(or at least the fairly well-to-do middle-class)
I missed a couple payments on my credit card. I called up and asked them to take off the late fees and interest charged. Sir, were there any special circumstances? No, I just don’t want those charges. OK sir, let me see what I can do. 2 minutes of silence, and then, “Thank you sir, those charges have been removed is there anything else I can do for you today?”
Why on earth does this work? Because I have been with them for 21 years, and I have a good credit score and enough money that they want to keep me as a customer. They think it’s worth refunding me that money to keep my business.
The crazy part is, I’m a terrible customer for them! I haven’t paid any fees to them for the last 15 years! Whenever they get me with something, I call them and they take it off. They don’t make a dime off of me. They just keep extending me short-term loans (that’s what credit is). Free money!
You should be more responsible! Program your computer for s certain day each month to pay your credit card bills!
Sidney is right – they get something like 2.5% of each purchase you make, which comes out of the price that the merchant charges you. So they’re actually making plenty of money from you – you’re just not the guy paying it.
they get interchange fees from your purchases.