Waiving the Finance Charge

This morning I unhappily opened my credit card statement and found yet another finance charge from our failure to pay the credit card on time back in January. My husband usually pays the credit card online via bill pay, but he was out of town in January and simply forgot to schedule the payment. He realized the mistake two days later and paid the credit card in full.

When we received the bill in February I expected to see the late fee and finance charge and immediately called the credit card company to ask that the charges be waived. Chase agreed to waive the late fee but refused to waive the finance charge. I wasn’t happy with Chase’s response but I was willing to accept it, until today. Today, when I opened the bill and found a second finance charge I was furious.

I called Chase and asked why we received finance charges two months in a row despite the fact that we were only late once. The representative couldn’t clearly explain why the second finance fee was assessed. I asked her to waive the second finance fee but she refused. Unwilling to give up, I handed the phone to my husband (who was yelling stuff in the background), to speak with a supervisor. A few minutes later the larger of the two financing fees was waived. In addition, the supervisor credited our account $10 for being value customers.

Oddly enough a few hours after hanging up the phone this morning I came across this post by J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly. It seems we’re not the only ones calling our credit card company to waive late fees and finance charges.