Current cheapest day-to-day banking/credit card combination

Thanks. For whatever issue, say you debit card has a defect and does not work for exemple ( this just happened to me last week). Sometimes for cheap e-services, when you try to call the customer service center, you never manage to actually get a real person on the phone to explain them the issue. I find that really frustrating.
Btw, have they now integrated the eBill system?

Had absolutely no issues with response time, the three or so times I had to call Zak. Issues (though only “routine” cases - but read below) were solved swiftly over the phone.

That said, I am not convinced that making me have to call was warranted to begin with.

Ex. 1: Had to confirm transfer of a mid-four figure amount over the phone. Though I’m not 100% sure, I do seem to remember that they messaged me only a “while” after I had initiated the transfer in-app.
The payment was to go to the cantonal tax administration though. So as low-risk a payment as it can get, that should’ve been waved through. I recently read though that they increased limits…

Ex. 2: They locked my account after I had wiped the balance shortly before the end of the year, having transferred to another account of mine. So they made me call and proactively asked me if wanted to cancel and close the account for good. Even though I have had - and still have - more than 1500+ Francs flowing into the account each and every month.

Very low quality customer service from my experience. I even have sent a mail once which got completely ignored.

You know what I don’t like on customer service? Phone numbers that costs you.

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For information, Zak is going to increase their limits to 25K per week starting Mid-October. I still prefer Neon, but this makes Zak quite interesting.

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No, they still have not added support for ebill.

Thanks for this information. Also, why do you still prefer Neon?

Neon is the one doing the innovation (ebills, free payments abroad, transfers with TransferWise, …) and Zak is just struggling to keep up.

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Seen this?

Curious to see what it brings.

If you get one of the free credit cards, make sure to create an LSV with your bank to automatically pay the card bills. Otherwise it’s 30CHF everytime you pay 3 days too late… which happens quickly if you forget to login into their site to see the bill. Happened to me 4 Times now in the last 5-6 years…

I now created an automatic payment of 50CHF every month (the minimal rate), because creating an LSV is such an archaic process. Theres ebanking where I can make huge transactions, but to make an LSV I have to go to the bank to sign some papers and mail them to Cembra (in this case)?

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It happened to me at least twice in the last 10 years. The second time I called them before getting billed and they cancelled it (cembra, :+1: ). Swisscard has an app now, they can send you a warning on the app if I recall it correctly. What all of them have is the warning by email. It’s just an email that tells you that the bill is ready to pay. Easy peasy (but I still managed to be late lol)

Also note that 50chf might not be always the minimum…or so I’ve been told.

Side rant: I don’t get why it’s legal for Credit card companies to have so short grace periods and also why they are also the only ones that make you pay after the first warning. Where are the disruptors here…

Swisscard supports e-bill, using it you have no risk of forgetting to pay and you don’t have to rely on that archaic LSV thing

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But make sure not to pay early.

I once paid on the morning of the statement date, the 15th of the month. For the full amount of transactions that had been posted to the account at this time.

The payment was not counted as payment towards the statement balance for the statement they later generated/provided that same same day (15th).

What did however count was two pending transactions for 35 CHF that they slapped on the statement the same day. And this is the one I missed.
Result: CHF 30 reminder fee for not payment the minimum amount of 35 CHF. Even though I did pay CHF 500 on that very statement date.

Would have been much less expensive had I paid one day later (only interest on the CHF 35).

Well your problem seems to be that you just paid without checking your bill.

Well, I wanted to be done with it early.
To be sure, I could have caught it. Still…

Charging for transactions that I made on the 14th
while not recognising my payment made the day after, on the 15th
on the very same credit card invoice
seems kinda sneaky. Just wrong.

So does charging me non-payment reminder fees for paying one day early
that wouldn’t have occurred simply by paying one date later.

I did pay up and didn’t take it further (cause I’m lazy but busy).

Let me rephrase that.

The bill was of 70chf because the rest was already taken care of. (-500chf + 500chf = 0)
From their point of view that’s what happened and it’s probalby the same sh#t you see at the top of every bill: the previous balance and what you paid with the previous bill.

They probably cant easily count when you last gave them money and calculate from that point on…they just send you a bill and calculate from that point how much money you give them. Much easier to calculate and manage from them. Anything else is too complex.

Anyway from your point of view is really a sad joke. You are right, you paid one day later and it would have costed you less.

I have an LSV but if you use the card rarely I’d suggest you pay 1000 CHF in advance every year or so. It works like topping up.

Does that actually work? I had the impression that they didn’t like positive credit in the account.

They obviously make money sending 30.- reminder bills. I think my relatives only tested cembra but why shouldn’t it work?

I already have Swisscards cashbacks but my checking account is still at UBS. I’m seriously considering moving to Neon as they seem to check all my boxes. I mainly use e-bill which I see they implemented now and no fees abroad seems too good to be true.
In UBS I have separate accounts for my emergency and car savings for example in addition to my checking I guess this is not possible with neon?
The only thing I would be missing is my Maestro card I currently have at UBS. I guess most of you just pay with your cashback and then you pay the bill in Neon?
Any downside I’m not seeing? (Besides their website in pink which makes me dizzy :stuck_out_tongue: )