CC accrued interest after paying in full

[Billseeker]

So I paid off my Citicard CC last month in full and I received this month statement with $69 in interest charge..WTH ?? I called them and they told me that I have to pay the balance in full for 2 consecutive mos. in order not to accrue interest. Are they right? I told them to close my account

[Billseeker]

they explained that I accrued the interest from the time they printed my last statement to the time I paid the balance which is 5 days before due date. but whatever, I still requested to close my account

[Gina23]

Scary. Can you confirm that your cardmember agreement doesn't say this somewhere in the fine print?

I'm pretty sure when I combed through the Chase Freedom cardmember agreement that it says "no interest will accrue for a balance paid in full" but I'd like to hear more from you just to make sure I'm not going to get slapped with a fee too.

Thanks for the heads-up

[Billseeker]

Gina

See my response above. They explained that I accrued interest (calculated daily) from date when statement was printed to the date I paid in full

[Gina23]

Thanks, I think we were posting at the same time as I am just now seeing this.

[pdweaver]

That is one of the worst things with credit cards. It is accruing interest daily. That means that if you miss paying off your CC for a month, then pay off the card the next month, you better call to get an estimated amount up to the day. Heres an example..

You dont pay the card off for Jaunuary and your stmt close date is 1/21 (lets say).

February comes along and you figure that on 2/15 you are going to pay the balance of the CC off. Lets say it shows a balance of 1500.

You get the February stmt, it shows the pmt you made on 2/15, but you still owe $21. WTH

The $21 you owe is the daily accrued interest from 1/21-2/15. You can calculate this by taking your APR (lets say 21%) and multiply it by 365 (days in the year).

.21%/365=.0005753 which is your daily rate. Times that by the principal balance for the day, and thats how much interest you will owe, per day. Times that by how many days from the last time your stmt closed, plus compounding the interest!!!

I hope this was clear enough to understand.

[Billseeker]

Thanks pdweaver, that's exactly how the rep explained it to me. If I pay the balance now, I will no longer accrue interest.

[MonkeyMama]

One more thing to watch out for - those of us who do pay our balances every month. I always read the fine print, but seems this would be easy to miss. Thanks for the tip! I'd close the card too, out of protest. If they wouldn't remove the fee.

[HousingCounselor]

Originally Posted by Billseeker

So I paid off my Citicard CC last month in full and I received this month statement with $69 in interest charge..WTH ?? I called them and they told me that I have to pay the balance in full for 2 consecutive mos. in order not to accrue interest. Are they right? I told them to close my account

Macy's did the same thing to me. I paid the balance in full and they charged me $2 in interest. So glad I looked at my statement. I would've been late.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by Billseeker

So I paid off my Citicard CC last month in full and I received this month statement with $69 in interest charge..WTH ?? I called them and they told me that I have to pay the balance in full for 2 consecutive mos. in order not to accrue interest. Are they right? I told them to close my account

Was this a balance that had been carried over from at least one previous month or do you pay your bill in full every month?

[Gina23]

Forgive my ignorance as I have not held a credit card in years and opened one to take advantage of rewards while expecting to pay the balance off in full so I do not accure any interest.

My payment due date is 03/01.

Does that mean, as long as I make a payment by the due date I will not be charge interest? Or do I need to make a payment prior to the close of the statment date in order to not be charged interest?

Thank you.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by Gina23

Forgive my ignorance as I have not held a credit card in years and opened one to take advantage of rewards while expecting to pay the balance off in full so I do not accure any interest.

My payment due date is 03/01.

Does that mean, as long as I make a payment by the due date I will not be charge interest? Or do I need to make a payment prior to the close of the statment date in order to not be charged interest?

Thank you.

As long as you pay by the due date, there should be no interest charged as long as you haven't carried a balance over from a prior month. If you pay your bill in full on time every month, there are no charges.

[Mr Tipps]

Unfortunately that is how credit cards work. I would probably just put it down to another lesson in life and try not to let it happen again.

I think credit cards are great, but you have to work within their rules otherwise you do get screwed!

[Money Gal]

Finance charges are paid 30 days in arrears typically, so on the statement you were paying for the prior 30 days finance charge for use of the money. Now on this statement you are paying for use of their money from the prior statement to whenever you paid off the bill.

That is normal & not something I would close an account over.