Do you check your credit card statements?

[Julia]

About a month ago I bought online a item quoted at $325.00.

Checking the credit card statement today, I see I've been charged $407.00.

I hear some people say that they never check their statements, and likewise a lot of people at checkouts decline a receipt.

Given the errors made I'm really surprised more people don't take the few minutes required to make sure they've not been overcharged.

What is your practice?

 

[medicowallet]

I check mine every couple of days on netbank.

So far I have never been overcharged (that I know of)

I have, however detected transfers taking longer than the stupid 3 day transfer between banks rubbish..

 

[springhill]

About a month ago I bought online a item quoted at $325.00.

Checking the credit card statement today, I see I've been charged $407.00.

I hear some people say that they never check their statements, and likewise a lot of people at checkouts decline a receipt.

Given the errors made I'm really surprised more people don't take the few minutes required to make sure they've not been overcharged.

What is your practice?

Was it an overseas based purchase, Julia? The original price could have been in Euro or GBP and the discrepancy could have been a currency conversion?

 

[jbocker]

i check to make sure I have paid it off in the month, thus avoiding interest, but I must admit I am a little sketchy about checking statements, but usually have a quick glance at point of sale.

I did open an offset account against a mortgage, checked the interest and surprisingly had an ~$80 interest where there should have been zero, thought it was strange and eventually got in touch with the bank, questioned it and got some lame treatment, computer was down call back later and again later need to call in office hours. Tried again a couple months lapsing since the first query. Did not get a reply and then noticed I had ~$950 interest refunded to my account.

They had apparently not linked my offset account to my mortgage. Useful as a rubber crutch!

 

[Tink]

Geez thats alot more than quoted Julia.

Yep, I always check my statements, havent had any problems.

I pay out the credit card at the end of every month.

 

[pixel]

I check Credit Card and Bank accounts every couple of days; we also check the shopping dockets before we leave a Supermarket. While the Banks are fairly reliable - except that I can't check those "interest calculated daily" - it happens probably every other week that there is an error on the grocery tab; funny enough, it's nearly ALWAYS in their favour. And just to annoy them, we rather stand ten minutes or longer in the queue at the service desk to claim 50c back than let them get away with fraud.

(Gone are the days when it was "show us where we made a mistake, and get the item for free"...)

 

[Julia]

Was it an overseas based purchase, Julia? The original price could have been in Euro or GBP and the discrepancy could have been a currency conversion?

No, it was right here in Australia. Emailed the supplier and he replied "OK my error, will fix". No apology. It was a pretty straightforward transaction so it's hard to see how such an 'error' would be made.

Pixel, me too, about the shopping receipts!
From a fruit market on one occasion, a total of around $30 contained an overcharge of $12!!

 

[bellenuit]

About a month ago I bought online a item quoted at $325.00.

Checking the credit card statement today, I see I've been charged $407.00.

I hear some people say that they never check their statements, and likewise a lot of people at checkouts decline a receipt.

Given the errors made I'm really surprised more people don't take the few minutes required to make sure they've not been overcharged.

What is your practice?

I guess I'm a bit of a nitpicker compared to others.

I keep every ATM, EFTPOS and CC receipt and every couple of days I update a spreadsheet with my purchase, withdrawals and deposits, one sheet for each account. That way I can immediately check the balance of any account even when the net is down. I receive statements electronically and check them against my spreadsheet items. I have only picked up a few discrepancies over the years.

For mortgages on my investment properties, I actually calculate the interest and compare with the banks calculation. I have found a few bank errors, but nothing that would indicate they were intentional.

At the end of each year, I archive all my spreadsheet data for that year and keep the archive for 5 years as I do with my income tax data.

Apart from keeping on top of errors in my statements, the spreadsheet data can be useful for searching on past expenses without needing to keep paper records. For example, when I want to compare last year's water rates with today's. It also makes doing my tax return a lot easier.

 

[Gringotts Bank]

I never check anything unless I've bought something from overseas, or an unusual item.

 

[pixel]

I guess I'm a bit of a nitpicker compared to others.

I keep every ATM, EFTPOS and CC receipt and every couple of days I update a spreadsheet with my purchase, withdrawals and deposits, one sheet for each account. That way I can immediately check the balance of any account even when the net is down. I receive statements electronically and check them against my spreadsheet items. I have only picked up a few discrepancies over the years.

For mortgages on my investment properties, I actually calculate the interest and compare with the banks calculation. I have found a few bank errors, but nothing that would indicate they were intentional.

At the end of each year, I archive all my spreadsheet data for that year and keep the archive for 5 years as I do with my income tax data.

Apart from keeping on top of errors in my statements, the spreadsheet data can be useful for searching on past expenses without needing to keep paper records. For example, when I want to compare last year's water rates with today's. It also makes doing my tax return a lot easier.

Not nitpicking at all, bellenuit;
In my Portfolio Management software, I have added a function that projects all traded into T+3 debits and credits; that tells me exactly the kind of bank balance I should expect; non-trade related items like interest or cheques can be added with a special key. That way I only have to compare account balances and only need to chase a discrepancy if there is one.
Contract Notes arrive by email and are saved and archived immediately; I've kept all archives indefinitely because with disk space mere cents per Megabyte, it's not even worth the effort traipsing around and deleting anything after 5 or 7 years.