Getting a Credit Card Fee Reversed

I just received my credit card statement and was surprised to see a finance fee charge of $28.12 for foreign transaction fee. Huh? I did go to Canada and use my card but wasn’t aware that there would be a fee involved to do that. So, I checked the web site to see if I could find the fee disclosed there. Nothing.

On my current statement I saw the following: “Your card provides the convenience of transacting worldwide wherever MasterCard is accepted. Each purchase you make outside the US is subject to a transaction fee.”

Hm. I don’t remember seeing that before. And how is the transaction fee determined? Checking past statements I confirmed that the paragraph above was not included.

Again I went back to my account website to try and find my user agreement assuming that the fee must be buried in the agreement someplace. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the user agreement anywhere on the site.

My only recourse was to call my credit card company and see what was going on with this fee. Before I called I reminded myself to follow the basic rules of success: be respectful and courteous to the CSR, ask for what I want (an explanation of where the fee came from and hopefully the fee waived) and to be persistent, going to the manager level if necessary. I also went to the bathroom, not knowing how long the call could last but preparing myself for the worst.

I quickly navigated the computer options and got to a live CSR. After asking about the fee I was told that it was a 3% charge applied to charges placed outside of the US. Quickly grabbing a calculator I confirmed that since I did charge $940 outside of the US the $28.12 charge was pretty accurate. The CSA went on to say that the fee was charged by the processing company directly and that it couldn’t be reversed.

I didn’t like the sound of that. Sticking to my original plan, I explained that I couldn’t find disclosure of the fee anywhere on the website or my statement and that they needed to disclose a fee to me before they could charge me for it. I think this sent the CSR off his script at this point as he was silent for a minute and then told me that there wasn’t anything else he could do but that his manager could answer any other questions I might have. Yes, please I told him.

I was finally past the gatekeeper and into the inner sanctum where the real power to make decisions lies. She must have gotten a summary from the CSR because the manager already knew what I was calling about and told me nearly the same thing as the CSR, except that the manager also said the fee was indeed disclosed in the user agreement and in fact she was having another copy of the agreement sent to me just in case I didn’t have my original copy.

Feeling myself losing the battle I reiterated that I looked at the web site for the agreement or a fee schedule and told her I wasn’t able to find one and that it also wasn’t listed on any of my statements. I then asked if she knew where on the website the fee was disclosed. She stumbled for a bit and then admitted that she wasn’t sure if it was listed on the website.

There it was. The crack in their defense I was looking for. Ignoring what the original CSR said about the fee being non-waivable, I told the manager that I didn’t think it was right for them to charge a fee that wasn’t readily disclosed and asked for the fee to be waived. After a slight pause she said that she could waive the fee as a one time courtesy to me. I thanked her for waiving the fee, she thanked me for being a good customer and I ended the call.

The lessons learned are that finance fees and charges can be disputed and reversed – despite what a CSR might tell you provided that you are calm, courteous, persistent, willing to ask for what you want and have a logical reason for having it waived. Hopefully this lesson will be able to help one of you get a fee reversed with your credit cards.

Follow up note: After doing some research I have since learned that it is standard for most credit card companies to charge a fee for purchases outside of the US. Since I had never heard of this, I think that might be a sign that I need to travel more. Still, I don't feel bad at all for having the fee reversed, Citi should make it far easier to find the fee disclosure for things they are going to charge you for.