Sears MasterCard Outlandish Ripoff Late Fees Cleveland, Ohio

I've been trying to decide which of my credit cards to keep and which ones to discontinue, as I don't like having too many. Thanks, Greg, you've helped me decide that my Sears MasterCard isn't one that I will be keeping!

I've been a victim of late fee ripoffs from sears and have posted my complaint on this web site. The more I hear of Sears doing this kind of thing makes me wonder how many late fee's sears takes in a month? Is there any way the comsumer can find out this kind of information? How much money does sears generate a month from late fees? If you would like to read about my complaint go to sears search dated 4/4/2003, Late Charge Ripoff.

It's not the due dates that are different. It's
the length of time it takes to pricess payments
that varies from store internet. Paying in the
store is usually processed within 24-48 hours
not accounting for weekends. Paying online takes
3 days or more because of the length of time the
funds transfer takes. Common sense again... its
faster when you hand the check directly over at a
Sears store than when you request that
a third party, your bank, transers some of your
funds to another 3rd party. Face it... you didnt
bother to find out what the policy was on
payments. Then you waited till the last minute.
Now you want Sears to eat the charge for your
procrastination. Why in the heck would anybody
be dumb enough to wait until the day of the
due date to pay a bill anyway? What is there to
be gained from waiting until the last second
possible and cutting it as close as possible to
pay bills?

I see that the 'ex-employee' did not bother to read what my complaint.

The conditions and terms are NOT clear. Sure, I understand how Sears applies online payments now, after this mess, but that does not make it right!

I regularly pay my bills online. No other company charges me a late fee for paying online, on the date the payment is due. I have paid online, on the due date for my cell phones, my cable, my internet, my home phone, and other (better) department stores, all without this bogus rip off charge.

Using the logic 'account is not credited until back account is debited' why does dropping off a check, on the due date, in a sears store, not get an assessed late fee?

What is this crap about Sears "eating the late fee"? Sears is not owed a late fee if payment is made. Sears collects late fees for payments that it actually receives on time. Check out some of the complaints about checks being mailed 2+ weeks early, and mysteriously being credited 1 day after the due date.

As for this happening twice, I think I clearly stated that I had mistakenly thought that I had actually paid late, but after checking my records, and being told this by the 'customer service rep' found that this had happened before.

It does make me guilty of not paying ontime by Sears standards, but it does not make this policy right! Kinda interesting how they exclude me from getting a courtesy refund of the late fee because I had been late before, and that was for the same thing.

Again, I do not this is a fair or CLEAR policy. If it was honestly clear, there would be two due dates, one for online, and one for in store.

Hope that this will help someone avoid being ripped off by Sears.

I see that the 'ex-employee' did not bother to read what my complaint.

The conditions and terms are NOT clear. Sure, I understand how Sears applies online payments now, after this mess, but that does not make it right!

I regularly pay my bills online. No other company charges me a late fee for paying online, on the date the payment is due. I have paid online, on the due date for my cell phones, my cable, my internet, my home phone, and other (better) department stores, all without this bogus rip off charge.

Using the logic 'account is not credited until back account is debited' why does dropping off a check, on the due date, in a sears store, not get an assessed late fee?

What is this crap about Sears "eating the late fee"? Sears is not owed a late fee if payment is made. Sears collects late fees for payments that it actually receives on time. Check out some of the complaints about checks being mailed 2+ weeks early, and mysteriously being credited 1 day after the due date.

As for this happening twice, I think I clearly stated that I had mistakenly thought that I had actually paid late, but after checking my records, and being told this by the 'customer service rep' found that this had happened before.

It does make me guilty of not paying ontime by Sears standards, but it does not make this policy right! Kinda interesting how they exclude me from getting a courtesy refund of the late fee because I had been late before, and that was for the same thing.

Again, I do not this is a fair or CLEAR policy. If it was honestly clear, there would be two due dates, one for online, and one for in store.

Hope that this will help someone avoid being ripped off by Sears.

I see that the 'ex-employee' did not bother to read what my complaint.

The conditions and terms are NOT clear. Sure, I understand how Sears applies online payments now, after this mess, but that does not make it right!

I regularly pay my bills online. No other company charges me a late fee for paying online, on the date the payment is due. I have paid online, on the due date for my cell phones, my cable, my internet, my home phone, and other (better) department stores, all without this bogus rip off charge.

Using the logic 'account is not credited until back account is debited' why does dropping off a check, on the due date, in a sears store, not get an assessed late fee?

What is this crap about Sears "eating the late fee"? Sears is not owed a late fee if payment is made. Sears collects late fees for payments that it actually receives on time. Check out some of the complaints about checks being mailed 2+ weeks early, and mysteriously being credited 1 day after the due date.

As for this happening twice, I think I clearly stated that I had mistakenly thought that I had actually paid late, but after checking my records, and being told this by the 'customer service rep' found that this had happened before.

It does make me guilty of not paying ontime by Sears standards, but it does not make this policy right! Kinda interesting how they exclude me from getting a courtesy refund of the late fee because I had been late before, and that was for the same thing.

Again, I do not this is a fair or CLEAR policy. If it was honestly clear, there would be two due dates, one for online, and one for in store.

Hope that this will help someone avoid being ripped off by Sears.

I see that the 'ex-employee' did not bother to read what my complaint.

The conditions and terms are NOT clear. Sure, I understand how Sears applies online payments now, after this mess, but that does not make it right!

I regularly pay my bills online. No other company charges me a late fee for paying online, on the date the payment is due. I have paid online, on the due date for my cell phones, my cable, my internet, my home phone, and other (better) department stores, all without this bogus rip off charge.

Using the logic 'account is not credited until back account is debited' why does dropping off a check, on the due date, in a sears store, not get an assessed late fee?

What is this crap about Sears "eating the late fee"? Sears is not owed a late fee if payment is made. Sears collects late fees for payments that it actually receives on time. Check out some of the complaints about checks being mailed 2+ weeks early, and mysteriously being credited 1 day after the due date.

As for this happening twice, I think I clearly stated that I had mistakenly thought that I had actually paid late, but after checking my records, and being told this by the 'customer service rep' found that this had happened before.

It does make me guilty of not paying ontime by Sears standards, but it does not make this policy right! Kinda interesting how they exclude me from getting a courtesy refund of the late fee because I had been late before, and that was for the same thing.

Again, I do not this is a fair or CLEAR policy. If it was honestly clear, there would be two due dates, one for online, and one for in store.

Hope that this will help someone avoid being ripped off by Sears.

Sometimes I wonder what the thought process is
for some Sears customers. It's like they're on
a totally different wavelength from the rest of
us. Conditions and terms are clearly stated, you
knowingly violated them, not once but twice, and
now you want to act like it's the company's fault
and they should pay out of their bottom line
because you chose to gloss over something that was
clearly disclosed and read it the way you thought
it should be, not the way it was.

I saw it all the time with people who couldn't
understand simple things like why you void the
warranty on a lawn mower by running over a tree
trunk, or why you cant bring broken big ticket
items in 5 years out of warranty and demand free
replacements.

You yourself quoted the site as saying
"If the electronic payment is returned unpaid' you
MAY be charged a late fee. It again mentions that
it may take up to 5 BUSINESS days to credit your
account,"

And you go on to say "but does not mention that
if the date of account credit is past the due
date, you are charged late fees!"

Dude that's common sense. If you cant figure it
out it's your own inability to comprehend a simple discosure,not because they hid anything.

It stated that it may take 5 days to process
your payment. You are charged a late fee if your
payment is late. You made your payment the day it was due. Do you understand how the process works?

Your account is not paid until the funds actually
come out of your bank. There is no good faith
credit just because you click the payment
button on the web site. Once you choose to make a payment, they're probly not even going to be able to debit your bank account for at least 24 hours.

All that happens the first day you actually make
a payment on the site is they note that you want
to make one and the process begins to debit your
account. There was no way for the funds transfer
you authorized to take place until after the due
date passed. This was no different than if
you sent the check out in the mail the day the
payment was due. Would you expect Sears to eat
the late fee in that case because the check was in the mail?

If I was the customer service rep talking to you
it would have been hard for me to keep from
laughing at you out loud.

ALLOW 5 DAYS TO PROCESS PAYMENTS! It's
normally 3-5 days when you make payments on
most credit cards. At minimum, it takes a day
or two to debit your bank account. These things
dont happen the same day.I also make online bill
payments all the time. Plenty of people do.
Most people have enough common sense to know
these things take some time to process. I have
never had a problem with late fees, but then
again I dont insist on waiting until the last
minute and then complaining to the company when
they charge me for procrastinating. So now you can stop trying to scam Sears out of its late fee
because you never bothered to learn how online
bill pay works.