A little rant:
If you have a credit card with actual monetary credit on it (as in, you've paid more than you've charged, so there's a positive balance in your account), how would you expect the credit card company to deal with it? If for months and months, the monthly statement indicates a positive balance and you don't request any refund check, and you then make a purchase (for greater than the credit balance), you'd think you'd just have to pay the difference and all would be even, right? Do credit card companies do it any other way?
Well, apparently Macy's does.
My wife has/had a Macy's credit card. We had about a $40 credit/balance on it from some sort of returned item. That showed up on the monthly statement for several months. She then purchased a purse for $60. The next statement showed that we now owed $20. Just pay $20, right? So that's what we did. Paid the balance on time.
6 days
later, Macy's sent us a check for $40. And the next statement indicated we owed them $40...plus whatever late penalties/finance charges they drummed up. WTF? (BTW, we never cashed that check.)
A call to their credit division claimed that their policy is that we were to have paid the $60 for the purse, and then they would credit us the $40 they owed us. Funny, that wasn't what the statement said. It said: pay $20. Nevertheless, the customer service agent said we could tear up the $40 check (which we never cashed), and that everything would be made square. We also confirmed with him that we wished to close the account. He said he'd do that, too.
Well, not exactly, as this month's statement (WTF?) is exactly the same as last month's, plus additional late fees/penalties. Double WTF!
(Obviously we haven't been using the card, as in our mind it's been canceled.)
Regardless of what the bible of fine print says in any credit card agreement, who else does it that way? Certainly none of the other credit cards I've used in the past 20 years.
What kind of logic is represented in: I owe you $40, so you pay me $60 and I'll reimburse you the $40. But not until you pay me $60 first. ???