why the credit card company can suck my balls.
My credit card company (like most, I assume) has a feature where you can call and get account balance / available credit information. However, with my credit card company, the account balance contains all approved and posted purchases, but your available credit line does include purchases that were approved but not posted. Let me explain.
First, I should mention that my credit card company has a feature where if you make payments on time for your first three billing cycles, they'll raise your credit limit. So anyway, last Sunday, I called and got my account balance and available credit. By some amazing feat, my account balance and amount of available credit approximately equaled the amount that I would have had if I had gotten my credit limit raised. Being out of the house at the time, I couldn't exactly do the math easily, and besides, I didn't think I had to.
So I went ahead and made a couple small purchases in the past week, and used my credit card like I normally do.
Today, I went to get gas, and my card got declined. So I called, and they said I had no available credit. WTF?
So I paid with the bank card (grr), and came home and called the credit card company on my house phone (which is more secure than my cell phone, since the system recognizes my house phone number so I don't have to enter the account number over the phone). And apparently, those small purchases over the week had pushed me over my credit limit (by less than $25), and if I didn't immediately pay off enough to be under the credit limit, I would no longer be eligible for the program to raise that same credit limit.
And no, my credit limit hadn't been raised yet. It should get raised THIS WEEK, after my payment goes through. Even though I've had this card since February, because of the timing of the billing cycles, this current payment will be my third payment. And the dumbest part of all of this is that I had to get transferred to an account SPECIALIST for them to tell me what the fuck happened.
GRRRRRRRRRR. All this, so my credit score could be raised 4 points in the last 3 months.
First, I should mention that my credit card company has a feature where if you make payments on time for your first three billing cycles, they'll raise your credit limit. So anyway, last Sunday, I called and got my account balance and available credit. By some amazing feat, my account balance and amount of available credit approximately equaled the amount that I would have had if I had gotten my credit limit raised. Being out of the house at the time, I couldn't exactly do the math easily, and besides, I didn't think I had to.
So I went ahead and made a couple small purchases in the past week, and used my credit card like I normally do.
Today, I went to get gas, and my card got declined. So I called, and they said I had no available credit. WTF?
So I paid with the bank card (grr), and came home and called the credit card company on my house phone (which is more secure than my cell phone, since the system recognizes my house phone number so I don't have to enter the account number over the phone). And apparently, those small purchases over the week had pushed me over my credit limit (by less than $25), and if I didn't immediately pay off enough to be under the credit limit, I would no longer be eligible for the program to raise that same credit limit.
And no, my credit limit hadn't been raised yet. It should get raised THIS WEEK, after my payment goes through. Even though I've had this card since February, because of the timing of the billing cycles, this current payment will be my third payment. And the dumbest part of all of this is that I had to get transferred to an account SPECIALIST for them to tell me what the fuck happened.
GRRRRRRRRRR. All this, so my credit score could be raised 4 points in the last 3 months.