My Credit Limit Got Lowered - Below My Outstanding Balance

Almost a year ago now, I moved into a new place.  The new place didn't have a refrigerator, washing machine, or dishwasher.  These are three appliances that I consider must-have, and since my money was tied up in first and last month's rent, and a security deposit -  I didn't have $1500+ in cash available to buy these items. 

I decided to put the appliances on a credit card, despite my desire to be credit card and debt free - there just wasn't time to save money, we needed a refrigerator to keep our food cold.  The other appliances could have waited, but I felt I got a reasonably good deal with a 0% interest promotion from the retailer where I bought the appliances and that even if I wasn't able to pay them off in full before the promotion ran out, at least for six months my payments would be paying down the principle and I could make a big dent in it before the interest kicked in.

I set up the automatic payments through the website of my credit card account, so that my payments would be deducted from my checking account each month before the due date.  That way I wouldn't forget it, and I would never have a late payment.  A late payment would negate the 0% interest promotion and I would receive a higher interest rate if I made a single payment late.

Due to the changes and fluctuations in a billing cycle that is "20 to 25 days" in length (variable apparently, based on the credit company's mood that particular month) within a few months, the date I had scheduled my automatic payments to be withdrawn was suddenly AFTER the due date instead of ON the due date. 

Suddenly, my 0% offer was withdrawn and the interest rate was increased to 22%.  Ouch.

I called and emailed the customer service department to try and find out how the payment could be late when I hadn't made any changes to the automatic payments; and that was when I learned the billing cycle can fluctuate between 20 and 25 days, and that the bill wouldn't be due the same day every month.  They were not willing to make any exceptions to re-instate the 0% interest after I explained I was paying my account with automatic payments and didn't realize the due date would change - since after all, this information could be found on page 18, subsection 24c-2 in the terms and agreement document.  (Ok, so I'm making the page number and subsection up but you get the point).

A month later, after manually making my payment on time (and paying interest and finance fees, I might add) I discover an "over-the-limit" fee on my statement for $39.  I figured it must be a mistake, since I hadn't used the card since buying my 3 appliances. 

But no, it's no mistake.  The credit limit of the card was decreased to below the amount I had ALREADY SPENT, meaning I was over my available credit limit.  This seems low, even for a credit card company!!  How is it possible that they can charge me a fee for spending money they gave me to spend 5 months ago, only to laugh and say "just kidding!" and charge me a fee for using it later?!

After emailing and calling customer service again, I'm told I should have received a letter after the limit was lowered to explain it was a result of new data in my credit report. (I got no such letter, but even if I had gotten it AFTER THE MONEY WAS SPENT there is nothing I could have done anyway).  I explained the letter wasn't really important, since the credit card balance was already on the card when they decided to lower the credit limit to below what I had already used.  The customer service representative said it was fully in their rights to do so, said she'd send me a letter and ended the call.  The email response was about the same.

I did get a letter in the mail.  It basically said that because a payment had been made late on the credit card that they re-evaluated my credit risk and determined they could no longer afford to lend me as much as they had offered originally.

Resigned to not being able to do anything about what seems completely unfair and unreasonable to me, I just started making as many payments as I could to get the balance paid off.  Funny thing, every other month or so, the credit limit is lowered again (but at least not to less than the outstanding balance on the card again).

Talk about motivation for living a 100% debt-free, credit-free lifestyle.

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