We’ve heard from a number of consumers on our previous blog, Paper statement fees?! Credit card issuers’ latest trick about their frustrations with receiving their bills in the mail and surprise(!) are charged a fee for it.
To read the original blog, click here.
“Disgusted” asked “Other than closing accounts (which hurts our FICO scores) how can consumers fight back against this?”
What can you do? We encourage you to send your complaint to the appropriate agency.
Retailer Issued Credit Cards
We’ve heard from consumers who have or had cards with Victoria’s Secret, Peebles, Ann Taylor, Dress Barn, and Stage who were charged $1 statement fees. All consumers seemed to have been completely blindsided by the fee:
Julia O. wrote “I just received a bill from Stage which included the $1 statement charge. I plan to pay it in their store and cut up the card. If they had told me about the extra fee when I made the purchase I could have used cash, a check, or another credit card that does not tack on a fee (yet!) for paper statements.”
Send your complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) if it’s a retailer issued card:
AND to the appropriate bank regulator. To determine which bank regulator to send the complaint to, use this site
For Victoria’s Secret cardholders, this would be to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), since the issuer is a national bank.
Wireless Companies
We also heard from one consumer who tells us that a wireless company was charging a fee to receive a statement in the mail:
Toniann wrote “Companies are getting out of control, T-Mobile was going to charge 3.50 to recieve a paper bill in the mail, everyone was going to file a class action law suit and T-Mobile stopped it.”
Send your complaint about a wireless company’s bill statement fees to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Finally, we also encourage you to send a complaint to the company’s headquarters. Oftentimes they may be unaware of what’s happening with their credit card products and definitely be out of touch with how consumers feel about them.
Thanks to everyone who’s let us know what’s going on the marketplace. It helps inform our work!