surfkitty Posted January 29, 2005 Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 Anyone had any bad experience with Target charging off an account that is on a hardship payment plan? About a month ago I talked to them on the phone regarding a Target Visa and explained I was unemployed and couldn't afford to pay the minimum monthly payments on my account, and after a bit of confusion (first I said I could pay only $50 a month and one person agreed to that, then 3 days later I get a call saying my account is past due, you owe $300, etc, and I had to set up again only this time it was $90/mo and it had to be an auto-debit, and that was the best they could do. Whatever.) I thought the problem had been solved (and they stopped calling me too, so I figured everything was ok.)Anyway when I agreed to have them auto-debit my bank account $90/mo, the girl on the phone said she would lower the interest rate to 8% for 6 months, and that the account would be reported to the credit agencies as on a payment plan. I had not received any notices of the account being in collections, etc, since I talked to them only a week after the payment was past due. I know it's technically still past due since the $90/mo I'm making is only about 1/2 of the minimum payment, but this was the end of December that I was late (so I'm late on Dec and now January too.)Well, right after I talked to them on the phone I wrote a letter,essentially re-iterated what had been said/set up on the phone, just to get a written record of it and sent it certified.. This was about 3 weeks ago. Well today I get a reply saying thanks for the letter, please call us immediately to "talk to you personally to best resolve your charged off Target Visa account." I'm thinking uhm charged off? An account that's only 2 months past due that payments have been made on and is set up on a hardship plan? (It is set up too because a payment was auto-debited on Jan. 10th.)I'm not sure if I should call them. The number is for the "recovery department" which doesn't sound good. I did check online and the account is still accessible and the payments I've made have all been credited to the balance.The whole reason I called them in the first place was to avoid collections/chargeoffs. Grrr. Anyway, just thought I'd give a heads up, seems like maybe credit card companies are cracking down lately, I had a Fleet card go to collections almost immediately too if I can believe the letter they sent me (and they refuse to work with me on a payment plan.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfkitty Posted June 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2005 An update ... I dunno what that charge off letter was, but the payment plan thing still worked, and after 6 months of paying on time (and a couple times paying a bit extra when I could) they actually reopened my account AND kept the interest rate at 8% (so far anyway, we'll see what happens next month.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
breathing_easier Posted June 29, 2005 Report Share Posted June 29, 2005 Glad to hear your story had a happy ending. Very cool that they reopened the account and at such a great interest rate. Doesn't happen often.How are things going with the Fleet account? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfkitty Posted August 27, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2005 Fleet account is not going well, Fleet got bought out by BofA a few months ago and apparently sold or transferred delinquint accounts (or at least mine) to First Nat'l Bank of Omaha/Emerge. Emerge didn't send statements (well I did get ONE right after they got the account) and their website always seems to be undergoing "maintenance" if I try to log in. I did a bit of research and heard very, very bad things about them, how people had made payments that were never credited even if the check was cashed, and how they seemed to just hold onto accounts to let interest/fees pile up rather than get people to pay them. So, I became very wary of paying anything to them or contacting them since they're not a CA and not covered by the debt collection laws.Latest status is account is apparently handled by Allied Interstate (another bad place from my research) who called and left a message with a relative of mine that I live with. No mail contact yet, but I did call them (dumb I know, but I was trying to get an address to mail a DV which they refused to give me.) More info is here about my phone call: http://www.debt-consolidation-credit-repair-service.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=223329&highlight=#223329Oh, and I just checked my Target account and they raised my interest rate back up to 19.99% oh well it was nice while it lasted (and of course my monthly payment went up as well, but at least now I can afford to pay it.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts