Meijer Dual Platinum Mastercard

I received my monthly Meijer Dual Platinum Mastercard credit card bill in the mail today, and with a little surprise in the form of a late fee and interest charge of about $84 for a $16 past due amount.

Having paid my balance in full every month since the beginning of time, you can imagine that I was a bit miffed. At first, I thought maybe I made too small a payment last month. Honest mistake, but I was going to get to the bottom of this.

So, I called the 800 number, and spoke with "Jenny," as the friendly Indian woman called herself. Jenny wasn't much help. She said I had better check my online bank statement. So I did. Lo and behold, there was a confirmation that the full balance of $1557.44 had been withdrawn from my bank account by "Meijer Dual Card."

Now I'm getting a little ticked. I called the 800 number back and got the pleasant 1980s disco hold music, while I continued to press zero trying to get back to a real human being. Then another Indian woman answered and at first was very polite, until I insisted that the payment was already withdrawn from my account, and that I wanted to speak with someone in the payment department.

She said there is no phone number or email address for the payment department. I must print my online bank confirmation and mail it to them in El Paso, Texas, and wait.

I wasn't about to just sit around and wait for them to decide whether to apply the $84 back to my account. In fact, I asked if she could remove the charges, since I was certain that the payment was already applied, and she said there was nothing she could do.

After arguing with her, politely, about it for a few more minutes, she finally transferred me to someone named Betty, who sounded a lot more American and was very friendly.

Betty immediately recognized what had happened. The payment was applied to a previous account number (I had closed the account when I suspected someone might have stolen my account number). This was not my mistake. It was Meijer's mistake. And I'm furious that I would have had to do all the leg work to resolve an issue that one person was able to fix in less than 30 seconds. This really pisses me off.

So if anyone out there is considering getting a Meijer credit card, don't! Their customer support is indifferent, and in cases not described here, even downright unprofessional. The operation is not run as smoothly as major credit card companies. After this is all resolved, I'm closing my account and finding a new credit card company.