Got a Chase credit card? Check your bill to see if the due date shrunk. For the past ten months, the due date on reader NDphoxylady’s four Chase credit card due date was the fifteenth. Then, without warning or notice, it became the tenth. NDphoxylady only noticed when she was charged a $39 late fee and a $20 finance charge. When she complained to Chase, they told her that simply changing the due date on the bill was adequate notice. Nu-uh

Both NDphoxylady and I know that that doesn’t count. The credit card company needs to send you an additional kind of disclosure notice. She has paperless billing, which may explain why she never got it. In any event, that still doesn’t excuse their non-notification. Three times she called Chase. She asked for supervisors each time and was directed to voicemail, which she never got a call back from. We told NDphoxylady it was time to escalate to executive customer service and pointed her to the Chase numbers on our site. Within a few minutes of calling, Chase waived the fee. NDphoxylady was happy about that, but still pissed that it happened in the first place.

She wrote, “Now, we pay everything on the 12th, and I do not have the time to check every month that my due date is going to change…I feel like closing my account with them.

I mean to me it’s the principle that matters, they could have charged me three bucks and I would still be pissed off. It’s their manipulative behavior, and I doubt many people called to get these fees removed. They probably thought it was their fault and never reported it to chase

Is anyone trying to control these companies? I mean can’t government regulate something?”

We told her if that she really feels strongly about it, to write a letter to her elected representatives. This excellent post shows you the most effective way to write to Congress.

“Who will protect the customers,” NDphoxylady asked. ” It’s like we have to stick up for ourselves and for other people.”

It’s always a good idea to scrutinize your monthly bills. You never know when they’re going to try to sneak in a new fee.

(Photo: Getty)

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