Saturday
11Jul2009
Cool little tip for negotiating with credit card companies
Saturday, July 11, 2009 at 08:38AM This week I forgot to setup a payment for one of my wife's credit cards and ended up missing the due date and making the payment one day late. So, naturally, the credit card company hit the account with a $39 late fee.
I already knew from previous experience that if you're a good customer and haven't had delinquent activity on your account with any significant regularity, most financial institutions will extend a "courtesy reversal" of late charges (typically a one-time deal).
When I first discovered the late fee situation I contacted customer service at the credit card company electronically with the following message:
As a courtesy, kindly refund this late fee because I forgot that I had disabled automatic payments for this account. Today I made the minimum payment for this account. Thank you.
They declined my request to reverse the late charge.
But I wasn't through yet. I then crafted the following message and sent it off:
If you are not authorized to make the decision to remove the late fee at this time, please forward my request on to your supervisor or other individual that reviews these types of cases. Thank you.
They accepted my request to reverse the late charge with the following o-so-cordial response:
Thank you for your follow up message; and for giving me the opportunity to assist you with your recent inquiry.
As a gesture of our ongoing commitment to you, I have credited your account with $39.00 late fee.
This credit will appear on one of your next two billing statements. Your satisfaction is important to us.
It pays to have basic business skills.
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