Frustration, part II

Tom has a credit card that we've caught charging us for the same thing twice in the same billing period. As I've mentioned, we've been having a really rough time since Tom's been working for himself. I've had to make a lot of late payments. That increases your balances pretty quickly.

Credit cards have changed since the days when I first got them. It used to be that you had a 5-7 day grace period to get your bill paid. So if you forgot or were a few days late, so long as the money got to them within a reasonable time period, you were fine. Now if you don't have that payment made by 1pm(or whenever their particular deadline is), at 1:01 they charge you a late payment. And the late payments sent our card over the limit, so then they tack on an over-the-limit-fee. It's difficult to get it under the limit then.........but now Household bank takes this to a new level. They charged us an over-the-limit-fee twice in the same billing period. I made two payments, which were enough to pay the extra fees and more than bring the card under the credit limit. Except that they then added a charge for being over the limit the day before they posted my last payment. And I paid about a week before the due date! So not only did they charge me a fee BEFORE the payment was due, but TWICE in the same billing period!! I think that should be illegal, but they claim they can charge us at any time.
So we switched our balance onto another credit card and plan on NEVER using Household bank again. So do not ever apply for a card through them.