CIBC credit card bullshit

[gusl]

This month I got charged $20 for going over my credit card's limit and not paying the difference before the billing date (how was I to know that I was over?!). This was apparently in the small print of the cardholder agreement.

I called them and asked them to make sure my card gets blocked before I went over (rather than $15 after), in order to spare me from unnecessary fees. They said that this isn't possible, which essentially forces me to monitor my balance. Ah, the anger!

What annoys me most is that when I was signing up, I discussed it at length with the bank lady, asking if there were any other fees I should be aware of, etc, and she said no.

Here's a really simple idea for helping customers: simulation games. Simulate using your credit card over some time, and see what happens at the end. Don't just talk about the future abstractly... simulate it in detail, and see what issues come up. This one certainly would have.

If their goal isn't to trick me out of my money, they should listen to ideas like this.

My credit is still perfect, however.

Comments

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

If their goal isn't to trick me out of my money

You appear to be making a critical error of assumption here. :-P

[widdertwin.livejournal.com]

In my experience, the best way to maintain perfect credit scores is very simple. In spite of my generally poor management of all of my resources, I haven't a single blemish on my record. Why is that? How is that?

I just don't have any money! Ha!

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

If you don't have a credit card, you won't have much of a credit history... i.e. you generally won't be trusted with big loans.

[widdertwin.livejournal.com]

I was being facetious

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Ah, text media! The smiley was invented 27 years ago, but changed meaning so we no longer have a joke marker... except for lame ones like "j/k".

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

lol

[twinofmunin.livejournal.com]

really? your bank cannot block your cc from going over the limit? o_o that seems bizarre to me.

If their goal isn't to trick me out of my money, they should listen to ideas like this.

alas, their goal is... to trick you out of your money.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

They block it right after I go over the limit! The bastards!

[twinofmunin.livejournal.com]

that's... absurd.

[leigh-a.livejournal.com]

You agreed to your cardholder agreement without reading it yourself?

I'm not sure why so many people think that they're entitled to the luxury of not monitoring their balances. The only time this isn't necessary is if you have ridiculous amounts of credit but pay your balance off every month. These people are usually the types to monitor their balances anyway though.

Banking isn't a right. It's a privilege and a responsibility.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

yes, I read it, but as with most contracts of this sort, to actually understand everything in it and its consequences would have taken me far too long. There's all the legalese and boilerplate, etc... which is why lawyers exist.

I pay my balance every month, and have a pretty small credit limit. If they prevented me from going over (which is what I assumed), this would never be a problem. But instead, they block the card right after I go over the limit! Just so they can charge me this silly fee.

[leigh-a.livejournal.com]

I understood that when I read it the first time.

What I still don't understand is why you think you're entitled to not keep track of your balance. I feel the same way about people who rage about overdraft fees in the US. Yeah, they suck, but it's up to the consumer to know the guidelines and take care of his/her own money. People are not entitled to bank accounts! That's why they come with fees.

[leigh-a.livejournal.com]

*people are not entitled to bank accounts/credit cards

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Entitlement? I'm bitching because I think this is absurd... I'm not claiming legal entitlement.

I'm happy to pay for banking services. I'm not happy if the "payment" is in the form of trickery that keeps me on my toes. And I'm also unhappy that they very conveniently make it hard for the customer to know the rules beforehand.

[leigh-a.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure when using the word "entitlement" changed to automatically having legal connotations? But what I meant is that people often seem to treat bank accounts and credit as some sort of human right when it's not at all!

Banks don't make it hard to know the rules beforehand. The only banking fee I've paid in the last decade was a transfer I initiated between two credit unions because I was willing to pay for the luxury of having it happen faster than doing things through cheques. You seriously just need to read the fine print and follow the rules. It's not up to banks to baby their customers unless it will attract so many customers that they'll make a better profit.

[stepleton.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but again, why couldn't they just refuse to clear the charge that goes over? Do you really believe that scaring people into financial responsibility with overage charges is a useful strategy? Sure, we should be careful around ledges, but we still install railings.

[stepleton.livejournal.com]

Do you really believe that scaring people into financial responsibility with overage charges is a useful strategy?

On reflection given what you've written, I can see you clearly do not. But it shouldn't be wrong for people to assume that the bank is acting in good faith. I can't reconcile this overage charge with that assumption.

[leigh-a.livejournal.com]

I don't think the goal is to make people financially responsible. The goal is to make money off consumers who refuse to be smart and follow the rules, which I think is entirely reasonable. Since when are banks supposed to have altruistic intentions?

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

In the past, you would just simply get denied if a transaction was going to go over your limit. Hitting you with a huge fee that does not correspond to the cost of anything other than the fact that you went over some limit that the bank allowed you to go over seems silly.

These fees are essentially very short term loans at very high interest. The only real way to minimize the interest charged on this extra line of credit is to just make that last transaction something ridiculously huge.

Recently a couple of the major banks in the US quit some of the scams they were playing with the overdraft fees because banks are not very popular right now and putting a stop to this nonsense where a loan is not a loan is very popular right now.

I don't care what the policy is, but reordering checks that go over the limit in a way that allows a bank to collect the most overdraft fees is not in anyone's interest but the banks. They should put them through in the order that they receive them.

Banks are not entitled to ridiculousness. They are part of the essential infrastructure, and there should be some expectation that they work fairly and are secure. When the expectations of fairness and security go away, most everything else in the economy is on shaky ground.

[leigh-a.livejournal.com]

<< Banks are not entitled to ridiculousness. >>

I'll accept this. However, expecting customers to track their balances is not ridiculous.

I'm not going to claim to be an authority on US banking, which sounds like some sketchy stuff that you'd need to track your balance on paper like a granny to avoid. In Canada, however, you can avoid any fees just by checking your balance online because transactions go through immediately. Your balance displayed is always your true balance unless you write a check (and who writes cheques anymore aside from rent cheques or something?) or make a purchase somewhere where they process things manually (this is rare, obvious when it happens, and will show up on your account in a couple days if it happens).

They are still working fairly if they operate according to the contract they have with their client. Clients should not agree to contracts they can't follow. I don't think having to avoid overdrafts makes me feel like my money is less secure. Can you elaborate on that point?

[marymcglo.livejournal.com]

PNC has nice email reminders you can set up that alert you when your balance is getting below $x, where you can define x. Does your credit card have something like that?

[marymcglo.livejournal.com]

Also, have you tried asking for a higher credit limit?

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

That's the next thing I'm going to do.

I should explicitly ask about the alerts... I feel like they don't like telling me things like this, because it allows me to escape their fees.

Maybe I should threaten to leave... that has worked wonders in the past.

[marymcglo.livejournal.com]

It's probably easier to search around the online interface for the alerts than it is to ask a customer service rep, who may or may not be able to tell you.

Higher credit limit also helps your credit score, supposedly.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

The New York Times had a good expose recently about these practices in debit cards. I hadn't realized that credit cards did the same thing. I thought they just declined purchases that go over your limit.