I don't get this:

my payment was returned because Bank Of America decided it didn't want to give Chase the money

Not that I'm blaming the victim, these random fees are getting out of hand, I just want to know the whole story.

GMFish

It sounds like BOA is his checking account and Chase is his credit card. He tried to pay his credit card (Chase)with payment set up for auto-debit from his checking account (BOA) and for some reason it didn't go through. It sounds like he doesn't know why it didn't go through, hence the joke.

That's what I gathered at least.

TinkishDelight

Rereading I actually may have made up the auto-debit part, but I believe the payment was made online and suspiciously rejected on BOA's side.

@GMFish:

This actually happened to me, but with Discover...At least Discover is easy to deal with (highly recommended service)...

BoA decided to cut my credit limit from 12000 to under 1000, because of "market conditions", I had no balance on the card and never late, yadda, yadda...I had a .99% balance transfer offer and decided to take them up on it. I sent their check to Discover, the payment posted and three weeks later i get a returned check from BoA and the letter informing me of my cut in credit limit. Then BoA charged me a $39 returned check fee and Discover hit me with fees, for late payment, returned check, etc...Since the payment had cleared, I had no balance, thus not allowing me to pay on the Discover card...NICE!!! So I could not even prevent the issue I saw coming.

The scary thing was the Discover rep i talked to cut me off in the middle of my spiel and said, "BoA cut your limit during a balance transfer and are returning their check, right? This is my tenth one like this in the past week."

BofA is full of fail. I highly recommend that all Consumerists find a credit union and close their BofA accounts immediately.

Credit unions FTW!

Shouldn't this headline be ...

"Chase tries to apply a credit to your account but screws up and charges it instead but then fixes it when you call"

I must admit that the headline actually chosen is a lot more interesting. Misleading and not supported by the facts, but definitely more interesting.

obviously he's not capable of managing his money.
Already he is near his credit limit and only making minimum payments.

What do you expect!

Citi did something similar to me 2 weeks ago. I had an old (closed for 2+ years) checking account still listed as a choice when I pay my Citi account online. Somehow I selected that account instead of my current checking account. Needless to say the payment was returned. As soon as they alerted me via email about this, I realized what happened, removed the closed account and tried to make the payment using the correct account. I received a message stating that I would be unable to make payments online for 30 days. Nice. So I called customer service and was told I had to mail in a payment and that's what I did. I kept an eye on my account to make sure the payment was posted prior to the due date and it was. To my surprise, at my next billing cycle they charged me $39 "returned payment fee" and raised my interest rate from 7.99 to 28.99. After recovering from a mild heart attack I called customer service, explained the situation and asked (more like nicely begged) to have the rate lowered back to 7.99 and they agreed.

I'm throwing such a huge party once this account is paid off and I'm free from these guys.

Okay, so OP has a credit card that is so close to the limit that $80 in fees causes it to go over and he's only making the minimum payments?

I'm not blaming the OP - this does not sound at all like it was his fault - but it is a good cautionary tale to leave some leeway (if possible) on your credit cards rather than maxing them out. A couple of extra fees and this poor guy's limit was reached, causing more fees... In this economy we're all stretched pretty thin, but important to have some buffer if you can.

@gparlett: And that is a problem why? My car just broke and I had to charge about 2k in repairs to my emergency credit card-stupid transmission. Why? Because my fiance lost his job and I am paying all the bills atm. I don't have 2k for car repair sitting around, that is why I have a low interest credit for when something like that happens. It happens to put me very close to my credit card limit on the card. I will be paying this off over the next 3 months.

@gparlett: And your point? This is relevant to the story how?

@gparlett: This very website has had dozens of stories in the last six months about credit card holders receiving notice from the card-owning banks that their limits are being reduced to exactly their balances, or just above. (So for example, a $10,000 limit suddenly becomes a $2750 limit, and you're carrying a balance of $2693.)

In other words, making unsubstantiated blanket judgments of people and situations FTL.

Join a credit union. Leave the corporate banks!

I had the exact same experience with my Chase card this month (besides the over limit fee) and my checking account is with Chase.

I know I arranged the online payment, but I couldn't find my confirmation number, so I was kinda screwed when they said they never got the money.

blech... Another reason to ditch the chase/wamu account I've had since I was 16.

@gparlett: Holier-than-thou attitudes over that way ------>

@GMFish: Why can't you (people in general) have BoA pay you back for these fees? If ANY OTHER business does something adverse and costs you time/money, and I've seen plenty of articles here about this, you can ask/demand restitution. Why do banks get away with this goat-lichen-licking-nonsense? If BoA has no reason besides an error that a payment you directed did not go through and you wound up getting penalized because of a failure of a service you pay for, how is it they are not financially culpable?

Wait, why do we use these things? Protection? The credit card companies are as bad as any of the thieves who might steal them. In fact, they have cost most people much more out of pocket than any thieves have.

How bad does it have to become before people stop using them?

Hey credit card companies!!! Listen up!

If you fee people to death, they can't pay the bill!

If you want them to pay the bill, don't fee them to death!

I'm gonna hit them with a clue-by-four!

@Etoiles: To be fair to gparlett, the OP does mention his "usual $28 minimum payment," so it would appear that this wasn't a case of sudden limit reduction (it's possible, but seems unlikely from the wording). Either way, gparlett was a little harsh with the wording - even in the best of times it can be hard to manage your finances, and I wouldn't quite call this the best of times.

@NewsMuncher: The fees were refunded : "My rep was very nice and helped sort out the situation, which has been resolved. And it only took 15 minutes!"

@gparlett: Minimum payment means squat diddly in this situation. My one-and-only credit card had about $950 in charges on it ($1000 limit) because I used it to buy appliances for my new house (double warranty coverage for the win). Now, when I went to pay that off in full, if the payment was returned and I was hit with all those fees, I'd be over my limit too. So go troll somewhere else.

I have a local credit union.

So far my fees this year:
Automatic overdraft: $20
I can overdraft anytime for anything up to $1K without any additional fees.
Service is prompt and personalized.
They processed a refi that cut our mortgage payments by 30%.
The two times I had to call for an issue, i waited on hold for less than 30 seconds- total.

When there is service like this available, at no cost, why would anyone subject themselves to BoA?

The Payment Protector Plan is like rustproofing your car. You don't need it, and in the off chance you do, you will find the work was never performed but by then it will be too late.

@CarlR: My impression is that it was Chase, not BOA, to which the OP was referring there. I think NewsMuncher is asking about having BOA cover the fees incurred at other banks as a result of their behavior. And I don't think you'll ever get that, frankly.

@mpaquette: Just don't pay for the party with a credit card.

Hit 'em with fees. If they complain, take the fees back off. No problem.

The real problem is most people don't know they can get these fees removed, even if they do see them.

Banks are making way too much money from these fees for it to just be a computer error. There's no incentive to fix the error if all the bank has to do is give back no more than they took in the first place.

Penalties need to exist at least in proportion to how many people discover them. So if 20% of people discover them, the bank should pay 5x the falsely charged fee as a penalty (after paying back the fee).

Then there should be additional penalties for systematic problems. And a penalty for the privilege of paying a penalty. And an over-penalty penalty.

Make sure you keep up with your Credit Checking... i had something similar happen to me and it tagged my credit report... dealing with it as we speak...

@lolan64: even if they were paying the minimum on this card for the past few months (as "usual") he may have been instead putting every last dollar to paying off a different card with a higher APR or using the snowball method.

Basically no one knows the story tipper's finance's but the tipper themselves, so it is stupid to make judgments and assumptions about things not relevant to the story.

The OP needs to dump that "Payment Protector"... that sounds like overpriced credit insurance to me. If the OP needs life or disability insurance, he could save a lot of money by getting it from an actual insurance company.

I'd been recommending that my wife move her personal accounts over to our credit union after Chase bought out WaMu last October. (I'd moved mine over the week of the announcement.)

This past week, her latest bank statement showed a $12 fee on her money market account. No explanation, just a $12 service charge. Her free checking account remains free so long as she keeps a minimum balance in the money market account, which she always has. In other words, Chase hit her with a 'we own you now' charge.

She moved her money to our credit union on Friday.

Former Chase Account Supervisor here, let me explain the fees.

What caused everything was the returned payment. This payment being returned affected both the current statement cycle (the end of which is being see in the screen capture) and the previous statement cycle (which is being adjusted on this statement cycle).

First, the very action of a payment being returned caused a Return Payment Fee. While this is the only fee that must occur with a returned payment, it's very typical to see the others. Returned payments, as a rule, snowball. This fee is essentially a bounced check fee. The cardmember told Chase the payment was good, it was not, the "check" bounced. A system message that's added to the account gives a bit more information on why this happened, in very general terms (such as non-sufficient funds or account closed). If this happens to you, and you don't know why. Ask your Chase CSR to relay this note. Most of the troubleshooting is going to have to be between you and your bank (checking account bank), though.

The second and third fees are the adjusted fees: a late fee and an overlimit fee. When you see the word Adjusted after a fee on a Chase statement, that means it's a correction from a prior statement. In this case, Chase thought the cardmember had paid (and so did he), and so marked the account as paid and underlimit, thus no fees last month. However, after last month's statement had printed, the payment was returned, causing the last month's figures to be corrected. In this case, last month the cardmember was late and was overlimit. These fees are effectively from the prior month.

The adjusted finance charge of .05 is the same scenario. It's bookkeeping catching up to correcting the now erroneous information from the prior month. In this case, 30 dollars was returned. For the period of time when this was considered off the account, Chase had calcuated finance charges accordingly. The .05 is the amount the finance charges would have been increased by last month had the payment not been made at all, as retroactively, that's what happened. This finance charge adjustment, by the way, is not being generated from the fees, just the returned payment amount (contrary to the customer's quoted story, and Ms. Northrup's assesment). However, the finance charge from this month (the one with the date of 4-15-09) includes those fees in calculating the balance. Most likely the CSR didn't adjust that portion of the finance charge when making corrections, but it's a relatively minor amount.

The only fee that's actually taking place this month is the Overlimit Fee (the one that's not adjusted). If an account is overlimit and a new statement cycle begins, a new overlimit fee is immediately assessed (within limits). As retroactively, the account was over limit last month, when the payment was returned the same day this statement cycle, the account was considered overlimit at the beginning of a statement cycle, and charged an overlimit fee.

If this happens to you:
Moving on to what to do in this situation. Obviously, the cardmember in question had this resolved by a Chase CSR -- hooray, but if you find yourself in a similar situation, the most important piece of information when dealing with a returned payment issue is fault. There are three parties at work here, any of which could cause a returned payment. The cardmember (you), your bank (checking account bank), and Chase (credit card bank). Note that in some cases, both banks may be Chase, but for the purposes of Card Services (the credit card side of Chase, it's two companies).

Case 1: Cardmember Fault. A returned payment here may be nonsufficient funds (NSF), or bad info given as payment information (incorrect routing or checking account number, for example). In a case like this, Chase can keep those fees on your account if they want. It painful, but it can happen. Your best bet is to ask for a waiver as a courtesy. See many other consumerist articles on how to handle customer service agents responsibly when trying to get something. Note that in while being nice certainly doesn't hurt you (not being nice on the other hand certainly can kill your chances) at least during when I worked at Chase, decisions on courtesy waivers were system driven and a CSR may not neccessarily be able to make that waiver if the bank does not consider you a valuable customer to keep. You may want to request escalation to an account supervisor if turned down at first. Note that over the phone for Chase, that's the last time an escalation is helpful, but one tier up, reps do typically have greater authority to make exception, even for cases of customer error.

Case 2: Bank Fault (Checking Account). A case like this includes such examples as bank systems broke down, and no ACHs went out for a period of time, or an improper hold was placed on your funds. Here, you want to do the same thing as in case one, since it is still, after all, Chase charging the fees, and to have them waived, that's Chase's room. The argument can be made in this case that you didn't do anything wrong, the error was with your bank, and Chase shouldn't punish you for a good faith attempt to make a payment properly that didn't work for reasons outside of your control. Your mileage may vary on how well this works, but if this is your first returned payment, you have a very good chance of it being corrected on Chase's end. If they refuse, you should take it up with your bank, especially if they've admitted fault to you. They'll likely need a copy of your statement to issue any compensation. Not all banks will do this, even if they admit fault, but if you can't get a waiver from Chase, and they did cause it, no reason not to ask them to pay for it.

Case 3: Chase's fault. This one is easy, if a CSR can determine a bank error on Chase's part caused a returned payment incorrectly, all fees will be returned. Even if the bank is actively trying to get rid of you and noted your account to never, ever get a fee waiver, Chase will still honor fee credits in this case, as they never should have been charged. If you cannot find any reason why you or your bank made an error, it doesn't hurt to inquire with the CSR if this might be the case. Many times, bank errors happen in batches due a system error. It's not unusual in the unusual case of this happening for CSRs to be instructed to not offer credits in this case, as the company plans of issuing all credits systematically. I recommend double checking their work on future statements and following up if it doesn't happen within two billing cycles, but all should be made good in this case.

Note that by and large the most common case for a returned payment is customer error. Most commonly of this is the case of incorrect information when using the phone payment or web payment system. Always double check the information you're providing when entering in both the routing number and checking account number for making an electric ACH as your payment. It will save you heartache in the long run, even if the fees can be waived.

Another thing to check on if this occurs to you is your APR. Chase can and will adjust an APR for a lateness, an overlimit, or a returned payment. It might do so on the first occurrence. Any promotional rates will be lost. Depending on the size of your balance, the finance charges from this might vastly outweigh one time fees. Always review the finance charge section of the statement (it might appear past the first page) extra carefully during any month you have any fees.

One thing I might recommend to prevent this sort of thing for Chase cardmembers out there is Chase's autopay. It can be set for either the minimum due or the full statement balance. For customers that already make payment arrangements elsewhere (regardless of by check or through your checking account's bill pay service), I still would recommend setting up minimum payment autopay. The system is designed to not take a payment if the minimum has already been met by other means, so it makes for a great safety net. There's no cost to it. It can be signed up for online, or a form can be request to be mailed to you over the phone (it cannot be signed up for over the phone, as written consent is needed).

I hope the explanation of fees was somewhat helpful. Enjoy.

@HogwartsAlum: Hit yourself. Credit card companies don't want people to pay the bill. The only thing that makes them happier than a customer who only pays the interest on their balance is one who racks up fees on top of only paying interest. Free money!

Please join my Chase Bank and Credit Card Industry Protest.

All you have to do is make a sign that says Daily-Protest.com and put it in a storefront window, a bulletin board, or on a countertop. It's that easy. There are no ads on my website and no request for fees.

However you will find some interesting articles about how abusive the credit card industry has been in recent months.

[www.Daily-Protest.com]

Don't get that close to your limit and get rid of payment protector.

Speaking of Payment Protector, I wrote an entire website about how evil that program is. Again, no adds, free to everyone to view and learn.

[www.credit-protector.com]

[www.Daily-Protest.com]

um, I meant ads, not adds in my prior comment.

@nsv:

How can they pay the fees if they fee them to death?

It may seem unfair for these banks to charge fees but it is there for a reason- to ensure the terms and agreement of the acct are met.
1. to avoid a late fee - do not be late.
2. to avoid an overlimit fee - do not use too much of the available credit. Leave some amount for incidentals.
3. to avoid a return check fee - ensure you use the right checking acct to make the payment. If you do electronic payments, make sure you type the correct routing and checking acct numbers. And make sure you have enough funds to cover it or your bank may decline to pay it.

I know mistakes happen and all we can do is ask the bank to waive the fees. I'm not an exception and I've had these fees. If it was my fault, I try to ask the courtesy credit once. I just make sure it won't be a monthly mistake. But to call these banks bad names because of charging these fees is unfair. These fees were clearly disclosed and we all know it is there to stay.