Well As I mentioned in my other post “How 15 minutes saved me $151.90” I did a similar scenario with the credit Card Company as well and managed to save on my annual fees as Ramit Sethi Mentions in his book I Will Teach You To Be Rich
Well to give you a bit of history, I recently opened up a credit card, and I decided to go for one with points rewards partly because they had a promotion which when matched with my recent bank account opening which I talk about in the post “Automating your finances the Canadian way”, was a great deal you get 15000 rewards points for opening the bank account as well as another 15000 for opening the credit card. So the points can be used for travel or merchandise, for travel 15000 points is equal to a short haul flight. So not too bad, plus there are additional perks with the card as additional travel insurance, trip interruption insurance and Medical travel insurance that are included, in addition to your standard warranty extensions etc…
So after signing up, I get the card and I check out the statement and I see a charge right off the bat for $120 for initial card annual fee, and then another $50 for Secondary card annual fee, then further down I see a credit of $35 for being a bank customer.
So I call up customer service and this is how it goes:
CSR: “Hello how can I help you today Mr. Martin?”
ME: “Well, I see i have been charged an annual fee for both my card and my wife’s, I would like to have that fee removed?”
CSR: ” Let me see what I can do about that for you, please hold”
After About 5 minutes, Agent comes back on the line.
CSR: ” Sir, sorry for the delay, There should not be a problem to get that removed for you, I am just waiting on a Supervisor to approve the request. Can I call you back shortly with an update?”
Now, normally I don’t like to wait for a callback from any service provider when I am making a request but as I keep notes on all my call with companies, I take note of the CSR name and the time.
CSR:” I should have an update within the hour for you”
ME: “okay.”
I was at work, so I had a few meetings and some project work which took me just over the hour. so I had a chance and had not received a call from anyone yet so I called back.
NEW CSR:” Hi Mr. Martin, how can I help you?”
ME: ” well I had called earlier, and spoken to your colleague, who mentioned he would get back to me in an hour with an udpate on my request to get some fees removed”
Now, I have found in my experience it is always better to explain exactly what your looking for, like that there is nothing left to interpretation by the CSR.
NEW CSR:” well let me take a look at your account Mr. Martin.”
NEW CSR:” I see those charges were removed about 10 minutes ago, Perhaps the agent has not had a chance to call you back yet as he may be on the phone with another client.”
ME: “Oh, Perfect. No worries, just wanted to make sure it was taken care of.”
NEW CSR:” is there anything else I can help you with today?”
ME:” No, that’s it.”
Just as a side note I did get a voicemail about 5 minutes after hanging up from the original CSR saying to call back and ask for the notes on my account and I would see the charges were removed.
So Just to Recap I had the following charges credited back to me on my credit Card:
- Annual Fee $120
- Annual Fee for second Card $50
- $35 Credit for Existing Bank Customer
Grand Total of $205 in Savings. $170 Fees Refunded + Additional $35 Credit for being a bank Customer. Not too bad for one day.
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