Credit Card Companies Seek Every Last Penny Out of Customer

Recently I closed our only credit card, which was with Chase Bank. We had only gotten it on impulse in the beginning of the summer (before Dave Ramsey changed our lives, of course), and after paying off the balance before the due date, called to close. The representative was friendly enough and told us we would receive a confirmation letter and that there were no further charges.
Well, a word to the wise. Don't trust them to be good on their word. When you close a credit card account, that means less money for the credit card companies. They don't like it. It means they can no longer get any interest from you.

After I closed the account, I could no longer access it online. Until, suddenly, today. I was checking my checking account and noticed the credit card account had reopened. With a finance charge.

Yes, even after I had paid off the balance in full and gotten a statement from the company. They were going after my pennies. If I had not seen it, I would have been "late" on my payment (which is what they like, isn't it?) and thus induced more charges. No notification was sent to me either by mail or email in the meantime.

I called to complain, but the lady simply said it was a finance charge and needed to be paid. I eventually asked for the charge to be removed since we were told otherwise and had never been late on any payments and she consented. Let's just hope they stay true to their word.

So, for all of you working to pay off your credit cards (especially from Chase, I have heard similar stories) remember to pay an extra two or three dollars to account for that inevitable finance charge they will try to bill you. That way, they owe you money rather than the other way around.

Lesson learned: don't dabble with credit cards. They really are out to suck every last penny from you!