Chatting with Citibank - June 20, 2010

[artistchick]

: Can you explain how the late fees and interest were calculated? It say my account is only 6 days overdue.
Layla: You receive a late fee if your payment is not made before 5:00 p.m. est. on your due date. Your interest is calculated by your APR daily.
: What is my daily APR? Can you write out the calculations given my actual balances?
Layla: You can

Comments

[penpusher]

In a word, yes.

But in a few more words, this is why the world is in the state it's in. I don't know if you got to read my "Four Agreements" post from a short while ago, but the "Assume" part of it is exactly what this is about.

Really, a lot of the time we are told, either by directly speaking with or by learning it based on actions or reactions of our elders, parents or people we want approval from, that acting like you know something, even when you don't is the correct thing to do, and that we may be embarrassed, punished, or even worse if we don't. So it would be great to stop that, especially since the world is about to implode on all of the dumb decisions and assumptions people in charge have made!

Good for you for learning... I hope you don't have to pay all that money tho. I can't stand Citibank.

[artistchick]

The Four Agreements are really nice.

You are exactly right. We are sent that message since childhood. What a great observation. I'll try to be more aware of this.

What I learned about how a payment being 1 day late means you must start paying interest from the beginning of the previous statement is good to know, but I got that from a phone call made later. The only thing that I gained from this chat conversation is that if a customer service person says they know what they're doing with something mathematical and what they say doesn't make sense, then I should get into contact with someone else and mention that I'm a mathematician so they make sure they give me someone competent.