Interest Charges after Zero Balance

[Anonymous]

Before I make a fool of myself and call Capital One, I just want to make sure that I truly understand what is going on. The due date for my card was November 28th. The statement cuts on December 3rd. I paid the entire balance (213) on my card on November 25th in order to have a zero balance report. Minutes ago, I just checked my account and there are interest charges of less than 3 dollars that magically appeared. Now I have a balance of $2.87. Is this accurate??

[Pway]

Prior to your recent statement cut, did you have a balance that was not paid in full?

[elim]

you must not have PIF'd last month or grabbed/payed something as cash.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I'm glad I brought my concern here first. I did check my previous statement and there was a balance. I wish I would've have known the exact amount of interest prior to this statement closing. I was looking forward to seeing $0 balance reporating this month

[rmduhon]

In the future you can pay up to 10% more than the balance on your Cap1 cards which should cover most if not all interest.

[Anonymous]

Previous months balance should NOT come into play if the current balance was paid down to zero prior to the payment due date. If the balance was zero at that point then OBVIOUSLY, the prior months statement balance has been paid within the grace period. I would look for some other reason for the interest charge. Did you do any balance transfers or cash advances during this statement period? If not, give them a call and find out the reason for the interest charge.

[kuku4koco]

This exact thing happened to me with Macy's.... If I paid the statement balance IN FULL before the due date... How could they possibly add another interest charge 'after the fact'?  I sent a secure message to them asking this question... They reversed the charges... sneaky sneaky... you gotta watch!!  Can you imagine how much extra money they make doing this to every customer??? Things that make you go hmmmm... 

[grfonaaron]

I also have been billed a minimal $2.00 by Macy's - and ONLY Macy's - on repeated occasions when I have paid the account to zero by the previous month's due date. I wonder if anyone knows what agency this can be reported to? It is apparently a procedure unique to Macy's; I have never had this occur on any other card of any type. Every time it happens, I call them, and every time the charge is removed. 

[StartingOver10]

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@grfonaaron wrote:

I also have been billed a minimal $2.00 by Macy's - and ONLY Macy's - on repeated occasions when I have paid the account to zero by the previous month's due date. I wonder if anyone knows what agency this can be reported to? It is apparently a procedure unique to Macy's; I have never had this occur on any other card of any type. Every time it happens, I call them, and every time the charge is removed. 

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I would do two things:

1) Read the terms and conditions for their card just in case there is some weird provision stated in the terms (not likely)

2) Report the practice to the CFPB and be exact with your comments and have documentation.

Personally, I think Macy's is taking advantage of the "auto pay" mentality of many consumers today. What I mean by that is that consumers have a tendency to set their bills to auto pay and not really review each and every bill they receive. They just look at the summary in their email. I bet many consumers don't even open up the entire statement and save it to their respective credit folders! JMO

[MrsCHX]

It's called trailing interest. It's not "wrong". The only way to guarantee you never pay interest is to PAY IN FULL every single month. If you carried a balance at all from one month to the next you will pay interest on the additional days.

I deleted my example because it didn't seem clear. Here's a good explanation:

When the statement is generated you're already in the next billing cycle. The prior cycle's due date will fall within the next billing cycle. It looks something like this:

Cycle 1 Start
Cycle 1 End - Most cards report on this date
Cycle 2 Start
Cycle 1 Grace Period - If applicable
Cycle 1 Due Date
Cycle 2 End - And report date, if applicable
Cycle 3 Start
...and so on and so on...

basically if if you've been carrying a balance you will owe interest from the statement date to the date you make your payment.