A Near Disaster with 0% Balance Transfers
I’d like to nominate myself for ‘Idiot of the Year.’ After explaining all the pitfalls of 0% balance transfers, how dangerous it can be, and how careful you need to track your due dates… I miss a payment. I was reconciling my checking account and my bank showed I had $148 more than my records, exactly one payment on my Citi Professional card. Panic sunk in, and I rushed over to Citi’s website, to realize my worst fears - I had missed May’s payment. Now well into June, I now had 2 minimum monthly payments, a $102 finance charge, and a $39 late fee starring at me. Worst of all, my 0% promotional rate had ended, and I was defaulted to the standard 12.99%.
After I calmed down a bit I made the $390 minimum payment and gave Citi a call. I explained the situation, how my records show I had made the payment, but neither Citi nor my bank showed the payment. He told me they might be able to give me back the 0% promotional offer, but I would have to call back the next day, after my payment had posted.
The next day, I made another call to Citi and explained again. The payment had gone through, and I asked about returning to my 0% rate. He put me on hold to talk with a manager. After about a minute of the most intense telephone on-hold experience of my life, the service rep came back and told me that, only this once, they could restore my 0% rate. Thank God. I asked about the finance charges or the late fee, and he basically said, ‘Too bad.’
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So, please let this be a lesson to everybody out there. Don’t forget to make your minimum monthly payments!! I think I got VERY lucky this time, and I only escaped with $140 in finance charges and penalties. That will cut into my profits this round, but I’ll still end up positive, so long as there aren’t any more mistakes.
Posted on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 @ 8:26 am by BudgetFreak
Filed Under: Credit Cards , Personal , Expenses
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on 20 Jun 2007 at 12:33 pm 1.Melissa said …
Oh my goodness. I think we cursed you….Matt, Nicole, your gf and I were talking about this on Monday after that lovely dinner….
Eeks! Can you do automatic withdraw payments from your checking account? You’d probably be a better candidate than myself for that because I’m sure you have more of a revolving balance in your actual checking account…
on 20 Jun 2007 at 9:24 pm 2.broknowrchlatr said …
Ouch.. That’s a pain… cutting into the money you were supposed to gain from the transfer. So, what do you have the money invested in?
on 21 Jun 2007 at 7:17 am 3.BudgetFreak said …
Melissa-
Chase is the only card I can do auto withdrawals for, and even then, I’m a little nervous doing that. I’m afraid I’ll get too lazy if everything is automatic.
broknowrchlatr-
The money is in a Washington Mutual Online Savings account, earning 5% interest. I could probably more else where, or with CD’s or something more risky, but for my first time, I wanted to play it safe.
on 24 Jun 2007 at 9:03 am 4.Lulu said …
something similar to this happened to me. In my case the payment went through one day late because I fiddled with the automatic payment dates in my accounts. I was able to save my 0% rate and I got the late payment fees reversed ‘just this once’ like you so I was happy about that. Whew! We dodged the bullet on that one.