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My retail store credit card charges me a $2.00 fee the month after I pay my balance in full. If I pay by the due date is this legal ?

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    Please add more details. Does the card agreement indicate a monthly fee? – quid Jul 20 '16 at 21:08
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    Which store is it? – Ben Miller - Reinstate Monica Jul 20 '16 at 21:10
  • Is this by any chance Macy's? – Ben Miller - Reinstate Monica Jul 20 '16 at 21:42
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    If they are doing it, it's almost certainly legal. If you don't like it, close the account. – keshlam Jul 21 '16 at 3:57
  • Yes it it Macy's. They told me that interest starts accruing @ 12:01 a.m. the day(morning) after statements are created. So basically the consumer has 60 seconds to pay their balance in full without being hit with the $2.00 charge. I know of no other retailer that has this policy. – wendy behrens Jul 21 '16 at 22:05
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Based on my research, I'm going to guess that the credit card in question is from Macy's.

Macy's credit cards feature a minimum $2.00 interest charge, and they apparently have a history of charging people this $2 interest charge monthly even after their bill is paid in full.

A post on the Consumerist blog from 2010 reports that a reader was getting charged this monthly $2 interest charge. Macy's customer service referred to it as "educational interest."

In 2011, a user named Babble-on reported that a similar thing happened to that user. Babble-on speculated that it was due to interest being charged on a fraction of a penny left over on the account, and resulted in being charged the $2 minimum fee each month.

There are more recent complaints of this problem as well, with several users chiming in with similar stories this year on Complaint Board and CreditKarma.

Based on the reports I've read, it appears you need to call their customer support and request that they remove this $2 charge. After you get that straightened out, you may want to consider closing this account.

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    +1 for closing the account. That seems like an absurd policy. – BrenBarn Jul 21 '16 at 1:41

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