Danger of Point and Click

The other day, I was downloading my credit card transactions into Quicken, and I noticed a $39 late payment fee. What the...how did that get in there? I do all of my payments online, and since it was a direct bank to bank transfer, it should have taken only one day to arrive. So, I looked back at my statement and at by bill pay history. D'oh! For some odd reason, I'd scheduled the payment exactly one week after it was due. I'm guessing that I clicked open the little calendar next to the scheduled payment date and just clicked on the wrong date. I use my credit card as a debit card, in the sense that I pay off my balance each month, so I don't get charged any interest. But I started panicking a little bit when I realized that I'd missed the payment date because I had an unusually large balance on my card this past month. I was worried that I was going to be socked with not only the late payment fee but interest as well.

I called up Chase card services and was transferred to a call center in India. I explained the situation, promised to send the payment the next day and asked that the late fee be waived. She said she would look into it. A minute later, she came back on the line and said that since I was a valued customer, she would go ahead and waive the fee. I didn't want to push my luck, so I didn't ask her about waiving the interest on the 5 days the payment was overdue. I'll probably have to call again in a week, once my statement is posted online.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that you should not enter your bill pay transactions when you're tired and groggy. And you should always double check the payment date.