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The cardinal rule of personal finance is to meet all of your debt obligations, and to meet them on time. One time when I was 19 years old I missed a credit card payment. Sure I had no business putting anything on a credit card at that time, but I also wasn’t in the habit of missing or making late payments, I had simply forgotten. The bank quickly tacked on a $50 late charge, nearly doubled my interest rate (which at that age was already pretty bad), and put me on some sort of credit card probation program. I learned my lesson and vowed to never make such a stupid error again.
Flash forward 11 years later and I commited the very same personal finance crime that I had sworn to avoid. I had made a purchase using interest free financing simply because I view it as free money. After all, why remove money from an interest bearing account when you can use free money and pay for it over a short period of time, without interest of course. I automate some of my monthly payments, and others I mark down on a calendar or a list with the date and amount I intend on paying. Well I had only given myself about 3 days of a grace period to make this specific payment, which had never been an issue before, though I had never had a ruptured appendix occur either. Several days later I get home from the hospital and it hits me, I NEVER MADE THAT PAYMENT! Sure there are worst things in the world, but for a personal finance blogger this is about as bad as it gets. It’s embarrassing to say the least, and it’s an inexcusable mistake.
Regardless of MY mistake, I am going to call the bank first thing in the morning and plead with them to remove the late charge, and hope they won’t begin accruing interest on me immediately. In the future I need to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. I need to allot more time for payment, perhaps automate the payment, or simply pay the bill immediately as it comes in the mail. As I said this is a very embarrassing mistake to admit considering the advice and information that I preach. This just goes to show you that even us finance enthusiasts still have lessons that need to be learned.
I wonder…do any of my readers have any suggestions as to how I should’ve handled this situation to begin with?
Do any of you feel that I’m slightly justified on making this late payment due to my circumstances, or am I just in the wrong here?
Have any of you had a similar situation like this before?
I love and value all of your opinions, so I am very much looking forward to seeing what the court of public opinion has in store for me. Hope you all had a great weekend and are ready for the week ahead!
Its in my about page as well, I never paid anything on fee or penalty. I got my account frozen this year due to some missing wife’s immigration papers at bank. It was frozen for 10 days and timing of it made me delinquent on all credit cards. I bunked few hours from work but made sure my bank issued a letter to credit card issuers acknowledging their mistake resulting in waiver of the fee.
Good luck with yours, generally you need to make a few calls till you reach someone who can waive fees.
One time, I made a purchase on a store credit card and then forgot all about it until I got an overdue payment notice a couple months later. They were willing to waive the late fees as I was a pretty good customer, but it got me in the mindset of reducing the number of those types of cards we have, and paying them off as soon as we make the purchase if we do use them.
I kind of equate this as to getting a parking ticket. No one plans on it, but it happens. I don’t think you really made an “error”. You had a medical emergency that affected your payments. If it were me, I would still try to get the charge removed.
I’ve missed a payment before. I find that asking nicely works best when asking for a late fee back. If they are a good company, they’ll usually give you a grace return fee for the first time.
Life sometimes gets in our way. Don’t beat yourself up. I would think after 11 years of flawless credit history, your bank would be apt to remove the late charges without penalty.
Great work on this sort of credit history. Your credit rating has to be crazy!
Oh yikes! I think everyone has accidentally forgotten a payment, or life has gotten in the way (as it did with your ruptured appendix). Calling and asking nicely is a great way to get charges removed. In the future, automate, automate, automate.
Good luck! Usually a credit card will waive the fee if you are a good customer, but I don’t know about store cards. That’s one reason why I don’t make use of all those interest free deals. Hope you are feeling better too.
I’m guilty of forgetting a payment. Once you do this you become more mindful of not forgetting. Fortunately some creditors will work with you as long as your account has been in good standing.
I’ve never missed a payment. Why incur a late fee or risk damaging my credit score?
I’ve missed a payment before but not because I didn’t pay it. Sounds confusing, huh? Here’s the story … we had several clients who were late in paying us so money, for us, was tight. We finally got a check from one client and deposited it. We had never had trouble with this person before so didn’t check on his available funds or anything … we should have because this time he didn’t have the funds to cover the check. By the time we found out, we had already made a payment using that money. To make a long story short, the payment was considered late since it didn’t clear and we were charged a late fee. The bank charged us a fee as well. No one would reverse the fees. And get this … the client skipped town and we never go the money. That’s my sad tale!
When making a purchase, if it’s available, I always take advantage of interest free financing because I view it as free money and I never have problems with late payments because I always automate the payments – as my bank doesn’t charge me for this service.
When my husband’s company went bankrupt, we had no choice- we defaulted on all our bills, lost our house, our land- even foced to give up my beloved cats.
that was back in 2005. We survived since then using debit cards and my hubby’s Social Security check- hopefully by next year, we’ll be able to have our credit record cleared.
I have not ever been charged a late fee. . .but it has been pure luck.
ugh. i am always late and accrue late charges. thanks for reminding me the importance of paying before they call..by then it’s too late.
i think due to your nearly perfect credit history you were not in the wrong on this one. maybe if someone continually missed payments and tried to get out of them it would be different. i know that i absolutely love automatic payments, so this can never happen!
I think I’ve had one or two late payments over the past dozen years or so. One was simply because I forgot to pay the bill which was accidentally left unopened in my trunk… that was before I automated my payments.
If you have a good history, they are often willing to write off penalties for a very infrequent late payment. Or at least they used to be.
Talk to the right person and they’ll get it written off. It’ll take some time and a several transfers though. It’ll help if you have a good standing history.
If you can get it written off – by all means, get it written off!Good luck!