Credit Protection Fee

Found this "Credit Protection Fee" on my MBNA Mastercard statement. It's actually been on there for a while, I just didn't feel like dealing with the hassle of tussling with the credit card company...

I feel sorry for the people who have to man those phones. The courtesy callers. They train those fuckers to never take "no" as an answer. Arm them with a dozen different rebuttals, just to keep you on the line. When I get a call like that, I usually just cut them off, say "I'm not interested", then hang up before they can respond. I feel it's more humane. I'm going to ultimately say "no", anyway -- they shouldn't waste their delivery on me...

Anyway, I was bracing myself for the worst. I'd done a quick search on handy Internet for "Credit Protection Fee" and "MBNA" and I read this horror story account, so I was readying for a war...

First thing, I called one of the MBNA numbers listed on the statement, 1-800-346-3178. Went through the touch-tone menus till I was asked to punch in the 4 digit code for the disputed charge (5001). The recorded message stated that this service could NOT be cancelled through MBNA and I had to call a DIFFERENT number (1-877-406-3742) in order to cancel it, and if things weren't resolved *then*, I'd have to call the MBNA hotline again give them the date I tried to cancel and yaddayaddayadda...

Called that 2nd number this morn. Got this sweet-sounding young woman who tried to chat it up with me. (I'm sure ALL the calls they get are people trying to cancel this service.) When I gave her my address, she tried to chat about the weather in Brooklyn. I cut to the chase. She went into this long spiel about, "Are you aware that this service blah blah blah... [five minutes later]... so do you want to reconsider?"

What the credit protection does is, if you theoretically get sick and can't pay bills for a while, it'll "freeze" your monthly payments for up to something like 24 months.

"No," I says.

And what do you know?, she did it! Without any further arm-wrestling...

Anyway, I post this overlong story just in case somebody *else* does a search for "MBNA" and "credit protection fee" and wants to read about someone's experience. Yes, it's a bit of a pain in the ass, but you'll save so much money canceling the fucking thing. Please call now.