Has anyone else been told this?

[motiv8ed2getthescoreup]

I called today to cancel one of my orchard bank cards because both of them have af. The csr transferred me to an account manager who told me that they could waive the fee, but I would have to wait until it had been billed in order for them to have something to waive. The af comes due in Nov. I got the lady's id number, but has anyone else had this experience?

[ChesterPDexter]

I think I've been told something similar.  It isn't as fishy as it sounds.  The CSRs have the ability to have things "comped," I guess might be another verb to describe it, or waived, as you said.  But they can't program their system to make sure it is never assessed to you in the first place.

They're not trying to pull a fast one.  Just follow their instructions and follow up at the appropriate time and they should waive it, as promised.

Then again, Juniper once gave my husband some concrete instructions and then went back on theird word.  But that was another matter.  Anyway, Orchard/Household/HSBC are pretty good about doing what they say.  They've done a lot of things for me I would have never expected, like lowering an APR and giving me special promotional offers that I didn't know about until I asked if they could do anything for me.  I had more luck with that a few years ago, though.

[motiv8ed2getthescoreup]

Okay I will. Thanks Wasn't sure if they were trying to pull a fast one on me

[Anonymous]

Sounds fishy to me. If you cancel now then you're guaranteed not to pay the AF. On the other hand, if you allow the AF to post and they go back on their word you will be stuck paying.

[ChesterPDexter]

Actually, that's not quite true, asteroid blues.  Many people don't know that you can cancel a card and ask for your annual fee to be refunded if you do it within a certain time frame - I think it is 60 days but I could be wrong and it may be only 30 days.

I know because I've done it, and with Orchard, also.  Once I simply realized I didn't want the card anymore (low limit like maybe $300 and they weren't willing to work with me) and my attention was not called to the matter until I saw the $39 fee billed to my account.  I closed it and requested that the fee be refunded, and they did refund it as a credit to me.  Since the card was closed, I then had to ask them to send me a check.  A little bit of a pain, and it took a month or so to get my money, but it works.  This has been the law for years - don't keep a card just because a fee has been billed and you think that is a sunk cost - it isn't, and they'll send you a check to refund you.

[motiv8ed2getthescoreup]

Thanks for the info ChesterPDexter. That makes me less uptight about waiting. I will hold on to it til then and see how it goes.