Credit Card Company Stupidity

ST, the thing is that you are better protected with a credit card than with a debit card if something were to happen. I don't need the credit part of a credit card because I pay them off every month, but I wouldn't have the same peace of mind just using my debit card.

I agree. We have a MC with Capital One (thanks for mentioning the iPhone app, whoever did!) and an AmEx through Costco. We've had fraudulent charges on our debit card before and thankfully the bank cleared them up, but now I just use my credit cards for any online purchase (or any purchase where the card doesn't stay with me, like at restaurants).

Capital One has been pretty good about catching out-of-the-ordinary things. A few times we've made unusual purchases and they've called right away (and called more than once if they didn't get us the first time around). They've caught fraudulent things before we have. However they got a little snotty with us last year. We were paying our bill through Bank of America and a couple of times the payments came in a day late because the due date fell on a weekend (which doesn't matter to CapOne apparently). They charged us some fees, raised our interest rate. I called and threw a fit, was told there was nothing they could do. So I went online and switched all my auto-pay stuff (like Netflix, Amazon) to the AmEx card. Within one billing cycle, I got a letter of apology and all the charges and interest rates were reversed. Honestly, I wonder sometimes if we've made some sort of 'list' because we pay our balance off every month and they don't really make any money off of us. I'd have to look back through old statements to be sure, but I'm almost certain they changed the due dates on our statement and didn't tell us, because we were suddenly having issues with payments being late when we never had before.

We had a card through Citibank and saw them try some REALLY underhanded stuff as well. They offered us an amazing deal--0% on a transferred balance without any purchase requirements. We had a little CC debt that had been following us around since med school, so we jumped at the chance. About a year or two into paying the balance off (and making no purchases on the card, LOL), they started doing random things, like leaving automated phone messages saying at they were going to 'upgrade' us to this amazing offer unless they heard back withing X days. . . oh and of course all of our previous terms and conditions would no longer apply. We learned to open every. single. thing. that Citibank sent in the mail, even if looked like junk mail. They finally tried to force our hand a few months ago and gave us an 'ultimatum'--either upgrade to this new 'offer' or close our account with them and pay off the balance under the old terms. So we closed the account, which was what we had planned to do all along anyway as soon as we were done using them as an interest-free loan. Now they're stuck with us until we pay it off, which we're doing very slowly, because hey, no interest, LOL.

[Michele]

AmEx has been calling all week cause they couldn't get a hold of Russ. My gas purchases on our trip set off their radar and they were holding payments until they heard from us. I love AmEx!