New Gimmick in Credit Cards

I made my annual sock shopping trip to Macy's a few weeks ago. I paid for my purchase with my Macy's Visa card, always worth a little discount. When I received e-mail notification of the bill a week later, I went online and paid it immediately.

Therefore, I was a little surprised to get a paper statement a couple of weeks later, but maybe their system is a little slow. Or perhaps they always send it. What astonished me was to see that the statement total was $2 higher than the bill.

 

You can see that the bill was for $48.24 but that the statement shows an amount due of $50.24. 

I called to see how an additional $2 charge crept in. They said that was for interest if I chose not to pay the full amount due. I checked the credit agreement and it says:

B. There will be a Minimum INTEREST CHARGE of $2.00 in any billing period in which the INTEREST CHARGE resulting from application of the Daily Periodic Rate would be less than $2.00.

I protested that I had already paid the bill but they said it was, "Just our policy." I asked what would have happened if I had paid the $50.24 in full with the statement. They said that the $2 would have been credited to my account. I'm not sure I believe them.

The agreement does not say that they will charge you ahead of time, assuming that they will be entitled to collect interest on the next billing cycle. 

A further review of their credit agreement showed this feature:

If you make a Purchase during a billing period with an unpaid Previous Balance, we will begin charging interest on the Purchase from the date it is added to the balance and continue to accrue interest until payment in full is credited to your account.

As I read this, if I did not pay the bill in full and bought something else, that they would start charging me interest, currently 24.5 percent, on the date of purchase, not at the beginning of the next billing cycle.

Obviously, issuers of credit cards are trying everything they can to squeeze more money out of you. But this doesn't seem like much of a reward for my loyalty to the Macy's brand.  I wonder how much they will charge me to cancel the card. 

Randy Johnson – Author of How to Save Thousands of Dollars on your Home Mortgage and Savvy Borrower articles, Randy is a mortgage broker who has financed over $1 billion in properties. He writes about home buying and real estate finance topics for CreditBloggers.com.