return to spender

Yesterday felt a little like March 28th 2005 all over again. (Except the part with the babies! My clothes still smell like baby.) I got an email from my credit card company. Or I should say one of my credit card companies, for I have several. In said email, they informed me that my payment was past due. They charged me a late fee, which put me over my credit limit, so then they charged me an over-limit fee. Though I have not spent a cent on that card since I used it to buy gas on my move down here, my balance was fifty dollars over my limit. I didn't understand how this happened. I mailed my check the same day that I got my statement. I went to the mailbox on my way back to my apartment to cry. In the mailbox was my check returned the same day for reasons of insufficient address. How could the address be insufficient on a self-addressed envelope?! And why did it take the postal service fifteen days to return it to me after they stamped it Return to Sender?

I called the credit card company right away. The kid who answered the phone didn't help me any, but with assertiveness that would have done Heather proud, I asked for someone who could. I told him my problem, and I told him to fix it. Just drop the fees, I said. I know you can. I'll make the payment now online, but I don't deserve these fees. After the conversation that involved asking, demanding, rebuking and begging grew to such a length as to make me wonder if my cell phone company was in cahoots with MasterCard, I began to cry. The man had already removed the 35 dollar over-limit fee, but had told me repeatedly that he could not remove the late fee. I trusted my payment in the hands of someone else, he said. That's not their fault. They don't go by postmarked dates, but by the day payments are received. Don't trust the postal service. Thanks. Lesson learned. But I did cry. I told him, a complete stranger, that I've been trying to pay this card off. That I make all my payments on time and refrain from charging. This still puts me over my limit, I wept. If it will help, he offered pompously, I can put in a request for you for a limit increase. I hung up.

I hung up and sat at my desk, laying my head on my arms and sobbing my heart out. It wasn't really the money. Well, not just the money. I still had to double the payment I thought I already made just to get below the point where a service charge wouldn't put me over my limit again. But also, after three months of pristine behavior (and good behavior before that) I am back to where I started.