Azuma Leasing Appliance Rentals Unauthorized debit from bank account a year after contract closed! Austin Texas

Thursday, November 3, 2005

Consumers beware - Azuma Leasing (Appliance Rental) seems to think they have the right to use your credit card number to deduct unauthorized payments from your bank account and/or charge unauthorized fees to your credit card at any time after your agreement with them has come to an end. This happened to me just tonight, and I have not had an account with Azuma for at least one year. They used my card number that was sitting in their database, the one they never bothered to remove when I closed my rental agreement with them, and tried to debit $64.15 from my checking account, with no prior notice by mail, phone, or even email.

Here is the sequence of events:
I decided to check my bank account online after work tonight to make sure a few checks had cleared and to get an accurate balance. The first thing I saw was an Azuma Leasing Austin pending charge for $64.15 dated November 3rd. Well I haven't had anything to do with Azuma since the end of last year. Last year!! So I thought it was either a mistake on their end or someone with a similar card number using Azuma had tried to pay on their account. I called Azuma at about 6:45 p.m. and was on hold for about 15 minutes. When I finally got someone, she told me that I owed them $64.15 from a final invoice. I informed them that I ended my rental agreement with them on good terms and was not aware of any additional charges, was never informed of any charges, and they must remove the charge. She argued that "it was in the contract that they can do that." So of course I asked for a supervisor and was told an account specialist" would call me tomorrow. Yeah right, we'll see, but that is NOT acceptable.

I then told her I was going to call my bank and stop the payment because it was invalid and unauthorized. Then I called the bank, the rep that I spoke with was very understanding, but they could not automatically stop the charge because it was already pending. They did transfer it to claims and gave me a claim number to refer to tomorrow when I call them back. The bank will force them to prove the charges and authorization. Hopefully, since I know I'm right, thing will work out in my favor. I've been a Wells Fargo customer for about twelve years, and have never had a problem with them. My Azuma payments were made online, but NOT by auto-deduct, they were never authorized to just go in and take whatever they wanted.

Whether things work in my favor or not, this incident raises extremely serious issues:
Why was my credit card number still stored in their database when I have had no transactions, no contract, and no lease agreement any dealings whatsoever - with Azuma since Nov 2004?

How do they think they can get away with an unauthorized charge to my account? Can any merchant who has your credit card number on file just send in a charge under your name, even 12 months after your last transaction?
I hardly think that is legal, and is quite probably illegal.

How often does Azuma Leasing randomly run charges through past customer accounts?

I would urge anyone who has ever leased an appliance through this company check and keep an eye on their bank records. They did this to me about eleven months after my contract/lease agreement was over. I made all my payments on time, never had a problem with them when I was leasing from them, communicated with them throughout my move, confirmed the washer and dryer were picked up, never heard anything from them until today. If this is not resolved tomorrow, I will be contacting an attorney.

This is not a matter of money - it is a matter of principle. I will not stand by and let them rip off my account and I firmly believe others should be warned about their practices. I understand mistakes happen, however, after my conversation with the Azuma representative today, I am convinced this was no mistake, but a blatant attempt to steal money from my bank account to satisfy some glitch in their accounts receivables department. And if there is even a miniscule chance that I do owe this money, hell will freeze over before I ever give them a dime.

Trish
Houston, Texas
U.S.A.