The newspapers are written in paper and it is harder for them to correct mistakes – net is fluid and allows for corrections.

So dive into whatever fancies and interests you – This makes the content unique and compelling – and gives us the opportunity to give our examples and advice – binding us even more to this place.

I’ll try to follow the advice above about getting the fee’s reversed, but I’m not getting my hopes up. If only all their reps were as knowledgeable as Kathy.

Does anyone know if other banks follow a similar way off removing the grace period if you are late on a payment? I remember occasionally missing payments in the past with other banks, but I don’t remember getting dinged this hard with fees.

…so and so on…

The only common thing I see around here is that every Company out there is evil and out to take your money… but I never see people owing up to their responsibilities. Nobody ever accepts their own mistakes anymore. The same thing is reflected with our politicians. They are no different from you and me….it is ALWAYS some one elses fault.

So sick of hearing you people complain.

The whole point of JD’s blog was to show you people to be careful about YOUR finances, be responsible and keep YOUR S#$% together and learn from his experience. Instead it’s been turned into a forum to bash the lender, bash JD for being a shill, bash everybody but yourself. Why is it forgotten that you asked for that money to be lent to you? You agreed to pay it back, or pay interest on it…simple. if you can’t pay back what you borrowed, it’s YOUR fault.

One way or another — whether the mechanism was double-billing, whether the first CSR didn’t know what he was talking about, or whether an incomprehensible and irrational policy on the grace period was hidden in submicroscopic print — you still got gouged. Given the concession, Capital One evidently knows it.

And readers should proceed with caution in doing business with this company.

I’m still peeved at them though, they raised my interest rate “because of the economy” and would not lower it. I’ve been their customer for 8 years, pay on time and more than the minimum! They still wouldn’t do it….. =(

Glad you had a positive experience though!

I could be wrong about that, because it’s only happened a couple times and I don’t think I did the math to determine whether I’d been charged interest on purchases after I paid the full balance, but that was my understanding.

Your helping them by having a card, and paying their balance…

I can’t believe your support them on a site about frugality…

Doesn’t every job have to have some perks???

I’m stoked for you JD – that’s awesome.

I know that you probably would not have called back and tried to get the refund – so this worked out great!!!

If the person you talk to the first time won’t refund you, say thanks and keep calling back until you find one that will. I have had finance charges reversed and 0% interest reinstated, etc. a few times now just by picking up the phone and being polite and persistent. The cc people know the difference between mistake and delinquent- you just have to find one that is sympathetic.

JD: Thanks for your transparency. Your ability to publically admit when you’ve made a mistake is refreshing. Also, I’m glad you realize the type of influence you have — that is something that is earned and should be leveraged carefully.

Keep doing what your doing!

Kita

What chance do us customers have?

For the record, I think that the “troll” -like comments can just be removed. Trolls are very ego driven. Once they see they are not even being published anymore, they will move on to the next website. They really bring down the level of conversation, and while your articles are always great, the conversations and comments I see here are a big draw for me as well.

Maybe you can do an opinion piece here on how to handle trolls, and let the readers decide?

That is the funniest thing I’ve read all week! In my news editing class, one of our daily assignments was to find errors (grammatical and factual) in three major newspapers–there were plenty.

Also, I think the shilling comments are out of line. This is someone’s blog, so it stands to reason that he’s going to share his personal experiences.

I’ve had bad experiences with Cap One, so I cancelled my card awhile back. They were one of the companies that, according to Maxed Out, like to give small lines of credit, in the hopes that people will max it out, then send the person an application for another card with a small line of credit, eventually collecting more and more late fees and interest. That wasn’t my issue, but they did issue a small line of credit to me–like 10 percent of the line on my other two cards.

As for automating payment, there is another PF blog that reported that Wells Fargo closed their business credit line without any notice. The writer is extremely frugal, and they always pay the balance on time. The only thing she did differently was to automate their payment. The company refused to give her valid reason for closing the account, only “tips” about paying on time, etc., which was ridiculous because she’s never paid a cent of interest. Hard to say if the auto payment was the reason, but interesting, nontheless. Weeks after they closed the account, she finally got the notice that the were going to close the account.