S&L; Goof Sends Late Bills Early

Christmas bills looked worse than usual last week to about 5,000 customers of Valley Federal Savings and Loan who mistakenly received notices that their Visa credit card payments were late.

A clerical error occurred during a switch from one billing agency to another, said John Marquis, senior vice president of marketing for the Van Nuys-based savings and loan.

The old agency, Columbus Bank and Trust in Atlanta, mistakenly “aged a portion of the account prematurely,” Marquis said. He would not say how many Visa customers Valley Federal has.

“In closing out the records, the service bureau that we were using sent out one more billing than we were wanting them to send out,” he said.

Marquis said the 5,000 notices, which went out after the regular monthly statements, informed customers that they were 30 days late on their payments and charged them $5 or 5% of the outstanding bill, whichever was greater.

Card holders who called to complain about the error are being told to ignore the late fee and pay as usual, Marquis said, adding that any late fees paid in error would be refunded.

Bank officials did not know how many people had called, but Marquis said “a lot of people have been very curious.”