When I got the offer for a credit card I was greatful. It came at a time when I was really really hurting financially. I wish that I had found this website before I hurt myself even more.
I got this card in April of 2003. I sent them their $9.00 processing fee and eventually I got the card and the bill. My credit limit was $250 and my first bill was for $175. An acceptance fee of $119, monthly fee of $6 and annual charge of $50.
Being extremely stupid and still young I was upset by this of course, but I paid it because I wanted to repair my credit. After I verified with my bank that the payment had been rcv'd I tried to use the card at the gas station and it was declined. So I called their customer service number and they said that they hold the first months payment for 30 days to make sure that it goes through. But that if I fax them a copy of the cancelled check and a statement for the bank that it would be avaliable IMMEDIATELY. So the bank faxed me the information and I faxed it to them. Once I verified that they rcv'd the fax and that it was all the information they wanted I verified with them that I could as of now go out and be able to make purchases. They said that was correct, so I tried and the card was still declined. It wasn't until 7 days later that I was finally able to make purchases. I was upset but I let it go.
I let things go for a couple months, but now they have screwed me up royaly! With overlimit fees and late fees piling up my bill due for February 3, 2004 the balance due was $279.66 and I made the payment. 3 weeks later my bank statement showed that it had still not been rcv'd so I called their customer service to see what the problem was. I actually talked to someone who was very understanding and who I thought was helping me. She said that she would take off an overlimit fee and a late fee and that if I did a check by phone with her that if and when the check I had already sent was rcv'd that she could stop the payment of it, without me having to pay the bank to do a stop payment on the check. I believed her since other companies had done the same thing for me before.
Today when I was looking at my bank information I noticed that on March 1,2003 the check that I had sent them for $279.66 was paid. There was also a direct debit from them there for $191.
So the girl that I talked to never stopped the payment of the check and they still debited the account for the check by phone, at least they only debited the balance of the account instead of the ammount that it was supposed to be for. Now I'm in a bind ... it's Tuesday and I have other payments that will hit the bank before I get paid Friday. The only option I see now is to pull a cash advance from the credit card to cover my bank account from overdraft fees. But this will lead to more fees from the credit card. Which I think will be less than what I'll pay in overdraft fees, but it also means that I can't cancel this credit card account yet. This could very well get worse yet, because even though the card balance should be $0 I don't yet know if it's even avaliable credit yet or if they've put some type of hold on it ...
The only thing I do know is that when I get everything covered and as soon as I make the next payment for this card it's gone. I'm tired of getting scewed out of money that I work very very hard for. Espically like now when I don't have the cash to get screwed out of. And I hope that anyone else who receives a cc application from them will happen across this web site before it's too late.
Heather
Streetsboro, Ohio
Why file a report here? Ripoff Report is a permanent record! Other complaint sites copy our content then remove reports for money.
