Elan Financial Services Likes to Stick it to You Internet, Internet

We have had a couple business credit card accounts through Elan as that's what our bank uses. From the start they've been very difficult to work with: The web-based interface is misleading and very different from what other credit card companies use.

The other thing is they operate on a four-week period rather than monthly, which we learned the hard way. (They're the only ones doing this that I know of.) It caused us to miss a payment some months ago, which we quickly paid off along with the late fee, and thus zeroed out the account. We didn't use it for months thereafter.

We received a promo offer for 0% interest with the typical 4% service fee, which we used to buy inventory. What the letter did not say is that they jacked up our rate to 30% and that there was no grace period; interest would accrue immediately. That put us over our limit, and so another fee they get to collect.

When I phoned them on that, they would not budge, stating that because it is in the cardholder's agreement, we should have know we were asking for a 30% promo rate. They felt that there was no need for the promo letter to be accurate on what the actual interest rate would be since they are processed months in advance and, they say, before they jacked us up to the penalty rate. That's our problem, they say, not theirs.

We're paying off and canceling all our accounts with these folks and have notified our bank of the sheer difficulty of dealing with them in hopes they will drop them. I really like the folks at our regional bank -- good folks -- and hope they might find a better alternative eventually.

Elan, on the other hand, makes an effort to be difficult so they can collect fees. They're not the only ones doing this in the financial industry these days, but they've raised the bar.

The reason for my report is to let other folks beware, and encourage others to call Elan out if they've had similar experiences.