I just got off the phone with Macy's Credit Customer service. I called because I had a perfectly proper $120 charge on my store card .

My bill was due 2 days from today. Payment’s already processing at my bank so they will receive payment on time (like they usually do).

But get this – they actually posted a $2.15 finance charge to the account, even though it was not yet past the due date..

Call me picky, but aren’t finance charges supposed to apply *after* the bill due date?

I had a 0 balance before the $120 charge, so this “finance charge” was not related to any prior past-due amount.

So I call up, and guess what – Macy’s saw fit to “proactively” apply a finance charge to my account. Per the US call center rep – “This is our way of letting you know what the finance charge *would* be *if* you missed your payment”. What??!!

Apparently, this is their “standard procedure” for all customer accounts.

If you pay in full, on time, the finance charge is struck from your account. Which is fine – everything balances out.

Here’s the catch though – when Average Joe look up his account balance on Macy’s website, he sees the amount due *including* the finance charge – in my case $122.15 ($ 120 in purchases, $2.15 in finance charges)

So one could very easily send in a payment inclusive of the mystery finance charge, which Macy’s then allows to sit as a “credit” in the account.

Which is also fine, but suppose 10,000 customers (conservatively) send in an extra buck or two in alleged finance charges. These will all sit as credits in their individual accounts – and guess who picks up the interest on that ~20,000 Dollars – yep – Macy’s. I wouldn’t mind having a conversation with someone over there about what APR they pay their customers for these “credits” in their accounts.

This reeks of a scam, even though I’m sure it’s somewhere in the fine-print of their credit agreement.

I’m gonna blog this everywhere I can. Can you tell I’m peeved?