A late fee for paying early

Can you get charged a late fee for sending in your payment a month early?

Citibank seems to think so.

The wife said that her credit card got rejected yesterday. I looked up the account online and discovered that the payment was overdue. That seemed curious and sure enough, on checking my bank account records, I found that I'd paid the bill in full on Aug. 13.

Time for a call into Citibank.

The Aug. 13 payment was for the bill that was due Aug. 14, I was informed.  I had missed the payment that was due Sep. 14.  But what about my July 20th payment, I asked.  That, too, was for the Aug. 14th date.

I started laughing at the logic involved here.  So, I owed $176. I paid it on Aug. 13. The bank closed the billing cycle that day but credited the account for the period that ended before, charged me a $20 late fee for missing a payment on what should have been a zero balance, and then said that my account was $20 overdue ..."

But the phone representative didn't see the abuse of common sense. She kept going on and on about how I'd paid in the previous cycle.  She's probably paid not to understand logical fallacies. Finally, I asked to speak to her supervisor who did agree to remove the charges.

A late fee for paying early.  Who would have thought American banks could be this innovative?