Today I updated my monthly budget and net worth. I do it every month to prepare for the Race to $1 Million. Which, by the way, will be postponed this month. The Hoff is off wasting his time with some stupid vacation. He might have mentioned something about an engagement, but I wasn’t really listening.
Anyway, one of the accounts I look at every month is my Best Buy Credit Card. I bought my TV and computer on the card and have 0% financing for 36 months. Sure, I could pay off the entire balance, but borrowing money at 0% gives me the opportunity to use my money elsewhere and get a better return. A 0% loan is good debt and I’m taking advantage of it.
When I logged into that account, I noticed that I was being charged a $25 late fee for not sending in the payment. I have this payment automated from my checking account, and I had already seen the $52.77 taken out of my account earlier in the month. It was time for some investigation.
Time for a Customer Service Call
I called HSBC, the company that manages this card, and asked them to recheck and see if they received the payment because my checking was showing a $52.77 debit earlier in the month. The guy tells me that he didn’t receive anything, but he trusts there was an error on my bank’s part and credited the late fee. It was so pleasant knowing that some companies will do right by their customers without making them ask for something.
I had been using that address for months and never had any issues. Now all of a sudden it was undeliverable.
I checked back in my HSBC statements and it turns out they changed the mailing address of where payments should be sent. It would have been nice to get a communication about the change of address, but my late fee had already been waived, so I didn’t need to call back.
Then the Regions customer service rep told me that he would cancel the original bill pay and credit my account the $52.77. He also said that it usually takes 24-48 hours for that to repost to my account, but he would make sure it was there by midnight tonight. He was very helpful.
This entire interaction was both very frustrating and very pleasant at the same time. It was frustrating HSBC would change the payment address without telling me, and frustrating that Regions didn’t inform me that a bill payment check was returned to sender. However, both customer service reps were very pleasant and made things right without my having to ask.
So what’s the point Kevin?
First, I want to commend HSBC and Regions for having great customer service today. It’s a far cry from what I experienced yesterday. And second, I made this point last week.
Always check your bank statements at least once a month. If I hadn’t checked, who knows how long it would have taken until someone emailed or called me about missing the payments. I could have lost my 0% financing on the Best Buy Card and the rate would have jumped to 25%.
I’m sure you all got the point last week, but I just wanted to share my personal story of where I avoided late fees and potential interest rate hikes because I was diligent enough to check my accounts every month.
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Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
Hey Kevin, just out of curiosity, why do you not want to ask for a credit or a refund when you’re clearly in the right? I noticed the same on the Budgets Are Sexy blog a couple of days ago, and it struck me as odd. When it comes to errors not my own, I’m not aggressive by any means, but I’ll usually just call the company and explain, “This fee was charged to my account because of X, and I was hoping you could reverse it for me.” I’ve never been met with anything other than a helpful, cheerful and useful response. Why beat around the bush?
I am not above asking for a refund or credit. I just like to see which companies will do the right thing in the first place. It helps me to determine who I want to do business with in the future.
A lot of company call centers don’t understand the value of their customers because they always hire people that have no clue about the business to answer calls
Well I don’t think you can blame the employees; it has to fall on the training. A good company will train their employees well and identify and fire the bad ones. It would be nice to get business experts in call centers, but the people with that kind of knowledge can generally get a better job than working in a call center.
I like to read your advices, always can learn new things. since you wrot about check your bank statements at least once a month, it stay im my mind.only today i checked it…
Good to hear. I hope everything was in order for you. I hate having to deal with errors.
This can be one of the shortcomings of an automatic payment. When the credit card company sent out the bill, the statement had the new address. The CC company should have a forwarding or service to catch the ones who have an automatic payment.
That’s a great point. How does a company just change an address and not have mail sent there forwarded to another address? Makes me a little more upset with HSBC.
This is so true. I know because I have worked for one of the most notable credit card companies here in the US as an account services analyst and I’ve received a lot of complaints from card holders regarding some charges that are not supposed to be in their bank statements. It’s a good thing that these people know how to read their statements otherwise we’ll be receiving more complaints that are too late to address. So, learn from Mr. McKee and start reading your statements now!