Ask Your Credit Card Company To Remove Your Fees

January 14, 2008 | Written by: Connie Brooks

Eliminate Your Credit Debt Easily

Nearly every major credit card company has a system in place for removing the fees on your credit cards. All you have to do is ask. In fact many companies will not remove fees unless you specifically ask them to.

How do I know this? I worked as a collections officer for a major credit card company for two years and I removed thousands of dollars worth of fees from customer’s cards. I was not allowed to remove anything though, unless the customer used the words “Can you take any of the fees off of this card for me?”

I took this lesson with me to my current job and immediately had over $700 worth of fees and interest removed from my employer’s business cards the first month on the job. So how do you make this system work for you?

It’s really simple:

Gather up all of your credit card statements into one place. Write down the contact phone numbers for each of them in your phone book for easy reference. Then, just start calling. If you are short on time, call one company a day until you get through the list.

Examples of fees that you can ask to have removed include:

  • Late Fees - Almost every company will remove these fees for you. Some companies will even remove up to one years worth of late fees from the balance of your card. If the customer service representative offers to remove only one fee, be sure to ask them if they can remove two or more fees for you instead.
  • Over the Limit Fees - Again some companies will remove up to a years worth of over the limit fees, it just depends on their policy, and how helpful the customer service rep is willing to be.
  • Membership Fees - Membership fees tend to be a sticking point for most credit card companies, they do not like to remove them. However asking never hurts. You can always ask them to reduce the membership fee, or waive it for the current year.
  • Interest Rates - It may help if you shop around a bit before you ask for this one. If you have had your account for a while and you know that other companies are offering better terms, then you do have some bargaining power with your current company. Simply explain to them that company X is offering balance transfers at a lower interest rate than what you are paying. Explain to them that you wanted to give them a chance to match the rate before you took your business elsewhere.

Persistence Pays

If you get an unhelpful person on the other end of the line, just hang up and call back! This is your money we are talking about, not theirs. You may have to call back a couple of times in order to get someone who is willing to help you. Do whatever it takes to avoid paying interest and fees that you do not have to pay!

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    Written by Connie Brooks | Filed Under Eliminate Your Debt, Featured Financial Security Articles, Financial Security 

    Comments

    One Response to “Ask Your Credit Card Company To Remove Your Fees”

    1. Credit Card NewsNo Gravatar on January 26th, 2008 4:07 pm

      Great tips! Some people don’t realize - all you have to do is ask!

      We’d love to get your feedback. We recently started a poll on the Worst / Best Credit Card Issuer. Feel free to stop by and give us your opinion. Sounds like you’ve got plenty of experience ;)

      Let's Talk!