Anarchy99
Footballguy
Several years ago, I used a store credit card to purchase some stuff after renovating a room in my house. The store had a promo going that you got 0% financing if you made minimum monthly payments and paid it off within however many years (it was like 3 or 5 years). I made all the monthly payments, got to the end of the program, and thought everything was done. I was enrolled in paperless billing / invoicing, so I did not receive printed statements in the mail.
A year or two later, I went back to the same store to purchase something else and wanted to use the store credit card again. However, I was not able to as the charge was declined. They told me the reason was the account had been closed due to inactivity. It wasn't a big purchase, so I paid case instead.
Jump ahead another 18-24 months (essentially now). An attorney's office sent me a summons to appear in small claims court because they bought my debt and claim I owe $1,500. Apparently the store credit card account was held by Chase, and they sold my alleged uncollected debt to this attorney.
The store now claims, when I was making my monthly payments all those years ago, I made another purchase on that account. So according to the store, that bumped up my minimum payment amount slightly so when I thought I had made all my payments I was short by like $20.00. On occasion, I paid extra in my monthly payment to help pay it off quicker. But according to the store, when I made the extra payments, I did not specifically request that the amount be applied to the 0% financing offer, so they did not apply it to that purchase and paid off any other charges on the account first.
So when I came to the what I thought was the final month's payment, they stuck me with years and years of interest. And since I never knew about it, I obviously made no payments, so they hit me with $30 each month since then in non-payment charges. Now they rolled in additional attorney's fees and filing fees on top of it.
At no point did they call me, write me, email me, or text me that I owed any money. In all this time, no one communicated with me at all and this is the first I heard of it. However, the store still sends me emails every two days on their weekly specials, service plans, and rewards program. At this point, the place demanding money won't listen to what the store did or said . . . they only want the money.
My concern is that I don't have access to any of the paperwork anymore. My credit card account and on-line customer account has been closed, so I can't even attempt to print out anything to support my case (and it's so long ago I doubt the records could be retrieved anyway).
Any suggestions on how to combat this?
A year or two later, I went back to the same store to purchase something else and wanted to use the store credit card again. However, I was not able to as the charge was declined. They told me the reason was the account had been closed due to inactivity. It wasn't a big purchase, so I paid case instead.
Jump ahead another 18-24 months (essentially now). An attorney's office sent me a summons to appear in small claims court because they bought my debt and claim I owe $1,500. Apparently the store credit card account was held by Chase, and they sold my alleged uncollected debt to this attorney.
The store now claims, when I was making my monthly payments all those years ago, I made another purchase on that account. So according to the store, that bumped up my minimum payment amount slightly so when I thought I had made all my payments I was short by like $20.00. On occasion, I paid extra in my monthly payment to help pay it off quicker. But according to the store, when I made the extra payments, I did not specifically request that the amount be applied to the 0% financing offer, so they did not apply it to that purchase and paid off any other charges on the account first.
So when I came to the what I thought was the final month's payment, they stuck me with years and years of interest. And since I never knew about it, I obviously made no payments, so they hit me with $30 each month since then in non-payment charges. Now they rolled in additional attorney's fees and filing fees on top of it.
At no point did they call me, write me, email me, or text me that I owed any money. In all this time, no one communicated with me at all and this is the first I heard of it. However, the store still sends me emails every two days on their weekly specials, service plans, and rewards program. At this point, the place demanding money won't listen to what the store did or said . . . they only want the money.
My concern is that I don't have access to any of the paperwork anymore. My credit card account and on-line customer account has been closed, so I can't even attempt to print out anything to support my case (and it's so long ago I doubt the records could be retrieved anyway).
Any suggestions on how to combat this?