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Featured Article
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Whose on The Other End?
by Anonymous
WHEN YOU CALL The Visa Card Company, I ANSWER THE PHONE...
or at least I used too. After being a customer service rep with The Visa Card
Company for approx. 3 months, I couldn't live with their
"loan-sharking" practices they DEMANDED of their customers. On
average, I answered 200 calls a day and 80% of my calls were enraged customers
being "screwed" by The Visa Card Company. One day, I just up and left
with a letter of resignation. The point of my message is to offer any inquiries
about The Visa Card Company's money-making games and maybe a few tips (I hope I
don't state the obvious to you). HERE GOES: (I wish I still had my training
manuals because I would just download some of The Visa Card Company's
regulations onto this site)
I. LATE FEES
A) MAILING YOUR REMITTANCE: The Visa Card Company processes millions of payments
each month through huge sorting machines (in training we saw a short video of
this process). From the time we ACTUALLY receive your payment in our warehouse
to the time the payment posts to your account takes 5-7 days. If you decide to
send your payment via certified or air-mail, checks stapled/paper clipped to
remittance stub, or enclose a letter with your payment, then you just added a
few more days to your payment being posted to your account. WHY? because the
sorting machine's conveyer belt is only wide enough for an envelope, an enclosed
check/money order and a remittance stub; so, anything else must be sorted
manually (shipping carton of air-mail payment, a staple, a paper clip, etc.). HERE'S
THE CATCH...knowing that it will take 7-10 days for your mailed payment to
post (2-3 days postal & 5-6 days to process), The Visa Card Company will
wait and mail your bill 10 days before it's due, knowing that the odds of you
mailing in your payment immediately the day you receive it is slim to none. That
way, they get their late fee (MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!). I was told on break-time
one day by a senior co-worker that legally a credit card company (I believe for
those card companies based in Delaware) can hold sending your bill up until the
5th DAY before your payment is due (This may no longer be the case- comment by
CreditMania)--and don't think that they don't do that!!!!! Now you've got a late
fee and finance charges being assessed on that daily!!!! When customers complain
of this causal type of late fee, we couldn't justify with our withholding of
sending your bill at the last minute or our lengthy sorting process, so we would
just say it was a post-office issue and not our fault because "we don't
have control over the postal system". SOLUTION: MAIL YOUR PAYMENT IN
IMMEDIATELY (OR PAY VIA ON-LINE/OVER THE PHONE) and DO NOT ENCLOSE ANY
ADDITIONAL ITEMS EXCEPT FOR YOUR CHECK/MONEY ORDER AND REMITTANCE STUB IN A
REGULAR ENVELOPE!!!
B) PAYING-OFF YOUR ACCOUNT: call and ask for your pay-off balance because you
must account for the 7-10 days of daily finance charges compounding on your acct
while its in the mail and being processed--OR ELSE, you'll still have a balance
on your account and have to deal with late fees on a following bill.
TO CALCULATE FINANCE CHARGES:
1) DAILY FINANCE CHARGES (FC):
FC=APR/365 * ADB/100 * # DAYS IN BILLING CYCLE (OR # DAYS WORKING WITH)
Example: AVG. DAILY BALANCE OF $2000; APR 14.99% AND WANT TO ACCOUNT FOR THE
MAX. 10 DAYS TAKES FOR The Visa Card Company TO POST YOUR PAYMENT:
FC=14.99/365days * $2000/100 * 10 days
FC= $8.22
so, pay-off balance (on day you call) would be $2008.22
2) CALCULATE MONTHLY FINANCE CHARGES:
FC= APR/12 * ADB/100
***NOTE: IF YOU WANT YOUR BALANCE TO DECREASE BY, SAY, $100 EACH MONTH, AND YOU
WANT TO BEAT THE DAILY COMPOUNDING FINANCE CHARGES, then take your most recent
bill's balance and calculate the finance charges using the above formula
"calculating monthly finance charges" and add that finance charge to
your $100 payment.
Ex. on a $2000 balance @ 14.99%
FC= 14.99/12 * $2000/100
FC= $24.99
SO, make a payment of $124.99. and repeat this calculation on your next bill's
balance because, in essence, your paying next months finance charges this
month!! And your principle amt. is decreasing at a fixed amount ($100) !!!
I HOPE this tip wasn't stating the obvious or too confusing :)!! (GREAT
TIP)
II. OVER LIMIT FEES
A) The Visa Card Company allows some cardholders to go over their credit limit
without pre-authorization (none of the customer service reps knew what
cardholders could go over or by what %). Cardholders would call with the
assumption that the card would decline when it reached the credit limit, but we
"explained" that you could go over and your card wouldn't be declined
as a courtesy to avoid cardholder's embarrassment at the cashier counter. But,
actually it was just a way for The Visa Card Company to get more money because,
I believe, The Visa Card Company thinks that most people don't keep track of
their balance on a daily basis and just leave it up to their
"friendly" card company to do their cardholder's accounting. SOLUTION:
BE AWARE OF YOUR DAILY BALANCE AND DON'T GET TOO CLOSE TO YOUR CREDIT LIMIT!!!!
B) Also, if at any point in the monthly cycle you are ONE DAY LATE--even if it's
one day right in the middle of the cycle--you are assessed the over limit fee.
c) Watch out for the double-whammy: late fee creating an over-limit fee. When I
worked there, this combination totaled $58!! Plus, finance charges on top of
that!!!
III. RAISING YOUR APR
A) If at any point your account was late twice within a 6 mo or 12 mo (I can't
remember which), then your APR goes up. Even if your late fees were waived
because of our error. I especially "loved" when our loyal customers
got this slap in the face and because we couldn't lower their APR, they chose to
close their account. I would transfer them to our account-closing dept., knowing
that the customer would be bribed by that dept. with a lower rate, but by that
point the customer is so upset that they don't want our card anymore.
B) Also, watch those introductory rates because in just a few months a 3.99%
could "shoot-up" to 19.99%!!!!!!
C) Also, ONE late payment during your introductory rate equals removal of that
intro rate.
IV. Unauthorized charges
A) True, legally a card company must give the cardholder the ability to dispute
an unauthorized charge, but usually the unauthorized charge is from one of our
in-house telemarketers/companies. Here's how the unauthorized charge transpires:
as you may know, card companies rent, trade, and sell your name, number, and
address to companies "affiliated" with them. These companies call you
and if they are an in-house they have the ability to charge to your acct. Now
these are telemarketers, so usually they make commission and have been known to
"slam" you by charging their product/service to your acct. so they can
make their commission and meet their quotas. Luckily, we could remove that
charge and forego the dispute process, but how deceptive and ILLEGAL!!! and
good-luck getting the finance charges removed on that "slam". (Again
this may no longer legal issue- CreditMania Comment)
B) As for JUNK MAIL offers enclosed with your bill,
Don't throw them away without first reading them!!! Some offers have been
legally known to state (this isn't an exact quote) "if you don't check the
refusal box and return it, then we assume you want the product/service and we'll
charge it to your acct., immediately" Also, don't cash-in those junk mail
checks giving you a dollar-amount credit to your account because by cashing
those checks, you've just signed up for some useless service. And an added note,
the customer service reps make a commission on any in-house products that we can
sell or retain.
SOLUTION TO ALL THIS MESS: DEMAND your card company to have your name removed
from our list and state, "I do not want my name/address/phone rented,
traded, or sold to any in-house or out-of-house companies" and request a
confirmation letter to be sent to you so you have it on file.
V. The Visa Card Company CLOSES YOUR ACCOUNT
A) the obvious reason would be if you were delinquent in your payments or didn't
pay all together, but the following reason just sickens me: I have seen
customers who have used their card consistently each month, but they pay their
balance off and on-time each month to avoid finance charges. The Visa Card
Company decides to close their account--unknowingly to the customer--because The
Visa Card Company is not making any money off this account!!!! So, it's a
catch-22--you need good credit to get their card, but they dismiss those that
are good-paying cardholders.
VI. When you have a dispute
A) When you have a disputed charge or any problems with your account, LOOK
OUT!!!! The only number you get is customer service. You want to speak to a
supervisor, we'll take your name and number (our supervisors WOULD NOT intercept
the call, nor did they have the knowledge or The Visa Card Company training to
actually get on the phones to help customers!!!!!!!) and, if the supervisor
feels like it, he/she will call you back within 48 hours. I've seen supervisors
look at customer complaint forms and then just throw them away!!!! If you want
to speak to the main departments that could directly resolve your problem, there
is NO NUMBER that you can call; the customer service reps aren't even given any
phone numbers, just an endless list of addresses!
B) Another option The Visa Card Company reps could use was to e-mail the
complaint to the relevant department (faster than the customer mailing
complaints to some vague address), but time and time again I had customers
saying they exhausted both of these routes--e-mail & mail--with no luck and
their was no way that I could override the problem because I had neither the
authorization nor knowledge of how to remedy the problem. Sometimes I just
wanted to kick the "tar" (keeping it clean) out of these departments
because the resolution was so simple, but, yet, nothing was done!! SOLUTION: BE
DILIGENT ON THE STATUS OF YOUR DISPUTE, KEEP DOCUMENTATION OF ALL PARTIES
(DATES/FULL NAMES/TIME CALLED/STATUS/ETC.). HAVE THE EXPECTATION THAT WHEN THERE
IS A PROBLEM WITH MY Credit Card Company ACCOUNT, IT WILL NOT BE RESOLVED BY THE
NEXT BILL (Just for your own personal serenity). However, diligence will allow
for customer service reps to ensure your not getting late fees, over limit fees,
and additional finance charges while any investigating is taking place.
VII. Secret to Getting fees waived
A) Late fees/Over limit fees
1) Play dumb (especially if you have only had one or two fees waived over an
extended period of time 6-9 mo): "I never received my bill. Do you have my
current/new/correct address?"
2) Remember The Visa Card Company's last-minute mailing of your The Visa Card
Company bill: "I sent my payment in on (use a date 7-10 days before your
due date), so why haven't you received it!!!" or play dumb: "I sent my
payment in on (use a date 2-5 days before your due date, I know the mail doesn't
take that long to get there!!" or "I sent my payment via
air-mail/certified mail so I know it got there on time!" Using these
ignorance ploys (though, now you are fully knowledgeable) will be followed with
the reps blah-blah-blah that "we don't have control over the postal system
and you should mail your payment in 7-10 days before the due date, but just this
once I'll waive the fee & any over limit fee this may have caused you."
*******NOTE: The Visa Card Company reps keeps concise net-worked
documentation of when you call, what you and the rep talked about, and what
action/resolutions were done. So, don't use the same tactic too soon after this
waiver (wait 5-6 mo between the exact same ploy).
2) The Visa Card Company keeps a running total for the last 24 months of how
many fees & finance charges we've made off your account. If we've made money
(my supervisor had told me it costs The Visa Card Company something like $120 to
maintain your account) off of you for at least the amount it costs The Visa Card
Company to "maintain"--then state, "If you look at my account
history &/or my revolving credit with a high APR, you'll see you've made a
lot of money off of me, would you be willing to waive this late/over limit fee
for me?"
3) If all else fails, RAISE HELL!!, The Visa Card Company reps are NOT ALLOWED
to disconnect (we were diligently & secretly monitored and scored on our
performance) a call unless the customer is being verbally abusive and using lots
of profanity. So get mad and go on-and-on, the rep will just get sick of hearing
you that they'll waive the fee just to shut you up!! Keep in mind that I got 200
calls a day with approx. 80% of them being IRATE customers, I starved for
satisfied customers that didn't yell or get aggressive.
4) Finally, though The Visa Card Company keeps documentation of all your calls,
if refused by the first rep, then HANG-UP and call-back odds are 99.9% certain
that you'll get a different rep and maybe you can sweet talk/give a sob story
and get the rep to waive the fee.
B) RE-AGING Your account
1) as you may know, re-aging is when they remove a late month(s) status on your
credit history, as if turning back the hands of time. If you're able to succeed
at getting the fee waived--esp. using the ignorance ploys of when you mailed in
your payment--then ensure that your account gets re-aged. WHY? to ensure that
your credit history shows that your account was not late (at least for the
relevant month on-hand) and to avoid The Visa Card Company's stupid policy that
"late twice within the last 6 months equals a huge jump in your APR (19.99%
to 22%(?) to 26.99%)" Also to avoid the removal of any low introductory
rates.
VIII. MOST IMPORTANTLY
A) READ YOUR DISCLOSURE STATEMENT AND ANY NOTIFICATION OF CHANGES TO THAT
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT!!!!!!!!! this lists all of The Visa Card Company's bullsh*t
charges, fees, and everything they will try to do to profit off of you! Reps
particularly liked to use this as a cop-out to avoid having to remedy your
situation, "blah-blah-blah is stated very clearly in your disclosure
statement (in the fine, fine, fine, little print), we advise all customers to
read this very carefully."
****NOTE: We had to keep our "call-time" down to an average of
I believe it was 2.5 minutes with each customer (or we were fired), so get to
point when you call and the rep will have a more efficient ability to get all
the mess The Visa Card Company created for you resolved (or at least make you
think it was resolved.)
BOY, I didn't mean for this to be so long!!!!!!
But, I have been searching for helpful info. on credit cards because I recently
had to have MBNA finance my Gateway computer and cringed because I knew they
were either affiliated or have the same business practices as The Visa Card
Company. I keep seeing complaint after complaint on-line about The Visa Card
Company and I just wanted to validate all the grief The Visa Card Company
cardholders have had to go through. And I wanted to offer some tips so that you
could possibly end your nightmare with them and move to an "ethical"
card (try a credit union's). I hope I've helped............
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