Reply to "Cancel your credit card before you die!"

I have a related, but not as funny, story.

Years ago I made a payment to a credit card. A check for maybe $75. Weeks later the collections department called. I told them I sent a payment, they called me a liar, so I sent another one. A few months later I paid off the credit card. I also moved my checking account to a new bank.

More than a year later, the check showed up in the mail at the credit card company. They ran it through their system despite the account having a zero balance and being closed. The check bounced because the checking account was closed. They called me and told me I was in trouble with their fraud division because I paid on my account with a check from a closed checking account. I had to talk to a supervisor for them to understand that the check was fourteen months old, but they insisted that I owed them $25 for the returned check fee. I had to talk to another supervisor to get that fee removed.

Then my old bank called me to tell me I had a negative balance of $25 that I had to take care of immediately, and they were investigating me for writing a check on a closed account. I had to talk to a supervisor for them to understand that the check was fourteen months old and had been written when the account was open. I had to talk to another supervisor to get the fee removed.

Man, that guy at the credit card company treated me like a leper when I told him I had sent the check. He assumed I was lying because they hadn't received it. And they treated me like a criminal when they received the check fourteen months later and it didn't clear. And my old bank (same bank as the credit card actually) was very mean and aggressive in collecting their overdraft fee. All because everything is automated, and no one read the date on the check.

But, that is Citibank for ya'

R.