They used to just send it back to you. Things have changed. Once you go past a point (not sure the exact amount, but not that high) they freeze the money. It then gets reported due to the Patriot Act. Investigated for up to 90 days. If all checks out, they then send it back to you in the form of a check. During this investigation time you will not have access to this money to pay off charges while it is frozen. I am talking from personal experience. If you must over pay, try never to exceed $1000.
I will give you an example. If you have a card that does not report the credit line, and you take a cash advance to max out the card, then send in the money the same day or a few days earlier to prevent as much high interest accruing daily and your payment posts before your charge does, this may create a POS balance. If they freeze funds before your cash advance posts you will have to come up with the money all over again to pay the cash advance off. Besides that they can freeze your first payment for up to 90 days. It totally ******! I had to FIGHT hard to get my money back. It was explained to me that people launder money this way and they have to report it because the patriot act looks at over payers as potential people trying to avoid having checking accounts to track or something like that. $50, $100 over pay is fine. I do not recommend too much! You might hear some of my frustration in my words. Very stressful it was.
Rather than over pay, open a checking account. Put the money in there. Set up with the credit card company to automatically debit monthly the FULL STATEMENT amount. This way you can still show UTL and keep a reserve in your own checking account so you don't rack up a credit card bill.
Oh. And no (over paying) does not effect your FICO score either way.
Message Edited by ilovepizza on 06-11-2007 12:29 PM
