What have I done to deserve this type of treatment?

theres always the option to make a payment over the phone too.. ive
done that plenty of times when i didnt get paid till like two days
before the due date and i called up and made a payment over the phone
to avoid being late. so really its not chases fault you decided you
say screw it im not gonna try paying it any other way just because the
website was down.

I think I was more upset about not being able to speak with anyone who
could help me, or even speak in an accent I could understand. After
reading the letters about how everyone else in the world has never had
any trouble paying a bill and then relied on the company to do the
right thing, I've changed my mind. NOT! Actually, I am joking.
Sometimes the temper gets the best of your decision making. I still
feel I was right, and I did get the late fee waived, but I have taken
mental notes on everyone's suggestions. I appreciate your views and
brutal honesty. Apparently noone agreed with me. Sometimes that
happens. So screw you, and once again, I am just joking.... Next time,
I'll get on it sooner to avoid the fee.
Thanks everybody,
J.M.

have the Pet Shop Boys stuck in their head?

I love how you ask what you've done to deserve the treatment you
received, then proceeded to explain /exactly/ what you did to deserve
it. You left town without paying your bills.

Resolution: Don't do that!

If the site was down and you were leaving town, why didn't you write a
check and put it in the mail. Problem solved!

i am thinking a phone call to them could have smoothed things out
too.

and many companies can take payment via the phone

Here's a novel idea: Actually walk inside a Chase bank and make a
payment. In some areas, they have a feature called "drive-thru". And
you don't even need to have a bank account at Chase to make a CC
payment.

No depending on an internet connection, or phone rep, or problems with
posting transactions on the day you want.

We did this with our Chase credit card account, until we switched over
to auto-pay.

I have automatic withdraw for all my bills. I don't need a computer to
seal the deal. If the bill is something like hydro(varies each
season)I have equal billing.Should it be a credit card, I know what I
charged through my receipts and can amend the withdrawal. Great tool
especially when vacationing.

I have paid my bills at local libraries when vacationing...I have paid
bills on board cruise ships and I have paid bills even while a patient
in the hospital. Computers are everywhere...there is actually no
excuse for not paying online with the exception of the site being down
each time you try.

FYI - you can pay online and they will CONFIRM payment was received
but until the money is actually posted and in that account its still
not paid.

Um, couldn't you have mailed a check or money order on the first or
second of July? Or made some other arrangements? You cut it pretty
close. What if their website had been down on 7/13?

You ask, I answer:

You didn't pay your bill on time.

I just saw this phrase. I can understand believing you might have a
case, from a philosophical standpoint. But I don't see how you *can*
have one, because if you had simply mailed a check when you saw the
website down, you would have avoided this issue entirely.

Maybe it is because I am an old fart, but the basics of US Mail and
plain old telephone service are my backups when the internet fails me.
You need to do whatever it takes to pay bills on time, and not rely
on "the squirrel chewed my archaic DSL line in half" kind of excuse to
avoid that responsibility.

Gee, that was quite a mistake to just go on your vacation like that.

As a Chase user, the website warns me every time I use it about when
payments need to be scheduled so that they will post on time.

I think only once I found the Chase website down. It was back up an
hour later. It is really quite reliable.

It isn't clear to me why you decided to pay the higher late fee,
rather than pay $15 to get yourself out of this self-created mess. If
this happened to me, I would have put a check in the mail. Surely in
12 days a check can get to where it needs to be in the USA.

Chase owes you nothing at all. You created this problem.

So, in between July 1st and July 12th, you were high atop the
Himalayas with no access to a phone or the internet? This does not
seem like it's Chase's fault at all. If Chase's website was down, why
didn't you schedule a payment through your bank?

You went to pay the bill on the 1st. Their site was down, so you
couldn't. So at this point, you figured "Ah Well!" threw up your
hands and went off on vacation.

You returned to pay the bill ON the due date (and almost 2 weeks
later!). They told you it wouldn't post until AFTER the due date and
now you feel it is "unacceptable" that they are charging you a fee.

Is that it, in a nutshell? Tell me again the part where it was THEIR
fault?

Of course you were charged a late fee. The payment was late. Too bad
they didn't explain to you that you were better off paying the $14.95.
But I guess it's better for them to collect the higher fee.

I think you should have made arrangements to pay the bill on time.

So there was one outage 13 days before the payment was due? I think
they gave you an ample time period to pay, it just was inconvenient
for you. You said you were on vacation - most hotels or at lease a
coffee shop have Wi-Fi. Take your laptop and process the payment then.
I would not leave something as important as my credit card bills to
the last minute.

" If I could have made the payment on the 1st like I tried, they
would've been paid early."
Like I said, you had every opportunity on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th,
7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th. It just wasn't convenient for you.
They would have been paid early on those days as well.