Emerge Mastercard aka Providian Ripoff! Credit Card Service Harrassment and Illegal Business Practices. Atlanta Georgia

I had a Providian Classic Visa in good standing for nearly three years, then one day with no excuse of why, my account was closed and sold to this RipOff company called Emerge Mastercard. From what I understand and have heard this Emerge company is like a sProvidian affiliate or something. OK, so why close my account and sell it to Emerge??? So they can illegally harrass me and charge me more fees, and higher interest rates. I have had a credit balance of $2,000 for nearly a year now and have been paying more than the minimum balance. Why isn't my balance going down??? Because this RipOff company Emerge(aka Providian) has developed this neat little sand trap for their customers so they can just keep taking your money with no hopes for you to actually get ahead.

Well as one resource to help me climb out of debt I signed up with a credit counseling service which negotiated with Emerge to lower my high 29.99%APR to a lower 12%APR. And of course with the counseling service I make an Automated Bank payment which goes to Emerge so that my payments are never late. So I thought.

After being on this credit program for nearly a year I have been constantly harrassed by Emerge to pay them more than I have agreed to pay them through the credit ounseling service. I receive serveral letters a month telling me my payment is past due, even though they are receiving my payments some 7 days before the due date from the credit counseling service. I have set up my payment due date to be 15 days after they should receive payment.

Anyways... besides this tricky little method to try and charge me late fees and get more money out of me. I also have been receiving in between 6 to 9 phone calls a day from the annoying Emerge representatives whom call over and over pretending to be a friend calling by giving a personal name and when you ask them who they are calling with they hang up. I once called them back after one of them left a message at my job and they told me well my number was in their auto-dialer for someone who needs to make an instant payment or suffer a late charge. I told them I have written them telling them not to contact me by phone and also that I am using a credit counseling service which handles anything dealing with my account concerning payments or changes.

They have my authorization to deal with this credit service and to leave me alone and stop harrassing me. Well the calls never stop... I get them every single day even on Sunday... from early morning till late at night. They just won't stop.

I contacted the credit service I use and told them and they told me they have all my payments and the checkes have been cashed by Emerge and they should not be trying to contact me trying to get me to make another payment.

These Emerge people are rude, misrepresenting, A**HOLES.... excuse my typing... they have no right to even be handling my account because I never authorized Providian to sell my account to them or change my interests rates. This whole deal is got to be illegal and after research I have discovered they are in violation of several credit protection laws.

I am planning to contact my local District Attorney's office and find out what course of legal action is available to me to take thesae people for every cent I can get... just like they have been doing to me for the past year. I urge everyone who has been wronged by Emerge Mastercard to do the same... who knows maybe we will all end up in some huge Class Action lawsuit and win back our money we have lost and clear our negative marks from Emerge on our credit reports. I would be willing to give any lawyer 100% of all my winnings in court minus any amount needed to remove the balance on my credit card with them.

Thanks for listening,

Jimmy
Houston, Texas
U.S.A.