So I just took a look at my Chase account (checking and credit card) and saw that on my credit card, I had a balance of $1.50. I wouldn’t have charged $1.50, so I took a look at the statement to see what it was. Chase now charges their customers a “Minimum Interest Fee” if you have a $0 balance between the end of your month statement month and when your statement is sent to you. I paid mine off a few days before and was apparently penalized for having a $0 balance on my credit card. It’s total bullshit – just a way for Chase to make up the $$ they’re no longer making from the new restrictions the government has placed on them. When I called they removed it as a courtesy. Courtesy my foot, it’s just supposed to make me feel better. All these made up banking and credit card fees are so ridiculous.
Predictably Unoriginal 
If you call them, they will most likely remove this charge. I’ve done it before.
I did and they did, but it’s annoying that I can’t just pay it off – I have to make sure I have a balance at the beginning of every month.
Eff Chase!! I hate them, they did the same to me. Except it was last year. . .They had that “minimum interest fee” but then I didn’t get the email saying I still had a balance. So of course then I missed the stupid payment of the lamest. fee. ever. I called them several times to let them know how ridiculous this was, but they refused to let it go. You’re lucky! I will never do any business with Chase again, and will never recommend them to anyone. They’re just out to screw you over!!!
Isn’t that ridiculous? A lot of people are doing that now and it’s so awful.
This just happened to me. I ran a balance of a couple of bucks and owed them about $0.04. Couple that with the rate that has gone up a lot over the past year, and it’s time to ditch chase.
I was charged a “minimum interest charge” of $1.50 a few days ago, so I called Chase to ask what it was for. The guy immediately said he could waive it as a courtesy as long as it was under $5. I asked why I was charged in the first place, and he said it was probably a mistake because I shouldn’t be charged interest on $0 balance. Seeing as how he offered to waive it without me even asking, I know it was no “mistake”. That’s total BS by Chase, but at least they waived it. I’m canceling this card in a few days.
Had the same thing happen with a zero balance. Called and they took it off and credited my account. They said if you have a zero balance if should never happen again.. We’ll see
I just paid off my balance and was surprised to see a $1.50 “Minimum Interest Charge”. Because the amount is so negligible I was going to just pay it but I was curious what this charge was for. When I called, the lady said that it was the interest charged from the time I received my statement to the time it took me to pay. I pointed out that it was located under Fees and not Interest and she said, “Yeah, I don’t know why it’s like that.” She waived the fee but I’m wondering if it’s just a ploy to all their customers who see $1.50 charge and just pay it b/c it’s not worth calling over. I almost did. I too, will cancel this account.
Just went through this a few minutes ago also. They removed the $1.50 “fee”. I asked if its going to appear every month if my balance is $0.00 (which it will be, not going to use that card anymore). And the “advisor” stated “No It will not appear next month.” Now I get to wait and see. I also wonder just how many ppl are paying this $1.50 “fee”. These little charges equals BIG money when put all together for someone. Going to see if the Better Business Bureau has anything on it.
I also had this charge on my credit card this month. I just got off the phone with Chase and they were really quick to take it off. I think they must have been getting a lot of calls from people asking about it, so their immediate response is to just remove it. The guys said I wouldn’t be seeing the charge anymore. I hope that’s true.
This is what class action lawsuits are for. A single lawyer can bring Chase to its knees by recovering every $1.50 fee.
I called Chase today to inquire about two of these charges. Turns out the first one was exactly what it says: if you have ANY balance at all, no matter how small, the MINIMUM you will pay in interest is $1.50. The second one was because I did a Western Union money transfer. Apparently, on any cash transaction, interest begins to accrue from the moment the transaction occurs (something they call “no grace period”). This is absurd, but is nonetheless clearly spelled out in their T&Cs.
I can’t say I like the idea of a minimum interest fee, but I do like the idea of getting airline miles for purchases, and being trusted to buy things on credit, so I’ll just be more careful about paying off my balance fully each month and on time, and never EVER using Western Union again (holy crap, what a ripoff that whole ordeal was).
Anyway, thanks for the post, and thank you to everyone who called in to dispute the erroneously charged fees. It appears from a careful review of my statements that I have not been assessed the fee any time I paid off my card. That may be in part due to vigilance on the part of people like you who don’t let companies get away with this sort of thing.
Cheers,
Jeremy
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Thank you so much for writing this. I was really confused when I saw that charge, but given your “success” I thought I’d try to protest. Same thing happened to me, including the instant “courteous” waiver. I wonder if we can charge them back for wasting our time? I didn’t realize “CHASE” meant I was going to have to chase them down to get my fees straight. In any case, thank you for sharing your experience; you helped a fellow human today.
I just got one too after months of not using my Chase card. I used it and paid it off within 7 days of the transaction, well within my statement period. So I Googled “chase minimum interest charge,” found this blog, called Chase, and they removed it. The little Indian lady told me they charge interest on a daily basis, but she was lying. I made her wait on the phone while I worked the math, and told her that by her formula, the $246 I spent racked up $1.50 in a week, would have racked up $79 in a year, which is 32% apr, which is was well beyond my 19% apr.
In other words, I caught her lying. So she waived the fee.
One of my favorite things to do is send back all the credit card solicitation “Postage paid by addressee” envelopes. Technically, you could load them down with old banana peels, coffee grounds, or glue them to a brick and the company would have to pay it.
I just googled “Chase Minimum Interest Charge” as well and was led to your blog – thank you so much for posting this. I called and they waived the fee as well.
Just called Chase about the same mysterious fee. What I was told that if you have a very small balance on your card to the effect that it is say 4 cents for example, then they will charge you $1.50 because they don’t want to bother charging the actual and fair amount of interest that you racked up. So if you are good borrower and you pay off or have a very little balance on your card, you will be penalized for it. And no, he didn’t offer to waive the fee. So I told him I’d pay his fee and the other $16.94 for my recurring tracfone and then I’d cancel the card!
So I was looking at my last statement online and for the first time in my life I noticed a “minimum interest charge” of $1.00. I googled it and found this blog.
It turned out that in my case, because I had recently set up my Chase credit card to serve as the “overdraft protection” for my checking account and I had overdrafted $300 during the last statement period, I apparently had accrued that dollar.
But catch this: When I had my banker at our local Chase branch set our accounts up this way, I was explained that this set up is useful because as long as I transfer back the overdrafted amount the same day, I am not charged an overdraft fee. I was under the impression that as long as I move the funds around the same day, I should not be charged a fee (no $10 on the bank side and no interest on the credit card side.) Well, as it turns out, the automatic overdraft notificaton I’ve set up did not arrive until the next day of the overdraft, so was unaware of it for a day. I immediately moved the funds back into the credit card and emailed Chase about how their notification was late (and therefore totally ineffective) and they reversed my $10 fee as a result.
Well, apparently the fee reversal did not happen on the credit card side, and upon calling them today about it I was told that their bank has “nothing to do with the credit card”, that my banker “doesn’t know anything about the credit card policies” and that my card will “start accruing interest the moment the transaction happens”, and essentially would not remove that fee.
FYI, the $300 overdraft transaction apparently happened on the Feb 3rd and posted on Feb 4th. I noticed the overdraft on the 4th due to the late notification, transferred the funds back immediately, which posted to the credit card on the same day. I was charged a $1.00 interest for having a $300 OD (considered cash transaction on the credit card side) for 1 day.
Yeah, it’s a dollar, but… for 1 day? doesn’t that calculate to be a pretty screwed up APR? I am guessing that my true interest accrued during that day is actually much less. Yes, a dollar, but it still makes me want to puke that big banks that we saved with our tax dollars are nickeling and diming us like that.
Chase is now not only imposing interest from date of purchase/posting, but also the new $1.50 “MINIMUM INTEREST CHARGE.” Even when you pay in full, something like “CHASE CREDITOBSERVER” at $9.99/month produces over 180% simple (not compounded) annual interest. Time for a tea party by consumers?
Found your blog after I got a $1.50 fee for having a $2 balance. That’s a 75% APR. Paid it off then canceled the card
I called them and they said they waived the fee. After I hung up, I noticed the fee was still on my balance online. Later in the day it was still there and I called them again to ask why. They said it takes 24-48 hours for it to be processed. I thought I’d mention this just in case anyone looked at their balance immediately after hanging up, and wondered why the fee was still showing up. It will be gone after 48 hours or less.
Last month I was charged interest because I did not pay my bill in full. I always pay my bill in full when I get an email notice, so I could not figure it out. It turns out I paid the previous month’s bill twice, and that one was about $5.00 less than the current month’s bill. I could not figure out how that happened since I paid it on the website for the amount of the bill. The customer service person told me that sometimes the website takes a few days to update. He also told me that it was my job to make sure that the amount to pay on the website was correct. He went ahead and credited me the interest “as a courtesy”.
This month I got a minimum interest fee of $1.50 even though my balance previously owed was zero. I was told that this fee was because I did not pay the balance in full the previous month. What a crock.
I told the customer service person that Chase needs to improve their computer services. She waived the $1.50, but told me also that it was my responsibility to check for their errors.
I paid in full and I was charged $1.50. Called Chase and they take it off.
The Chase’s guy was really nice: he said it is a charge since they applied daily balance. Now… theoretically if you sent the $1.50 you have to be charged again for $1.50 in the next monthly statement right?
The guy said: “not” because they cannot charge interest over interest.
Brazen corporate abuse is out of control, and it did no good to vote in people to fight them, because corporations are now far too powerful. They purchase their own government, rules, and laws nowadays.
I regularly get ripped off by Verizon for example; they will try to slip in services not ordered, tell you a price and then charge you more–they don’t even care if it’s in writing anymore. They bank on the fact that a certain percentage of people a)won’t notice (=profits), b) will notice but will be discouraged by the phone or email contact process or worn down by being unable to reach anyone by phone, email, or snail mail who will actually do anything about it, by banking on the fact it’s too expensive or time consuming for the avg. customer to fight it in any legal way, and finally rigging the legal system against people being able to do anything about it (“tort reform” calling them “frivolous lawsuits” in the political arena, etc. The end result is profits which would’ve been considered highly unethical, regulated and/or illegal in the past. Businesses used to have to compete for customers, but now they compete by playing these more profitable scam games.
Same thing, $1.50. Called and the CS Rep said it was interest accrued from the balance left from the previous month, and was told they charge two months interest rate (mine at 10.24%). For a $300+ balance, $1.50 made no sense. Going to cancel after my last transaction clears.
From everyone’s responses, it looks like the CS Reps don’t even know how to lie properly, so never going to deal with Chase again. Save yourself the headache!
I just paid off my balance last month and the same thing happened to me. Canceling the card today. Who needs that?
I cancelled my Chase credit card over the phone with a Chase representative to ensure that any net balance due was paid off before the card was cancelled. However, soon after the debt was paid and the card was cancelled, I received a bill for collection for $1.50. I called Chase bank and explained to another representative and he proceeded to explain to me that there was a minimum interest charge if paid after a certain date. I asked him how I can receive a minimum charge after the credit card balance was paid in full and then closed and cancelled?!#? Okay, so he couldn’t explain this one, but was adamant I owed the amount. I requested a write off of the $1.50. He refused. This amount is currently the only negative on my credit report, which I am currently disputing again. This $1.50 dispute is going on two years. Chase Credit Card has been a HORRIBLE company to work with – cancel your Chase Credit Card now!! I have a B of A credit card I have had for years and have no problems with this bank – e.g. better customer service, more knowledgeable reps and convenient pay by phone service (free).
I was charged the same fee but not at 1.50, I am being charged $2.I initially wasn’t going to call but now seeing that they’re essentially charging me for nothing, I will be on their tail about it.How incredibly annoying.Their customer service reps are NOT very pleasant.
I had a balance with a close account in chase. I did not use the credit card at all. The account was in fact closed. When I was finally able to pay the debt in full, I received an statement with a balance of 8 dollars and change.
I called them up and told them that if my account was close, and my debt was paid in full on-line, which means that the balance was supposed to be up to date, why I should I even received an statement?
They came up with BS, requesting the payment for the new balance. I told them that this should be illegal and that I won’t pay a penny more than what I owed.
I do not even have a job, and still made the effort to pay to stay clean!
Chase will lose more customers for being so greedy.
Just call the Chase adviser, it will be refunded in your next bill. It doesn’t make any sense.
I just called Chase. The young man explained to me that I was being charged the $1.50 because I “carried a balance over” from one billing period to the next. His solution is that I have to go on the Chase website and pay my bill off by the end of the billing period and not wait for my statement to arrive. He did not offer to write off the fee. I told him I would be canceling the card. Because I didn’t mean to have it cancelled today, I called back to make sure he hadn’t cancelled it. This person wrote of the $1.50 immediately…and explained again that I will have to go online to pay by the end of the billing period (has nothing to do with the due date or whether I have received the statement yet) in order to avoid this. I said I thought that was ridiculous. Then she said “Would you like to hear about our balance transfer for your other chargecards balances?” ARGH…
Thank you for this little blog post. I just got the charge/fee on my account and googled it and found your blog. So after reading so many successful stories I decided to call them (I was going to just pay it since I was traveling and wasn’t in the country), they said they would waive it as a “courtesy” to me. Hopefully they don’t charge me again.
Thanks again for this wonderful post!
Here’s my story:
I accepted Chase’s offer of a no-fee, no-APR balance transfer. On my June statement, I had no purchases and the $2500 balance transfer appeared with no interest, minimum payment $25. I paid the minimum and started using my credit card for other purchases.
On my July statement they had a $1.50 minimum interest charge. My first contact with them resulted in the response:
“Please note that interest charge of $1.50 was assessed for
the purchase balance on your account. No interest was
assessed for the promotional balance. Since the purchase
balance was not paid in full, interest charge of $1.50 was
assessed for the unpaid portion of the balance. You may
wish to view your statements for more information” – Chase #1
When I pointed out I had NO unpaid purchase balance (so evidently the first responder did not “wish to view” my statement), I received a response from a new person:
“I apologize for any inconvenience caused due to the
minimum interest charge on your Chase account ending in
75.
I have credited the interest charge of $1.50 dated
07/12/2011 to the account. This adjustment will appear on
your next statement.” – Chase 2
First, it appears that there are inconsistent replies from Chase depending on who you talk to.
Secondly, it appears Chase is committing large-scale fraud. The computer program that calculates interest payments is not correctly checking “unpaid purchases” and may just be checking “unpaid balance”. Do most people (like some above) just pay up? Should I have any confidence that the computer program will operate differently next month?
I spoke to a rep today – the charge is only if you carry a balance. So, if you $0.01 of interest, you get charged $1.50. If you have a $0 balance, you don’t pay the fee. I had to wait 30 minutes to get that reply. I’d encourage every customer who does get billed to call, complain, and notify their representatives about this practice.
Due to recent late fee’s of paying on the day that my card was due, I decided to cancel my card. I contacted the BBB and informed them that I should not be charged a late fee for paying on the due date. Apparently this happend more than one time as the representative I spoke to from chase reversed nearly 200$ in “late fees.” After that I, I paid the balance off in full while the card was inactive. A few days ago, I was charged this minimum late fee crap. I am going to contact chase then the BBB again on this subject matter. This is crap. JP Morgan, lead by one of the biggest douche bags in America, just wants a bigger private jet.
Thank you so much for posting this! I just checked my last credit card statement and saw this charge. And googled it. (Thank you, Google).
I pay my credit card in full and on time… I shouldn’t be penalized, right? Chase, you thieves, you criminals. If any more of this BS continues, I will happily cancel my card.
Just checked this site. I called them. I had paid in full every balance, they removed the charge. Not sure what they’re doing here, somewhat shady.
ditto with everyone else… got this $1.50 even though I pay in full every month and googled… brought me here with all you awesome people.
i called them and was told it’ll be removed, and I shouldn’t see that fee when I check my account online again in 5 business days. i’ll report back if it doesn’t happen.
i’m considering canceling my card if it happens one more time. i know times are tough, but they shouldn’t be doing this BS. i, too, wonder who’s actually paying attention to their statements and paying this sh!t…
I accepted Chase’s offer of a 0 fee, 0% interest balance transfer several months ago. Before I accepted it, the Chase representative assured me that if I paid off my purchases each month (plus the minimum charge that went towards the balance transfer), there would be no interest charges.
After several months of intermittent $1.50 charges with conflicting responses from Chase on whether this was correct or not (they always credited my account for the charge when I complained), some customer service manager told me that once I had accepted the 0% balance transfer, they would start charging interest on all purchases since I had not paid off my complete balance at the end of the month.
Rather than continue to fight this, I have stopped using my Chase card for purchases. (I guess Chase thinks it makes economic sense for Chase to encourage me to use CitiBank instead…) I certainly hope having nothing on my account but a 0% balance transfer will stop the $1.50 charges.
I just called and asked them to explain the fee, and it’s a bunch of BS. After I argued with the “adviser” she agreed to removed it but couldn’t legitimately explain it to me and could not promise that I wouldn’t be charged the fee again. I had to argue with her to close my account! This is supposed to be reward program for Amazon! Nice reward that I have to pay for myself obviously! NOT! I closed the account and she hung on me–I guess she didn’t want me to take the survey I was selected for!
I just saw this charge starting to appear on my Chase statement over the past few months. I don’t hardly ever use the card, it’s only a backup if a merchant doesn’t except American Express. I’ve requested to have the charge explained and returned and I’m waiting on a response. I’ve had issues with Chase in the past and if they balk at all or keep charging me this fee I will be cancelling this card and moving to another company.
I just googled this because I had a $1.50 charge as well. The guy was old and didn’t know why the charge was there but he said you shouldn’t be charged for making your payments ahead of time.
Thanks for posting!!!!
I just noticed this charge on My USBank statement, and they charge $2.00. I called them and basically told them that “You banks can’t pass up a chance to screw someone over” How pathetic. My interest rate is almost 14%, but the minimum interest fee on my balance of$40.00 Jumps that rate to almost 40% It isn’t that I can’t pay the $2.00, it’s the principle of the thing. I’m looking for a bank that’s on the up and up. Are there any??
This has happened on my remaining chase card that I have had for 20+ years. I don’t really want to have to close the account because I suspect it would impact my credit rating. This is the only reason I have kept the card and why use it for a small purchase every month. I have automatic minimum payment setup on this account, and I also pay the balance around the same time each month.
I once had a second chase credit card for many years that they closed for inactivity in 2009 without even notifying me, and that big change to my credit ratio had a real impact on my credit score.
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Okay, so, much like everyone else here, I also have come across repeated $1.50 min interest fees whenever I had made a purchase and paid it off during the month before a billing statement. Even when the payment was just days after the original purchase, so that for the majority of the month there was no balance on the account.
Two important things here should be realized:
1.) For every story you hear about such practices, there are far far more people out there that are not telling their stories, many of whom are not even aware of this inappropriate method of charging a customer.
and…
2.) In many instances, Chase will waive the fee when it’s addressed because it’s only $1.50 per legitimate complaint. Far better to settle the minds of those who complain so that they aren’t led to take further action.
Have you ever seen the movie “Hackers” or “Office Space”? Each has mention of a “worm virus” that is put into a corporation’s computer network in order to take a few cents from various transactions over time so that each one is small enough to be overlooked; but when it’s all added up, it’s is an extremely substantial amount of money. Exactly how many times has Chase done this to its customers around the world?
If they were labeling it as a transaction fee, perhaps there would be no legal recourse, but they are clearly playing on the fact that it’s such a small amount for each customer and are blatantly mislabeling it as an interest charge even when an account has an active balance for only a few days during a billing month.
And one final question… If Chase is doing this and is not properly stopped, then how many more credit card institutions will take advantage of this ploy?
Do yourself and your nation a service by contacting your members of congress and letting them know. Because, sure, we don’t have to worry too much for ourselves because we approach the company directly and address the situation. But there are so many…. so, so many… who aren’t doing this. And in the end, we will all be responsible for letting it continue to happen to others.
Hello, Thank you for all the comments left on this blog. I was searching online to work on a credit card flyer for my credit union in NYC, where I compare fees and rates between our credit card and chase freedom, when I found this blog. It’s absurd to charge this fee. We are a smaller financial institution and we have better interest rates, no balance transfer fee, no minimum finance (interest) charge, cheaper penalty rates and we still provide excellent service.
I’m leaving my comment because I want you to start doing your piece of work, word of mouth. That’s the best way. You shouldn’t need to call the bank, you aren’t doing anything wrong. Just check any of your family or friends chase (or other commercial financial institution) card statements and look for this or other absurd charges. I did it with my boyfriend’s cc statement and I found that he was being charged for a debt insurance and an identity theft protection service that he didn’t know . Oh come on! Those insurances are scams, they never applied to you and if they do, bank will only pay the minimum payment wich it will make you accumulate more interest.
Knowledge is power, but most importantly, we need to share it.
If you want to learn more about personal finance, check your closest credit union’s website and search for free financial classes. If you are in NYC check this page below.
https://lespeoples.org/financial-tools/classes-in-financial-management/
Finally got my Chase ‘Freedom’ card down to zero 10/4/12 after carrying a balance for 2-3 years. Then on 10/26/12 charged an airline ticket. Statement closing date is 10/28/12, so I was confused why I would see a 95-cent ‘purchase interest charge’ on a charge that was two days old. So a-googling I went, and found this site.
Going to call Chase to see if they will waive it. No doubt they hope that given such a small amount people will just pay it, but BS is right. And here I was all set to finally–for the first time–cash in on some rewards by applying the cash to my account, but I want to address this first.
Wonder how many thousands they have lost in their greedy pursuit of 1.50 here and .95 there. Always liked this card as it is by far my lowest interest card and I use it for travel. Not going to cancel it yet but will definitely be on the lookout for another card/deal, as well as on the lookout for more bogus charges.
Just called and first talked to someone overseas, then was transferred to Springfield, MO. Was told:
‘Apparently this is residual interest for a balance that wasn’t paid in full but then you paid it in full I’ll go ahead and reverse that and it will show up on your next statement.’
Time will tell.