John

Jan 14, 2024

Chasing away Customers?

Went to purchase something and used Home Trust card but it was was rejected at the store. Was told to phone Home Trust to sort it out. I have always paid my Visa bills off fully for the last few years to avoid the high interest charges. I had made my last payment as usual to fully pay off the bill. But when entering payment amount I made a mistake and there was a few cents still owing. So when my next billing came for 11 cents I just ignored it and couldn't be bothered going online to pay a few pennies bill and also wondered what the Interest charges would be for the few cents still owing? Home Trust explained to me that they had blocked the card purchase of $85 and froze the account at the time of purchase until the full overdue payment of --- in this case a few cents--- was fully paid off. Was told it did not matter the amount owing just the fact that my account was flagged as being overdue. Every other credit card company that I have occasionally missed a payment to over the years was quite willing to keep charging 28% interest on the balance but obviously not Home Trust. It seems Home Trusts policy is that if I had even paid 1 cent of the recent 11 cent bill, that would have been enough to keep my account from being suspended. So if you miss a payment even by mistake it seems Home Trust will suspend your account for any amount and it does not matter what your previous history of payments has been to them. So I now charge most of my purchases using other credit cards who I have found have a more reasonable response towards suspending customers cards especially when customers are owing less than the price of a postage stamp.