[Rootstonian]

Yeah, call them up. Especially if you've be a long-time customer or have made a year's worth of steady payments. Everyone forgets to mail a bill at one time or another. If you have a good history of payments and this is your FIRST late then they should reverse it.

Tell them this (and be relaxed and calm; no yelling or threats). If they won't go back on it (and I'm 10 out of 10 on getting a late fee reversed), then ask what they are going to do for you to keep you as a customer "because, right now, I'm ready to transfer my balance to another institution".

They'll probably try and lie to you about how bad that is, yada, yada. Don't listen. They make thier money off interest and will want to keep you. I did the transfer balance for 3 years once..about 5 different cards...was nice not paying any interest

I got a lappy at Best Buy a few years ago. Their return policy is 2 weeks. Sure enough, 15 days later, the sucker goes $200 down in price. I called, got all the newbs, but was finally able to talk to someone high up. They didn't want to budge cuz the "rules are the rules". I told them to pull up my history and politely asked them if they wanted to lose that kind of revenue on 1 day and $200 and if so, I would like to close my account now. I got the $200 credit