I have had a Merrick card for a month. A few observations:
1) It is right now 5:30 AM on the 1st of the month and their web site has not let me log in for hours. Be aware of this and plan accordingly, especially if your statement due date just happens to be, surprise, surprise, surprise the first of the month,
2) I have known welfare queens who feel compelled to rush out to a 24 hour Walmart at 12:01 AM on the 1st. I know a guy getting disability who rushes to an ATM before sunrise on the 1st, even got mugged doing this, but still continues to do this. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
3) It is like Merrick has the same people supporting their website as Obama had supporting his ObamaCare website. Caveat Emptor.
4) All banks are criminally insane. Merrick is not unique. They know the law well enough to go right up to the legal limit of what they can get away with.
5) Yes, they take unnecessarily longer than necessary to update their online data. Banks do this because they know the law allows them to, even though all banks are tied together through the Federal Reserve which means they never need more than a few seconds to know about anything you do with one of their cards. But, late fees are a significant source of income for banks and our bought and paid for politicians have made it legal for banks to trap you into late fees by delaying account status.
6) I go by the posted available credit limit, which typically is updated days ahead of the balance and before transactions are finally listed online.
7) To minimize the consequences of any bank’s loan shark tendencies, I manually maintain my own personal log of all transactions rather than depending on their online data which, again, tends to not be updated until days after transactions are actually made.
8) People who work for banks in customer support are worthless human excrement who have no problem screwing other human beings to keep their job. Caveat Emptor.