True confession: I missed a credit card payment. Oops.
I’ve never missed a credit card payment before…NEVER. It’s embarrassing to admit, never mind to blog about it.
How did it happen, you ask? Well, it’s not that I forgot it. On the contrary, I thought I had paid the bill through my online billpay portal. But instead of paying this particular credit card creditor, I mistakenly entered the payment into the wrong payee field. And I didn’t notice it until I’d logged back into our online banking — 3 days AFTER the due date. I immediately sent the payment to the correct creditor, but it was technically late.
If he’s reading this, I know exactly what my father is thinking at this moment: “This is why I still mail my bills!” True, it’s hard to screw up and pay the wrong creditor when you’re writing a check and mailing it, but you could always write out the check to the wrong company… right?
My Punishment
The creditor charged me a $15 late fee, which was the minimum payment due, and upped the next month’s minimum to $33, plus the $15 from the previous month, for a total of $48 due. As a rule of thumb, I pay much more than the minimum payment, so it’s not an issue.
The payment wasn’t 30 days overdue, so I’m hoping it doesn’t get reported to the credit agencies — that would suck. But I don’t plan to need any credit anytime soon, and the last time I checked, my credit scores hovered around 800 for all three agencies.
Sometimes a creditor will waive the late fee, particularly if you’re a long-time customer and you’ve never been late. I would call them and let them know what transpired. There is a danger these days of having your interest rate raised significantly when you’re late, so if you call and explain that it was an honest oversight — which you obviously quickly remedied — there may be a chance that you can prevent that from happening.
Terrible! I missed one payment on a student loan and got DINGED. I tried to fight it but failed.
@Evan: Total suckville. I feel like a deadbeat.
If you’ve always paid on time, they’ll reverse all charges – call them up.
Carlo is right call them and they will waive the fee. I’ve done this in the past.
Yeah, definitely call them. I’ve had at least one (maybe two) accidental late fees erased by explaining. In both cases, I had recently moved, and with all the change-of-addressing, potential for the misplacement of statements, and my reliable history, they gave me a pass.