I was routinely getting charged the $35.00 late fee.

I checked my account and saw that I had routinely paid on the 17th of each month.

So happily I thought ok this is an easy case of banking error and I shall call up them up and get it easily reversed. Oh not so easy…

Firstly, I was told it was a late fee because I missed a payment, to which I described how I can see that for the past 6 months there has been a payment on the 17th of the month.

I was then transferred to ANZ’s “late fee specialist” .

I was told aggressively it was because I wasn’t paying in their “statement cycle” and the statement cycle started on the 19th (on most months but not all!) a day after I was paying.

I protested saying that I am actually being charged an early payment fee and I am following your FAQ on how to avoid paying the late fee.

No he said you should refer to the terms and conditions of your card and not our FAQs on these sorts of things.

I argued that this is ridiculous and they should refund the fee or I shall contact the banking ombudsman.

The argument continued for 15minutes in a cyclic fashion….I was being lectured on how the terms and conditions spell it all out… and I was carrying on about the unfairness of it all…unfortunately I had not read the terms and conditions before the phone call.

Eventually… eventually… he said he would do me a favour and reversed the late fee but only if I become more accustomed with their terms and conditions…

Total phone call length – 45minutes (including on hold time)

After the phone call I took the time to avail myself of the terms and conditions of ANZ credit cards… no mention of this mysterious statement cycle and the only mention of late fee is if your account is unpaid by the due date which my account never was.

I had spent half an hour being lectured on made up stuff…

Yes I can only agree with check your statements but also read their Terms and Conditions and tell them you will take them to the banking ombudsman if they get difficult.