Consumer complaint received 2021-10-27
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: CA
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Fees or interest
Sub-issue: Problem with fees

Complaint:
I bank with USAA, and I want to start this off with usually I have received the highest level of customer service from USAA. However, with this recent incident with USAA has reminded me that they are not looking out for the best interest of the customer and will hide behind any loophole. Any time I have had an issue with an account, when my loans auto payment did not work correctly and they were past due. They called me, let me know, we made a payment and fixed the issue with auto pay and since then there hasn't been a issue with auto pay. If there was an occasion that I was behind a few days on my CC, I would promptly receive a call informing me and I would login and make a payment. 


I currently have 2 Credit Cards with USAA. One I have never used and the other I have used only as an emergency card. In the 11 years that I have been with USAA, I have rarely had to use my card, but I have always made my payment or paid it off, never late. When Covid happened and everything shutdown, I was forced to utilize my CC in order to make rent and meet my bills. Quickly I saw the balance on my card peak at {$6000.00}. After a few months I was able to regain a foothold of our finances, I was able to stop using my CC and start looking at how to pay it off. I was able to make my minimum payment every week always on time and never late. After over a year of making payments towards my CC trying to pay it down, I was able to get the balance below {$3500.00}. On XX/XX/2021, I was able to payoff the remaining {$3200.00}. I was so happy, I can not explain the release of stress I had once I made that payment. I cried out of joy that we were making progress and that the burden of at least CC debt was taken care of. I checked for like a week to make sure everything was good and then I hide the account on my homepage and quickly went about my life being CC debt free. I recently had my credit ran and for the first time in my life I was a XXXX score. I was proud of what I had earned. Things are going good, all things considered with the pandemic and all. 

Then due to covid, my wife ended up being released from her employment, as well as our babysitter was no longer baby sitting. I was faced with being the only paycheck and having to meet all of the bills. I am proud to state I have been able to maintain all of our financial responsibilities and we have not been in a danger of having to consider using the CC. I have been able to make progress towards paying off my other USAA consolidation loan, in my attempt to claw my family towards being free of all debt. 

On XX/XX/2021 I wake up to a alarming amount of emails from XXXX XXXX informing be that I have negative marks on my credit and that I have an outstanding balance. I quickly jump into investigation mode to find out what is happening and if this is and error or not. I quickly discovered that my USAA account was {$9.00} past due. I was shocked, confused and scared. Just as quickly as XXXX XXXX informed me, I just as quickly made a the payment and paid off the card, again. I called USAA to find out the issue and how to get it resolved. When I informed the 3 different departments of what happened they all were confused as to while no one called to inform me of a {$9.00} payment. They did inform me that the residual money added after the fact was interest. There was never a point that I was unable to make the payment, I was 100 % completely unaware of the fact there was even a balance, as previously stated I had paid it off, no one made any attempt to make contact with me. I work off my phone so I know no one called me as I can always answer and USAA confirmed that I was not called relating to this bill. They state that I was sent an online statement to my USAA account ( doesn't even say URGENT or LATE or PAST DUE ). That I was mailed a single correspondence regarding the bill, that I did not receive this notice and still have not received it since the time of this writing. I do not know if these can be updated but if i receive the notice I will update. Again if I recieved a bill saying I was 3 months past due and my credit was about to be hit by a truck, I would have easily made the payment like I did once I found out about it. 

Regardless of the fact that I have been with USAA for 11 years with a perfect record. I have started my credit with them and built it all the way to a XXXX. All the accounts and services I have with USAA and ones that I am currently looking towards adding, all in perfect standing. Even though USAA has said they should have called me to inform me, and they will pass along the info so it doesn't happen anymore. For me they cant do anything because they sent me 2 digital statements that I haven't opened in my 11 years with USAA and I still do not fully understand where it is or have been able to find them. I watched over the past few weeks of dealing with this my credit drop from a XXXX to XXXX and each one of my bureaus get hit and tank. I feel as though my hard work and care full planing was just erased and ripped from me. I do not understand how a company that is about customer first can treat a loyal customer like this.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation