Best Buy - Household Bank ripoff ruined my credit and has horrible customer service Mesa Arizona

I had a similar experience with Best Buy. In our case, however, the salesperson deliberately attempted to trick us into signing up for the Household card and other services by stating explicitly and emphatically that we needed to sign next to those items. In my mind that clearly constitutes deceptive business practices. While the onus is on the consumer to carefully read everything before signing, one does not expect companies these days to deliberately attempt to deceive its customers.

I once had this professor at college that told me that if I didn't pay attention to things in his class, it wasn't his fault. If I didn't listen, I wouldn't learn, resulting in misunderstanding of the material, and finally leading to failure of the class. The resonsibility is solely on the individual, not the class or the professor, to make sure he or she succeeds.

If you say that Best Buy "ruined" your credit report, you must remember a few things. Though God blessed you with a new baby, that doesn't mean you must put your bills on hold. I am sure you paid your electric bill to see at home and bought groceries to eat at home, so why did you forget to pay your Best Buy card? Isn't that YOUR fault? And I realize in the excitement of a new baby, things slip people's minds, but that is no reasonable excuse.

Further, if someone came up to you and said "You can have a million dollars if you just sigh here, here, and here," would you sigh willingly? I hope not. I hope that you read every line, or as one rebuttal comment stated earlier, skim the lines for critical information.

But again, like one of my best professors said, "We lead our own lives as adults. Once you reach adulthood, no one will lead you around like they did in grade school." But if you believe that everyone and every company should cater to you... well, you are never going to find that fairy tale land.

I hope you learned from your mistakes. Sorry for your bad experience. But you must realize, it's not Best Buy's fault you didn't read a contract before you signed.

Abby,

Don't let a negative post about your comments deter you from offering assistance or advice in the future. That is one of the reasons this site exists, so that people who have problems can come here and get advice on how to handle it.

As for my experience, I have also recently obtained a BestBuy charge card, but I did see on the contract about getting a MasterCard, and declined. However, now I am receiving those pesky mailings from HRSI.

Some good advice to everyone, read EVERYTHING you sign. This will help to keep you from getting burned. Do not rely on the person offering the service to point out all the things that are not in your best interest.

Abby,

Don't let a negative post about your comments deter you from offering assistance or advice in the future. That is one of the reasons this site exists, so that people who have problems can come here and get advice on how to handle it.

As for my experience, I have also recently obtained a BestBuy charge card, but I did see on the contract about getting a MasterCard, and declined. However, now I am receiving those pesky mailings from HRSI.

Some good advice to everyone, read EVERYTHING you sign. This will help to keep you from getting burned. Do not rely on the person offering the service to point out all the things that are not in your best interest.

Abby,

Don't let a negative post about your comments deter you from offering assistance or advice in the future. That is one of the reasons this site exists, so that people who have problems can come here and get advice on how to handle it.

As for my experience, I have also recently obtained a BestBuy charge card, but I did see on the contract about getting a MasterCard, and declined. However, now I am receiving those pesky mailings from HRSI.

Some good advice to everyone, read EVERYTHING you sign. This will help to keep you from getting burned. Do not rely on the person offering the service to point out all the things that are not in your best interest.

Abby,

Don't let a negative post about your comments deter you from offering assistance or advice in the future. That is one of the reasons this site exists, so that people who have problems can come here and get advice on how to handle it.

As for my experience, I have also recently obtained a BestBuy charge card, but I did see on the contract about getting a MasterCard, and declined. However, now I am receiving those pesky mailings from HRSI.

Some good advice to everyone, read EVERYTHING you sign. This will help to keep you from getting burned. Do not rely on the person offering the service to point out all the things that are not in your best interest.

Since you posted this in May, you may have already fixed it all. I got the same credit card offer from Household, I was buying a new computer and getting 0% interest for 24 months. The lady at the credit counter encouraged me to sign up for a credit card that would get me a $100 gift card. She told me I would need to use it once and then pay it off and cancel it.

I used it once, cancelled it. When I got the bill it had a $100 annual fee. I called customer service, (India) everyone was polite but firm. No one would waive the fee. I was transferred several times. I send two emails, again polite but wouldn't budge.

My 4th email I explained in simple terms that I wasn't expecting to get ripped off by such a good company. They finally waived the fee.

With some persistance writing both the credit bureau and the credit card company you may be able to get it removed.

I didn't mean to be sarcastic. I was just trying to be informative. I even mentioned how he could try and dispute the charges and give him a little information on what the program was (from what I know about it at least) incase he was misinformed, because it appeared to be that way.

No, I don't work for Household Bank. I actually manage a retail store, but as I mentioned, a friend of mine does and I hear stories ALL the time. It may seem like I work there because I probably could. I have all of the information, but that doesn't seem like a job for me... being on the phones all day... I would hate it.

I'm sorry if I offended anyone. It wasn't my intention. As far as you no longer banking with Household, I apologize to them for somehow losing them business, but I can't sell the positives of a company I don't work for... now, if you want to know about clothes and sales... I'm your girl.

I should have just kept my thoughts to myself, and, next time, I'll do so. And you're right. It DOES happen to everyone. I have a stack of magazines I didn't want, but I'm not going to complain about the company who sold them to me. It's my fault for accepting them and not paying attention to the phone call.

Either way, I just wanted to apologize. And thanks for the comments. I will choose my words more wisely now as to not sound like a child. Better yet, as I previously mentioned, I won't say anything at all. I should have known better anyway, most of the time, it falls on deaf ears.

I think this has happend to all of us at one time or another. We hear of a great deal and we believe what we are told, so we put faith in people and sign the dotted line. Later, our believe in others bites us in the butt. My biggest upset is when I send the payment, but the bank has messed up and so I get a late fee and bad credit. For instance, I put $2,000 in the bank and then used the online payment account to pay $15.00 on my account. Since the bank held the check and didn't clear if for a few days, I owed money to the bank and had to pay for a late fee to the credit card company.

Even though my bank sent a letter to the credit card company stating it was their fault, the credit card company refused to fix my account. So I owed them more money and it made a dent in my credit.

Even with household bank, I had a fee on it for some protection plan. When I talked to the clerk, she said I had okay'd this. I never sign up for these protection plans, but I couldn't prove I hadn't okay'd it, so there was nothing I could do, I had to pay. When I tried to cancel the protection plan, she did everything possible to convince me keep the plan. All I can do is pay off the card and cancel it.

All I can tell Scott is that this is how credit companies work and no matter what credit company he went with, he would have had problems. I don't know anyone who has never had a problem with a credit company. That's just the way it is, so we have to deal with it.

As far as Abby's comments, I get the feeling she works for Household bank, maybe is high up there in the company. Her reply is pretty unprofessional and sarcastic and she needs to realize that she is representing her company. Regardless of what Scott says, Abby needs to sell people the good things of her company. She sounds like she's taking things personally and she responded the way a child does when he got caught being bad. Abby grow up. From her reply, I won't stay with household bank anymore. Way to go Abby.

You questioned on whether or not you should blame the sales clerk for the experience you had. Honestley, if you had even read the headings of what you were signing, you would have realized what it was. You didn't even have to read the whole thing. Just skim it! But I can understand your frustration if she told you there would be no other fees.

Best Buy has their applications separated by large bolded and numbered headers to let you be fully aware of what you are signing for. The first one is for your information, the second is for a joint applicant, the third is for each of you to sign to get your Best Buy card. The fourth actually says "Protect your Account with Account Sheild, an Optional Monthly Debt Cancellation Program" and then describes the terms of the program and you have the option to sign to enroll or sign to decline the program (under the sign to enroll section it states you authorize a monthly charge and that your credit application will not be influenced by whether you enroll and you are free to cancel at any time). The fifth section says "Apply today for a Household Bank Mastercard" and you have the option to sign.

Now, regarding the Mastercard, I'm glad they could help and waive the fees. As far as the Debt Cancellation program, not only did they send you a letter congratulating you for enrolling in the Account Shield program about a week after you enrolled, with all of the details... but they ALSO gave you a 2 month refund period where if you called within the first 60 days of you enrolling (mind you, you would have received not one, but two statements with the debt cancellation charge on it) to cancel the program they would have given you a full credit automatically. Most people look at their statement and call immediately if they see a charge that is incorrect. Household Bank gives you 2 statements to ensure accuracy in enrollment.

True, if you die, your wife probably wouldn't worry about your $700 bill... but if you had a lightening surge or your computer was vandalised, would you really want to continue paying for it? Your Debt Cancellation program came with 4 different types of protection. It protected everything financed on your card against lightening, fire, flood, any natural disaster, vandalism and theft- where they would cancel the cost of repairing or replacing it out of your outstanding balance (no, your warranty doesn't cover it and it's not insurance, so it'll compliment your homeowners insurance because your insurance check will only be there to pay your balance... if the bank cancels your balance, you can use your check to actually replace your merchandise). It also protected you and your good credit from involunary unemployment or disability (you're not superman.... it CAN happen) where it would cancel 10% of your balance every month. That's about 4 times your minimum payment. And the life benefit you are apparently already aware of. This doesn't only benefit the bank. My friend works there and she tells me stories all the time of people who declined the coverage when opening the account and then are mad because they still have a balance after something happens. One guy had a $10,000 televsion he still had $8000 left to pay on that was stolen and now he's stuck because his homeowners didn't view financed property as something he owned.

I'm not exactly sure what else you would have had them do to tell you that you enrolled in this program. They, nor can the clerk at Best Buy, read the application for you, or the information, or your statements and none of them can be held responsible if you signed for something you didn't want. Now, for the bank, the dispute wouldn't stop there. You can request a copy of the application to show your signature, If you did not sign, they would credit back the fees at that point. If you DID and you would still like to dispute, you can write to their correspondence department and explain why you signed in the VERY obvious "sign to enroll" section if you didn't want to have the program AND why you didn't call earlier to question the charge on your bill.

I'm glad you finally found the phone number to call though. You did realize it was on the back of your card the whole time, right... just like every other credit card?

Basically, to sum it all up... my suggestion is to pay more attention. However, complaining to the Best Buy management would also be a good idea if the girl did indeed state that you were not going to be charged anything extra for the additions you elected.