Cross Country Bank/ Applied Card Systems Enron's crooks are mild compared to Cross Country Bank's crooks Boca Raton Florida

There aren't enough available hours in a day for me to effectively relate my nightmare of a story to you about the heathenous slime that work at Cross Country Bank (CCB). I only hope that by reading my story it will help prevent someone else from making the HUGH mistake of getting involved with CCB in the first place.

Approximately 18 years ago my wife and I moved to West Germany with the military. At the time we lived overseas, the exchange rate for the German Mark was so great that we never needed to purchase anything with credit. As a result, we never used to use the many credit cards that we had at that time, so we cut them up (all with a zero balance) and mailed them back to the companies that had issued them. In essence we were not credit card dependant and had learned to do without them. It was Great!

Upon getting out of the military and returning to the United States, we managed to continue our non-dependency of credit cards for years without any difficulty. Then one day I had to travel out of town on company business and was shocked to discover when I got to my hotel that they required a credit card before I could register. Although I had more than enough cash on me to take care of my stay, they would not allow me to register without a credit card.

The embarrasment of that event prompted me to respond to a TV ad from Cross Country Bank one evening when they were advertising secured credit cards. Reluctantly I applied for the card with the thought in mind that I would only get it to use in emergency situations. I figured that since it had a limit on it, I couldn't fall into the trap of becoming credit card dependant again after so many years without them.

I suppose a red flag should have gone up when I received my card from CCB and there was already a charge on it for $150 for processing fees, but I decided to keep the card and pay the fee. Well, it didn't take very long for me to realize that my decision to keep that demon card had not been one of my wiser moments. I started noticing that I would get hit with $25 late charges because they claimed that they hadn't received my payment on time, even though I had always sent my payments in plenty of time to have been properly posted.

But the straw that broke the camel's back was when I was scheduled to travel out of town on business one day and had to rent a car. The rental agent told me that although I would have to reserve the car with a credit card, I could pay the fee in cash upon my return if I preferred. I was in the agent's presence when he called CCB and asked for authorization only. Upon returning from my trip, I paid the Rental Agent the $77.92 fee in cash for the use of the rental car, received my receipt and left.

When I received my next CCB statement, it had a $350 charge on it that no one at CCB seemed to be able to explain to me. Not only could they not explain it, but they refused to remove it, and told me that my only recourse was to dispute it. Soon thereafter, I had to go out of town again, and decided to contact CCB to ask that they temporarily increase my limit so that I could check into my hotel the next day without becoming embarassed. CCB told me that the only way that I could assure that that wouldn't happen would be to pay down my balance to zero. And though I knew that I didn't owe them the payment in the first place, they told me that I needed to make the payment and then contact the Dispute Department to recover my other funds.

After running to an ATM machine, finding a Quik Collect location and sending CCB the $300 that they told me to send them to zero out my account, my card still got declined the next day when I attempted to check-in at the hotel. Now furious over my whole experience, I was determined more than ever to get my money back through their Dispute Department. While in dispute with them I received another statement from CCB and found that they did not post my Quik Collect payment immediately as they had led me to believe. Because they did not post my payment as agreed they added another $ 25 late fee, which then put me over the limit, so they also hit me with an over- the- limit fee as well.

After countless long distance calls, being shuttled from one person after another and being left painstakingly on hold for what seemed like an eternity, it became clear to me that CCB never intended to consider my dispute, and only wanted to give me the run around. Feeling used and abused, I basically decided that I would just have to write my $350 off as a loss and a lesson learned. Amazingly, CCB started harassing me constantly with collection letters and threatening phone calls when I refused to play their game anymore.

It's been approximately 5 years since I last had any dealings with Satan's disciples over at CCB, yet they continue negatively touch my life. I recently applied for a much wanted job, that I am fully qualified for, however, since CCB shows up on my credit bureau report as a charged off account, I am having to re-live the CCB pain all over again. It's like a never ending story with these loathsome, no good leaches whose only mission is to suck your dignity and your wallet dry!!!

Brett
Gaithersburg, Maryland

Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Cross Country Bank