economic responsibility for their mistake you can either keep complaining and hope that your bank accepts responsibility, or you can close your account and shift your money to a bank more responsive to your needs.

The ding on your credit report can probably be cleared up by forwarding proof to the credit reporting agency and disputing the negative entry.

If your bank drops the ball, don’t settle for what you get. Demand that they make it right. The sqeaky wheel gets the grease. You may have to squeak loudly to be heard.

Has a banking error ever cost you money? What did the late payment fees cost you What happened? Did they make it right?

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