Our credit card is through our credit union. We only deal with their customer reps and since credit union members "own" the credit union, in a very round about way, the customer service reps are employed by me. Can you join a credit union? With some digging, you should be able ti find some kind of link to one. Our link is through my brother's employer!

Similar thing happened to me with a store card that GE took over. they changed the due dates without informing people. I and was able to get it reversed through someone in India though.

If you want a new card just apply directly through the major bank you choose. Most offer both Visa and Mastercard. That doesn't mean it won't be sold down the road. Just like a mortgage.

The bank is usually listed in the fine print of the application also.

THat's why I don't use them; I use a debit card. I don't care about rewards, points, etc. If I don't have the money, I can't afford it. And why put it on a card and have to pay a bill later? I just don't think the reward thing is worth the hassle...but that's just mho.......

Mine is through a credit union, too - pay it, in full, a week before it's due and have had no problems.

Stay AWAY from CITI Bank. As far away as possible.
Neither one of us has ever had any financial relationship with CITI, yet they have been harassing us daily, for weeks, to get a credit card from them.
They use multiple phone numbers and city/states on Called-id, and as of now, they get blocked after the first call.

They ignore the national "Do not Call list", which, btw actually does nothing to offenders.

This follows months of weekly mail offers from them, which still continue.

I have heard other complaints about them from people who have accounts with them - you are not alone.

I'll have to watch out for this, we have an AT&T Mastercard, and it looks like it's with Citi. Crud. This is why I never sign up for the paperless statements- one missed email and we'd be slapped with finance charges and late fees.

Your situation has happened to me before, though, with other credit cards and I was able to get them to waive the fees because of our exemplary record. I think they like to charge the fees, though, because that's almost the only way they make any money on people like us, other than the money they make from the stores where we use that card.

The first time a credit card company gives us grief is when I cancel the card and cut it up and write them.

Monica, isn't there an opt-out form or phone number on the back of the mailings you're getting? I filled one out once and it really helped with all the junk mail I was getting from credit card companies.

We have noticed that if you pay Citi bank right away it still takes them about a week to ten days after they have received their immediate payment to process it through their system. Other payments that are paid at the same time are always days ahead of them in marking the bill paid. It is their way of "claiming" interest. We pay our cc off in full each month and find them very frustrating. We have had more fights with them than any other bank.

I have tried everything, CITI is relentless. I don't call them because, guess what - if you call them, it exempts your number from the do not call list because they can say that YOU initiated contact with them.

I don't bank with a bank that spends so much money foolishly.

Do you have a smaller, local bank? We have 2 here, both are locally owned but they both offer credit cards that are not affiliated with the big banks or financial companies. We love ours. If I need to charge something larger than our limit it is just a phone call to have it preapproved. The personal touch still exists with them.

My card is also a credit union card. I can see why people get in trouble with CCs. My last bill had my trip expenses on it and was around $1,500. I pay it off every month. I noticed on this bill that if I made the required minimum payment I would have it paid off in 8 years, hard to believe my eyes.

The only way to deal with CC companies is to write letters and make copies. You can call all day on the phone and get nowhere!

We had (stress the had) three credit cards with very small balances. All three were bought out by Citibank. We ended up paying them off and cutting them up. We keep just our debit card for now. I am looking into a credit union myself and will possibly go that route. We could certainly keep a card for emergency like renting a car but other than that we don't really want one.

Trish

I go with American Express...have had them for years, they post payments promptly(the same day if you pay on-line), and they don't call - ever .
The points you get on an AMEX card really add up if you use it for groceries and bills. We then trade the points for hotel points.

Be sure to ask for a supervisor if you're not happy with the rep who answers the phone. They usually make you wait for a bit, but you might make more progress with a sup. Also, it doesn't hurt to threaten to speak to a consumer-watch journalist. In our case, we have a newspaper columnist to whom businesses listen--he gets action right away!

Monica, use a cell phone when you call citibank.

I'm not a fan of Citibank.
My AT&T card went to Citibank some time ago. One day after completing most of my holiday shopping on the internet, I started getting notices that the charges were refused. Apparently, their program had decided that all my shopping was possibly fradulent. I stopped using the card that day. I got a card through my credit union, but had to re-shop for all my holiday gifts.

Citibank was also the last owner of the mortgage on my first house. Because they wanted to be able to charge me another month's interest, they refused to give me the exact amount of payoff, telling me it could take several weeks, but would come by mail. I wired them the amount I thought it was, with a small buffer. They ended up having to issue me a small refund check - which in the end cost them.

I auto pay my credit card in full each month, again through my credit union. It gives me the option of paying the full amount, without me having to manually intervene each month.

This is the big reason I refuse to have any of my bills or credit cards paperless. I do online banking and pay the bill as soon as I get it and the bank guarantees anywhere from 1-3 days payment to the company. I watch Chase and Citi the one that I really have to watch is Sears--they love to send out the notice late and if I have to pay by check I know I would receive late charges. Oh, by the way not sure if it is true or not, if you put the date mailed on the outside it gets there faster? It seems to.
I used to do it all the time and even had companies call me to ask why.

We must have been lucky so far. We've had two CC accounts with Citibank forEVER. Never had a problem. No calls. No late charges. They do persist in mail offers for their American Express card, but the shredder is at hand! Points have enabled us to upgrade to first class every year when we go to Maui.

We've had 2 Citi credit cards forever. NEVER a problem. 2 times in the last 20 years I made the pay't late & they slapped a late fee on, so I called & whined, they removed the late fees. I'm pretty sure they probably wouldn't do that for me NOW in this economic climate. I pay online transfer from my bank to Citi & it shows up right away as being paid on the Citi site.

But your situation was different from mine, Paleblue & I would suggest that you make phone calls til the cows come home, up the chain of command & complain, complain, complain. Squeaky wheel & grease "thing".

I use my credit card for anything over $15. It is so handy for me. If I had a debit card my account would never balance. I have enough trouble balancing a checking account. Most of my bills are paid by auto draft. Such a nice way to pay bills. I don't have any information on my computer relating to the bank.

pretty much the same thing happened to me except , they have taken over the Sears Mastercard. I used this card for online purchases and my audible books account only - I have always paid on time.

I took a phone call for Citi and they said my account was now 34 days late - which would require my intrest rate to be changed to 32% on any outstanding balances. ...

I told her I don't have an account with them - she explained the situation with Sears - I told her that my account number was not the one she gave me, 20 minutes later she came back and told me that the problem was when they went to the Citi bankcard they gave me a new account number. I explained that I never got a card in the mail - never got a bill in the mail or online - never heard of them getting the Sears business, and that I always paid my bill in full so I really don't give a squat about the fees or their "new" card. I will be using a different card for these purchases from now on.

she apoligized said she would make it right, blah blah blah, then told me if I didn't use the card it has a $150. fee to keep it - yearly. I said nothing and just hung up.

"I have had my ATT credit card for at least 20 years"

That statement actually works AGAINST you when fighting late fees for not having received a written bill. After 20 years, you should be aware of the fact that you have a payment due. If you aren't certain how much your balance is, or the minimum amount due, look at the back of the card - there's a number to call to find out.

Having had a card for 20 years and having always made the payments on time is in your favor, though. You can call again and get another person, who should be able to waive the late fee for you, since you've never ever had a late fee before. If that person won't do it, ask to speak to a supervisor.

I've had a Citibank credit card for at least that long, and I've never, ever, had a problem with it. I do my bill paying online through my bank, and the amount I pay is credited to my Citibank card a day later.

Even if you don't normally bank or pay your bills online, I suggest that everyone go online for each credit card they have and set them up so they automatically make the minimum payment. Then you never have a late fee.

I keep track of my due dates in Quicken, but before I used Quicken, I kept a list that told me when the various bills were due. (I marked the due date on the list a week earlier than the real due date.) Helps so you're never late, even if you miss a statement. (I get them all online now, so no problem missing them.)

re: credit card for 20 years....I am in no way shirking my
responsibility in this matter. My complaint is NO BILLING!
Unfortunately, I relied on them all these years and I, too,
have NEVER had a problem.

Can assure you that it's marked on my calendar now!

Did you all see the commercial for Discover card that exact thing they did to me.Thids guy calls and says theres a 35.00 charge on account he wants removed.They did the same thing to me i quit i will never go back they say they have the best sevice at Discover.They said it was a purse insurace.also does anyone get a check in the mail with your name for like 10.00 tear it up thats how this all got started,it doesnt say whayt its for i thought it was money back no you will be charged for something on your charge mine was purse chargepurse insurance.

"re: credit card for 20 years....I am in no way shirking my responsibility in this matter. My complaint is NO BILLING! Unfortunately, I relied on them all these years and I, too, have NEVER had a problem."

Please don't take this the wrong way. I really don't mean to berate you -- I'm just stating a fact. You have to look at things from the perspective of a judge listening to a court case.

If you are an adult - over the age of 18 years, who has had a credit card for over 20 years and who has always paid the bill on time, somewhere, somehow, sometime during that 20 years a pattern should have settled into your consciousness. A pattern of a bill coming due on or about a certain date. You cannot expect a reasonably intelligent adult to believe that you are totally unaware of the fact that you have a credit card that you've had for 20 years, that you've made at least 239 payments on it -- one each month for 19 years and 11 months -- and that it totally slipped your mind that you would have another payment coming due.

Just because you don't receive a printed bill in the mail doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to pay the amount due by the date on which it is due. There are other ways to check on the amount and date due. You can call the number that is printed on the back of the card to find out your balance, the minimum amount due, and the date by which it must be paid. You have Internet access, so you can go to the online web site for the card to find out that information.

The bottom line is that the responsibility to pay the bill on time is yours.

In spite of that, the credit card company shouldn't have a problem with issuing a credit for any late fees assessed because you have an established history of paying on time.

We have received statements in the mail for thirty years. Lindsey, are you saying that at some point -- without notice -- the CC company is free to cease mailing statements, and I would be held accountable for not paying on time?

Not everyone has computer access or banks online. I think they would have to notify a cardholder that they were ceasing to mail statements.

If we are away from home and our mail is being held, I do call the CC company to get the amount due and mail them a check for the balance. The only error in our accounts came once when the automatic reader mistook a number on a check I wrote and I was charged for the two dollar difference -- until I complained.

This is starting to get personal....Judge Judy. Sometimes
REAL LIFE gets in the way and one relys on the old tried and true formula for handling the mundane.

Seems to me that if a person is in the habit of having a billing notice sent to them for the past 20 years which then triggers their paying of the bill, that fact would certainly by germane to affixing responsibility to Citi. It's somewhat like many of us snooze every morning until the alarm clock buzzes. We get up at the same time for the past 30 years, yet we need an alarm clock.

If we let companies get away with not even notifying us of when & how much we owe, I cannot even imagine how much havoc that would create. But it sure would pad their bottom lines quite nicely. CC companies & banks are looking for every conceivable way to ding their customers with hidden fees & charges. Personally, I don't go down without a fight.

Please don't take this the wrong way. I really don't mean to berate you -- I'm just stating a fact. You have to look at things from the perspective of a judge listening to a court case.

If you are an adult - over the age of 18 years, who has had a credit card for over 20 years and who has always paid the bill on time, somewhere, somehow, sometime during that 20 years a pattern should have settled into your consciousness.

You are berating her - And we are not in a court of law. I have been paying bills for over 30 years, I don't know what bill is due on what date, each one is different... When the bill comes in the mail, I pay it, I don't memorize it!

Simple way to beat every angle of this rap.

Pay cash.

ole joyful

The credit card company is not responsible for the paper bill once it leaves their facility. The Post Office could misplace it; the postal delivery person could put it into the wrong recipient's mailbox; the postal delivery person might wig out and hoard all the mail in his/her attic and not deliver it at all; it could be stolen out of your mailbox before you retrieve the day's mail, etc., etc., etc.

Geez, you act like you expect the credit card company to hand carry a bill to you each month and place it directly in your hand.

I simply do not believe that the thought of you owing a payment on your credit card never entered your mind while you were paying all your other bills that month.

And, nycefarm, for your information, you can go online to the Citi card web site and sign up for alerts. They will send an alert to your e-mail or to your cell phone for all sorts of different things. From the Citi Credit Card web site:
"When you use the alerting service, you can customize email alerts about your account. There are several email notification options, including notice of statement availability, payment reminders and account balance. Whether it's through a desktop PC or mobile email, you'll be able to use this free service without installing additional software. To learn more about the feature, or to set up alerts, choose the Account Profile menu, then select View Alerts & Email Preferences." [emphasis added]

You can have the alerts sent to up to 2 different e-mail addresses AND up to 2 different cell phones.

No excuses for missing a payment.

I have 2 accounts with Citibank (one I've had for a long time--I use that for Web shopping for certain sites if I've not shopped all that frequently with them; the other is an airline-linked card that I use for other stuff).

I would never count on their payment reminder alert system. As another poster said, it takes several days for me to get the e-mail confirmation after I've paid a bill! Every other bill I pay online gets a confirmation immediately. It worries me many times when I'm paying one or two days before the bill is due that the company can claim it didn't receive the online payment transfer and tack on its late fee.

(I also stopped doing payment-over-the-Web for my electric bill when I supposedly missed a payment. Truth was, I paid over the Web but it never went through. And because the company doesn't send out ANY confirmation e-mails, I didn't realize it for a while. Customer service person said it's just not something they do. Huh? Now I wait for the printed bill to arrive in the mail. And like others have written, it only occurs to me that I haven't received it when I'm paying a phone bill, perhaps.)

Things can slip your mind--and I'm sure any judge will agree with that! People are not robots, we don't get little Post-Its popping up in our minds to tell us that we haven't gotten the bill and need to go online for it.)

I'm figuring that anyone who has has the same credit card for "at least 20 years" is more than likely at least 40 years old. Someone who is at least 40 years old should be responsible enough to be aware of the fact that they have a bill payment due.

When I made the statement that you need to look at it from a judge's point of view, what I meant (which apparently escaped some folks) is that you need to look at it objectively.

Put yourself on the other side (it's called "playing the Devil's advocate"). Let's say you sell your home and you hold the mortgage on it. As a courtesy, you send out a written statement to the buyer on or about the first of each month, showing the balance and the payment amount that is due on or before the 17th of each month. The buyer has been faithfully and timely making the payment each month for many years. Then one month you send out the statement, but for some unknown reason the buyer doesn't receive it. The buyer misses the deadline to make the payment. So, you send a late notice to the buyer, and include a late fee, per the terms of your written contract with the buyer. The buyer complains and moans and groans and says that you should waive the late fee because it's your fault they didn't receive the monthly written reminder.

Who is right?

Yes, you can waive the late fee, but you don't have to because it's in your written contract that if the monthly payment isn't received on or before the due date, the buyer owes a late fee. The buyer says, "But even though I've been making a payment each and every month for over 20 years, I had absolutely no idea that I had to pay anything this month, even though I know I still owe a balance, because I didn't receive a written statement in the mail."

Does that absolve the buyer of the responsibility to make a payment each month when the payment is due?

No, it doesn't.

And it's not your fault that the buyer didn't receive that month's written statement.

Well this is my last response...if you go back to my original post....I got neither the PAPER BILLING nor
the CUSTOMARY EMAIL. So that was 2 methods that failed.
One would not know about 'back up email alerts' etc, unless there had already been a problem.

I pride myself on never having paid a dime in interest
(other than my mortgage) due to my fiscal responsibility,
personal convictions from age 17 to now 72. NO EXCUSES EVER.

"NO EXCUSES EVER."

But you are now making an excuse.

"I got neither the PAPER BILLING nor the CUSTOMARY EMAIL."

Your excuse is that you didn't receive a paper bill or an e-mail.

"I pride myself on never having paid a dime in interest (other than my mortgage) due to my fiscal responsibility, personal convictions from age 17 to now 72."

But your fiscal responsibility failed you if you, with all your experience, failed to make a payment because you didn't get a reminder. Your fiscal responsibilty is what should have alerted you to the fact that you had a payment due.

"NO EXCUSES EVER."

Apparently not true.

"One would not know about 'back up email alerts' etc, unless there had already been a problem."

Not correct. I'm aware of the option to receive e-mailed alerts and text-to-cellphone alerts because I like to know when my payment has been received. I pay my bills through my regular bank's Online Bill Pay feature. I have it set to send me an e-mail when the payments have gone out of that bank, and I have the credit cards configured to send me a text to my cell when the payment has been credited to my account. In setting that up, both on my bank's web site as well as the web sites for my various Visa cards and MasterCard cards, as well as my Discover card, I saw all the options that are available for alerts. Being aware of the options/possibilities doesn't mean that there have been problems.

Through my Online Bill Pay, I can also have my bank issue a check as payment to any company I choose, or any individual I choose. For example, our gardener -- I pay the lawncare company each month through the Online Bill Pay, but the bank sends the company a check. I receive an e-mail when the check has been sent, and I receive an e-mail when the check has been cashed. It doesn't mean that there has been a problem, nor does it mean that I anticipate a problem in the future. It's simply that I work in the technology field, and I think it's cool to take advantage of what technology has to offer.

Dear Techie...you should be proud of your skilled use of
technology in your everyday life. It's possibilities and
ramifications are alien to a few of us oldies.

I learned one of life's lessons many years ago, and that is
in order to ask the appropiate question, one must already have some knowledge of the subject.

My purpose in posting was to ask and share, certainly not to play the GOTTCHA GAME.

Beside being aware of what is owed and when, I try to check the address I have on file that matches what the company sends. Several CC card keep changing address as where the payment goes, which again can cause the payment to be late.

Paleblue, I don't think of you as "an oldie." You could be an older sibling (especially if we were part of the Duggar family!) -- I am 61.

The point I was trying to make was that, yes, you can get the late charge waived. The person with whom you first spoke should have been able to waive the late fee. Perhaps the person was new to the job and hesitant to start issuing credits right away. That's why you should call back again and ask someone else. If THAT person says they aren't authorized to issue a credit, then ask to speak to the supervisor on duty.

The other important thing to remember when you're talking to them is NOT to push the statement, or rely on the statement, that you shouldn't have been charged the late fee because you've had the card for over 20 years and you didn't receive the paper billing statement this time. What you DO want to emphasize to them is that you've had the card for 20 years and always made the payment on time.