Citizen's Bank charges $12.95 to pay online at all.

Don't get me wrong, HSBC charging this fee is outrageous. however, other banks are far worse, and I question what proof you have that Best Buy made the decision on this policy.

This is hardly exclusive to HSBC methinks. I've been told by my Credit Union that online payments can take 3-5 business days. I've had plenty of payments for my phone bill that were recorded as late even though I put them through the day it was due.

Good, hopefully this company does not get a bailout when it starts to go under like Circuit City for its shady practices..

Most companies will have to start taking checks again as more people keep getting rid of their credit cards.. Thankfully Best Buy and other crap companies will fuel the termination of the cards faster then normal..

I have been credit card free for two years now and love it..

@Shadowfire:

I don't pay a fee to pay my hsbc visa online.

Isn't this one of thing things the Credit Card Act was supposed to prevent? When does that take effect?

It doesn't matter if Best Buy made the decision on this policy. The point is that Best Buy continues to use them despite their having this policy.

The fee is if you want the payment to post today -- i.e., an expedited payment. If you pay your bills with any sort of plan, you can easily avoid the fee by simply scheduling the payment a couple of days earlier. It's really not that hard.

Wamu had a $14.95 fee if you wanted to pay the day of submittal. I think the fee was still imposed even after they switched to Chase. Any one should know that this fee is sham, and such fees should be abolished with the recent credit card reforms.

It's a rush payment fee. I have this card, just payed off the balance. I was dinged with a late payment fee of $30 bucks because I missed the payment date by 1 day.

So $15 fee to get it processed immediately or $30 fee because of a late payment. Yeah both suck but we signed contracts agreeing to their terms before we got these cards.

Don't get me wrong, I don't support this, but other places do this as well. You do have a choice though. 1) pay your bill at least 7 days early through the mail. 2) pay your bill at least 2 BUSINESS days early online (weekends dont count). 3) Don't use this card.

They're not charging you a fee to pay your bill online. It's a charge if you pay your bill within 2 days of the due date online. IE - If the bill is due the 15th and you want to make your payment on the 14th or 15th you get slapped with a fee. I believe they term it a rush payment or something similar.

Other than the Best Buy branding on the card, I'm not sure how much Best Buy has to do with HSBC policies.

Oh, I got hit hard with this on my first HSBC payment. I hit some weird point in the billing cycle, and so got a bill Thursday with a due date of Tuesday. Of course I waited until Saturday, thinking I could set up an online account and post a payment on Monday. Nope. I ended up talking them down to a charitable $7.50 fee so that it wouldn't be late, even though they were the ones who sent the bill to me so late (and a Friday payment may not have made it under their guidelines).

Incidentally, nowhere in the bill did it say that there was a two-day buffer required.

This isn't anything new. It has been around for the last couple of years.

That's such a because we can fee. There's no technology reason the back end can't process a payment in that same night's batch.

Who doesn't charge this fee? I see this on all my online payments as I schedule my payment a week in advance instead of 5 minutes before it's due.

Srsly, EVERYONE does this and it's usually more!

This has been the case with most credit cards for years! My chase and Citibank cards both do this.

No, the due date shouldn't be earlier because if you paid then, it'd be late still.

If you mailed the payment in on the due date rather than had it to them by the due date, you'd expect problems, right? Same idea here. Paying on the due date only works if you can guarantee the payment will be in their hands, not electronically clearing or in the postal system

@jmsbmck: I'm curious as to where you see this. Do you make online payments directly through the merchant's website?

I make all my payments online but I always do it using the online bill pay feature from my bank's website. Do vendors and merchants really charge you lots of money if you're paying them on their own website?

This fee is only for an expedited payment for people that are irresponsible and wait until the last minute to pay their bill. Do you also think that it is a good idea to mail your check the day the bill is due? I don't. Pay your bills early like a responsible adult and all will be good.

@socalrob:
I also have this card, and have never had to pay the rush payment $15. The due date is always the same, schedule the payment more than 2 days in advance.

I set the payment right when I get the email about my statement. It's a nice, built-in reminder.

A lot of CC companies use this scam.
And I do say scam, because when I pay my cell, car insurance, and pretty much any other account, it's credited and deducted immediately. In the computer age there is no reason for a payment to be in limbo for 2 days.

@jmsbmck: I think it's less the fee than the fact that you need two business days' clearance. Every other card I've ever paid online can take payments entered the day before.

Chase will tack on fees as well if you attempt to pay a bill from any other bank and you are too close to the due date.

Funny part was, I was within 2-3 days of due date and was going to pay via their website and noticed the fee, so I bailed and waited until the day it was actually due and walked over to the branch to pay in person.

@kcvaliant: Most people who have checks also have debit cards, which can be used exactly like credit cards, for the intents and purposes of the retail store. I really hate being in line behind someone writing out a check. It's so much faster to just use the debit or credit card.

@Shadowfire: BofA works the same way-free to pay online, but a $12.00 fee to make an 'express payment' credited same day. Seems fair to me. It's not like they're saying 'payments after noon don't count'.

GE Money Bank's PayPal Buyer Credit requires 2 days prior to due date for online payment to be scheduled as on time, and no option to pay a fee to pay "late" on the due date (or the day before for that matter). Funny, their (GE Money Bank) Ford Dealer Credit does not have the same requirement to schedule an "on-time" payment 2 days early, the same day is on-time with that one. Go figure. They are all just god damned thieves.

I never had any issues with the HSBC card. 0% interest and the online bill pay was fine. There may have been a nominal fee for online pay, i forget, but it wasn't $15 since I paid early.

@lawnmowerdeth: i agree.i have a store credit card that allows payments the same day, as long as it's before a certain time on the due date. if you've been a long time customer and have always had the funds deducted from the same bank account without issue, i can't imagine what their problem is. if it's the first time doing an online payment, or using a new bank account, i could understand them needing a little time for verification.

EVERY credit card has a rush payment fee, which will post the payment that very day. It's nice of consumerist to point this out, though, because some people might not realize it. It's simple to avoid. Just pay 2 to 3 days before it's due.

@jmsbmck: Just because EVERYONE is jumping off a bridge doesn't make it right.

@samurailynn: yes, checks should not be used at a store when you have a debit card. Why people still use them at stores is beyond me. (I know the whole floating ordeal, still, don't do it)

I love the "everyone else is doing it, so it's OK." That's B.S.! Because all banks may do it, makes all banks WRONG!

I just got a letter from Citizens Banks (Royal Bank of Scotland) stating that starting August 3, they will start charging me $30/year for overdraft "service" + a $5 fee every time I use the service + interest on the loan. I was really upset and told them I was going to close all my accounts until I discovered that all the other banks are doing the same thing: even credit unions! That still doesn't make the fees right, but now I'm not going to close my account. I'm simply turning off the over draft feature. I will make darn sure I don't over draw my account again. The problem is that now I have to spend more of my time ensuring that I don't accidentally overdraw my account and move money around to avoid this fee.

Let Best Buy corporate know that you won't put up with HSBC's fees and that you'll be closing the account as soon as possible. Where I work, we used to have a corporate Best Buy account. HSBC pulled all sorts of shady stuff on us. The worst: that they essentially charged us a late fee before they even mailed our first statement.

Anyway, we went to our corporate contacts at Best Buy for Business and told them that we would not do business with them as long as HSBC is handling their corporate billing. That was over a year ago. They may have since dropped HSBC for corporate accounts because the Best Buy for Business sales people have been calling me to get our business back with some sort of new account.

@lawnmowerdeth:
What form of payment do you use to pay your cell phone bill and car insurance?

I've ran into the "express payment" feature a couple of times. My student loan company charges to recognize an online payment the day you submit it and I think one of my credit cards does too.

I agree it's a total scam. You are paying for NOTHING. Literally, nothing. Now, if it actually REVERSED a late fee, like if you paid a couple days late. Then it would be worth something.

HSBC tried to charge me $5 to give me an explanation of charges I had made. I suppose they didn't like me because I always paid off the same-as-cash deals early. I closed the card on the spot, and save about $2500 a year by not buying electronic crap that I didn't need in the first place.

@John Henschen:
They probably have a contract with HSBC for the card. I don't think its an unreasonable policy though.

@vastrightwing:

That's a lie. My credit union never charges me if I forget to move enough money to checking from savings to cover a charge. They just do it automatically and seamlessly, the same way they've been doing for free for years.

@AlexTNOA:

I mean the bank is lying to you - I'm not calling you a liar. :-)

@torgonius:
Agree. The BestBuy credit card has always worked this way (I started paying on-line maybe 3 years ago or more). It sucks, but I just make sure I schedule the payment in advance.

Worse are the sites where you can't schedule a payment, just make one on the day. If you like to schedule or make a payment on the last possible day, you have to be much more careful not to forget. (Sprint, my credit union and my local electric company work this way.)

Our last Worst Buy statement arrived in the mail on June 4th. Guess when the bill was due. If you guessed June 4th, give yourself a cookie.

I smell a class action coming.

Yup. I don't carry a balance on my Best Buy card. They have these insane deals. 18 months no interest on all purchases $499 and up. This is a good deal for high priced items or laptops. Just BETTER make sure you pay ON TIME.

Yup. I don't carry a balance on my Best Buy card. They do have these insane deals though. 18 months no interest on all purchases $499 and up. This is a good deal for high priced items or laptops. Just BETTER make sure you pay ON TIME.

@Travis Williams: How is paying a bill on the due date, directly to the person to whom it is due, irresponsible? I thought the purpose of the due date was to tell you precisely when the payment was due.

They can take as long as they want to process the payment. But if they had the money before or on the due date (or only didn't because they hadn't processed it), and it's clear in this case that they did, then the payment is not late.

@Cant_stop_the_rock: Everything is paid from the same checking account.

Uhhh... Best Buy has been doing this for the past while. It sucks, yeah - But why are you waiting until the very day something is due to pay it? It doesnt excuse that this is a shit-tastic means to handle payments, but really... Why wait when the amount due is probably $20-$40/month?

I pay mine ASAP so I dont even have to worry about the bill being paid on the day of, and so I dont have to worry about it for the rest of the month.

@pb5000: there are two places i shop that are cash or check only: a used bookstore and goodwill.

@Etoiles: when i schedule my credit card payment for my chase visa, i do it on the chase website and the one time i decided to have it pay same day it showed me the following picture. fortunately, i was paying early and had plenty of time left so i scheduled it for two days later and had no convenience fee

@hahamaximus: does the 'attempt to pay a bill from any other bank' mean that you are trying to pay Chase? or pay from Chase to another bank/account? i have a chase credit card but no other accounts with them and they never try to charge me extra for paying my credit card electronically from my credit union checking account

@wvFrugan: GE money bank Sam's club credit account also won't let me schedule a payment to occur the day i am entering it