Complaint Review: Circuit City - Chase Bank

Please note that this is not scheduling a payment through my bank. Yes, those do take awhile since they are actually cutting a check and mailing it out. This is making a payment on Chase's website, which is virtually instantaneous. There is not real manpower involved - it is pretty much automated and the result is that Chase electronically withdraws the money from my checking account.

However, the complaint is not that they are charging $14.95 for payments made within 5 days of the due date. The complaint is that they did not TELL anyone that they were doing this. So imagine that you planned to mail a check to Chase. Your payment is due on March 30, and you figure you should allow 10 days for it to reach Chase. You mail it on March 20, and Chase receives it on March 26. That is less than 5 days from your due date, so Chase arbitrarily charges you $14.95 because they did not receive your payment by March 25. They did not tell you in advance that they had to receive the payment by March 25, so you did not know that you needed to alter your usual practice of mailing it 10 days ahead of time. THAT is the problem here.

For anyone who is accustomed to paying online at the Chase website, the only way you were informed of this change was when you click on the make a payment button. It does not appear anywhere else, so if you were checking on your balance or your previous payment, you would not have been informed of this change.

Yes, some people, including me, do not pay bills much before they are due. I see no reason to provide the company with the payment before they tell me it's due. However, I don't expect that the rules will be changed mid-stream without telling me. If in February I can pay my bill that is due on Feb. 28 on that date with no penalty, why would I expect it to be different in March if I haven't been told in advance that policies have changed?

For your information, I have several advanced degrees (hence my ability to spell), and one of them is an MBA so I have a pretty good notion of what constitutes good business practices. Ripping off customers by pulling something like this without telling them is not good business practice. It is simply a good way to lose customers, and everything I have ever read says it's harder to get new customers than to keep the ones you already have.

The only reason I had this Chase account was to take advantage of the no interest until 2008 special promotion that Circuit City was running, since from an economics standpoint, it makes sense as long as the amount is paid in full by the final due date, to pay in 2008 dollars rather than 2006 dollars, the assumption being that 2006 dollars will be worth more than 2008 dollars. Paying the $14.95 "rush" fee would defeat that purpose, though, so I simply paid the account off in full on the due date once I learned about the $14.95 "rush" charge. Since I paid it in full, I was not charged the rush penalty (although it would be the exact same procedure for Chase as if I had paid the amount that was due rather than the entire amount). I paid it on the date it was due after 11 pm EST and, surprise, surprise, it was posted by Chase on that same date. Chase is also on EST, so they processed the payment in less than an hour's time: so much for the need for a special payment for "rush" service.

There is no point in continuing to debate this with people who either work for Chase or Circuit City and thus are going to defend this shady practice or else are apparently incapable of fully comprehending what they've read since their rebuttals are not addressing the actual problem as reported but rather making faulty assumptions.

Chase tried this trick with me i paid my payment on the due date but sense it happend to fall on the weekend it was not going to be posted on my account until two days which will be monday & chase charged me a $29 late fee i was mad!. I called chase & told them that i made the payment on the due date & they said due to a system error they would credit the late fee back to my account, everything is fine till credit card companies want to chare you late fees when you made them on the due date I recently made the payment for this month & had no problems you have to watch out for these tricks from credit card companies who try to fraudlently charge a late fee when you made the payment ontime.

Since this is payment on a credit card... I can only assume that you are not paying off a credit card with another credit card?

So, that would mean that you are doing a bank transfer?

Do you realize how those work? Your bank actually cuts a check and mails it to the payee. It's not an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer).

Just for kicks, Wachovia states the following...

"Online BillPay. You may use Online BillPay to make one-time, future-dated, and repeating payments from an Eligible account. We recommend all bill payments be scheduled at least five (5) business days in advance of the due date presented by the Payee. If the Payment Date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or a Federal bank holiday the Payment Date will default to the next business day. "

Note the all payments 5 days in advance.

So, basically, they're factoring this is, and rather than make your payment late, and jack up your interest.. They accept that you 'paid' on time, although they don't get the money until past the due date.

Agreed.. A little nasty (rather, a little unclear), but I can understand it. After all, they will receive your money late. It will be 2 - 5 business days before they receive the money that was due on your account yesterday.

So, technically, they could decide to not charge you the $14.95 or whatever, and just whack you with a late-payment penalty (because it WILL get there late) and then jack your interest rate up to the default rate. So, you're complaining about $14.95, when the late fee would probably be... $30? Then add in the jacked up interest because you paid late.

Your argument seems to be that you paid them.. You didn't. You scheduled the payment. Kind of like arguing that you mailed the check on the due date, so it isn't late. Just doesn't fly.

Further.. They only impose the charge for the 'last-minute' people. If you pay it so that they receive the payment on time.. There's no additional fee.

Now, this all flies out the window if it's a credit card payment. Because that IS instant. But then you have to ask yourself why in the hell you're paying off a credit card with a credit card.

First of all, DUH, not all companies do this. None of my bills paid online carry a service charge. This charge is just another way to line their pockets, because Chase is on the verge of bankruptcy. Also, these people have a bad habit of losing your check in the mail, causing massive late fees. So paying online is the best option.

DUH! You have to pay a service fee because your to lazy to pay the bill when you get it first hand. All the credit card companies do this now. It is because people like you like to wait to the last minut to process their credit card transactions and expect it to be ontime to avoid being charged the actual interists on your card. Because the rules state that they can charge you normal interist if you make a late payment because it breaches the terms and conditions of the agreement you made with them when you decided to go with the 6 monthes same as cash financing.

SHUT UP and PAY UP. Next time pay ahead of schedule and don't wait to the last min. Remember that people have to actually process and give your payment extra attention when you fail to be on time with your payment.