Juniper Bank Complaint - Beware and Be Aware of this company's Credit Card deceptive practices - MasterCard

MasterCard - Complaint

Review by LHSOTO on 2010-12-10

I have an MasterCard account with this company, who "lured" me in with a balance transfer scheme of a one year zero '0' interest rate. I paid an initial transfer fee of 3% and then expected to pay down the transferred balance in the 12 month time frame. I was not able to pay it down within the 12 months. However, upon the arrival of the 13th month, the interest rate spiked to over 17%! okay, I was prepared for that. However, what is listed in the very very fine print is "interest is charged on balance transfers on a daily basis. Interest is also accrued on the balance. I basically found myself making a payment and having it wiped out with the interest being accrued and added to my unpaid balance for the next month. With the recent Federal law change that requires companies to provide a "picture" of how long it would take to pay down a balance to zero, the picture I got on my recent statement was that it would take 3200 years (not making this up; I have to think it was a computer glitch) if I only made the minimum payment. As I didn't think I would live that long, I decided to pay this off. In fact, I made two payments (both in advance of the next month's due date) and got the balance to ZERO!!!. I checked with their customer service dept and they told me that since my payments were made prior to my next month's due date I should expect no more amounts. Well, I got this month's statement and there are new interest charges, because interest is charged on a daily basis and interest was accrued between the my Nov due date and my actual payment date (5 days later). In fact, based on the explanation that the Customer Service person gave me, even after I pay the $15.41 of new interest charges, I could have interest accrued on the interest charge between the statement date (Dec05) and my actual payment date (Dec10). So although my next payment date is Jan05, (in what should be the 30 day grace period) and I pay off the balance on Dec10, they are accruing interest between Dec05 and Dec10. In my opinion, this is Usury in its absolute worst form. What makes this even more hilarious is that during this 8 month time-frame, my credit card limit was raised! (to over $20,000) As if I would actually look to continue to do business with such a company. I strongly urge anyone who is thinking of doing credit card business with this company be fully aware of their practice on accruing interest on a daily basis so that even when you make your payments on time, in advance of your actual due date, you will still find more interest added that will appear on your next month's statement. With such a scheme, I don't know if one's balance can ever really get to zero. I need to wait for two complete billing cycles.
I also want to say that I don't usually perform reviews (positive or negative), however, this company's practices are so blatantly abusive that I am glad for my3cents being available to provide a means to bring attention to companies who border on being unethical in the manner in which they conduct their business.

Comments (4)

Next Juniper Bank Review >>

Was this review helpful?YesNo

Comments:

Posted by tnchuck100 on 2010-12-10:

All credit card companies accrue interest daily. The only time the no interest grace period comes into play is on new purchases against an initial zero balance.

Otherwise they will charge interest for every day there is a non-zero balance right up to the time of posting your payment.

They ALL do it in this manner.

Posted by trmn8r on 2010-12-10:

This is exactly like if you get a 12 month zero(0) percent interest credit line for purchase at a store or retailer. Interest accrues daily on the full amount, and if you don't pay the balance after 12 months you owe it all.

Fine print is very important in banking. You have to find out all the details when someone waves 0% in your face. They expect a certain % of borrowers to default, which helps allow them to offer 0% in the first place.

I bought a vehichle for $18000 three years ago at 0% interest. I have forgotten, but I fully expect I would owe a tremendous amount of interest would be charged if I didn't pay on time one month. I can pay cash for it, so it doesn't concern me.

Posted by Fufu487 on 2010-12-11:

Couldn't have said it better than the two comments above.

Posted by Fufu487 on 2010-12-11:

and i almost always have comments when it comes to banking... +10 guys!!