Waiving late payment charges for credit card

My father totally forgot about a payment for his credit card bill, as the bill was accidentally pushed to the back of his drawer. When he remembered he was very upset at the thought of paying the late payment charges. Immediately, I told him to call up the call centre and get the charges waived by explaining his situation. They are usually quite helpful.

Coincidentally, the bank had just printed out the statement for the next month, and had slapped very hefty charges of at least $65. The customer officer agreed to waive the charges for him, but required him to make two months payment immediately the next day. That meant that they would not give him any grace period to pay the charge for the second month.

My father was delighted at getting the waiver, so he agreed to make the payment the next day. Since I can get off work a little earlier than him if I want to, I went down to the bank the next day. It’s great that banks now close at a later time. The bank was opened until 7pm. I withdrew the money from my account and then paid the bill. Everything was settled.

When I reached home, my father told me that the bank called him up at the office in the morning. They were chasing him for the late payment, and demanded he made immediate payment. When he told them that he had already called the customer service hotline last night and received a waiver, it was only then they checked their system. This goes to show their systems are not fully integrated. They should have double-checked their systems before making the call. By calling his office, it was potentially embarrassing. This is one area they should improve.

The other problem this bank had was they only called him up many days after the deadline for payment was up. They should not have waited until they sent the second letter out to press for payments. Many people could have made a genuine mistake when they forget to pay. This may affect their credit history if it happens too often. The bank should have sent a friendly reminder to check whether they had forgotten to pay.

The payment was around $650, and the late payment charges were $65. $45 was for the late payment charge, and $20 was the interest. This means if my father paid these extra charges, it would be an additional 10% in one month. I think that is how people get into credit card debts. Some of them rollover their payments, and the interest rates are extremely high.

Anyway, I’ve found out that some banks allow waiver of late payments, but capped to a maximum of 2 or 3 times to prevent abuse. My friend tried to get her late payment waived a forth time, but was rejected.