Just so you all know, thanks to this thread, I will never ever ever get one of those store credit cards. I’m only fifteen, so not old enough for one yet, but I’m glad I’ve been forewarned. Thanks. 
You should have tried a third time. I bet they would have shipped you a box of powder.
I had acquired a Sears credit card years ago. After I got married, I decided to add my wife’s name to the account and get a second card in her name. When the new card arrived it had her name wrong. Somewhere in the course of getting this corrected, Sears managed to delete my name from the account entirely, and as a result she ended up being listed as the “primary cardholder” even after my name was restored to the account. By their rules, this means that any changes in the account now have to be authorized by her. Also, when Sears instituted their Discover Card program, the invitation to open the account was in her name, which makes her the primary accountholder on our Discover Card account. This has occasionally caused us some problems, since due to her health I handle almost all the financial matters for the household and sometimes Discover customer service will insist on talking to her to get permission to discuss the account with me.
Well, y’all scared me into pestering Sears again today. I dug out the card and called the number on it, and sure enough, they’d attached $50 worth of interest to my $132.10 bill. (And it turns out I’d made the purchase in September, not June – that’s some hefty interest!)
But I got a representative on the phone and did my best “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” act on them. And they removed all the interest, apologized for Sears’ total and complete inability to send me a bill (they claimed the bill had been returned to them by the Post Office – but considering that their marketing materials have all made it to my box, I think they’re lying), and gave me an address to send payment to.
So I’ve sent off payment, along with a letter detailing what’s happened and requesting the account be closed.
I guess I could wait five years and see if I got those clothes for free, but y’all have put the fear of collections-agencies into me. Especially reading that other thread – damn!
Anyway, thanks for the advice and anecdotes, folks!
Daniel
I tried to drive J.Crew out of business.
I ordered a clearance sweater and was asked what were my two top color choices. First choice then the runner up. I gave “Apple” with "Gray as back up.
Couple of days later, "apple’ arrived.
Then Gray.
Then apple.
Then Gray.
Then Apple.
Then gray.
Then a duplicate of a sundress I bought off them two years earlier. Then a microfleece sweatshirt ( that I still have) that I had bought a year earlier.
Not bad for a $12 clearance sweater. Everyone got sweaters from me for Xmas that year. Wheeeeee!
Hola!
Can’t you go to the Sears in your hometown and pay the $140 dollars?
Do not mean to be a smart ass.
SENOR
My parents cancelled their Sears account because they refused to change my mother’s name on the card, even after years and years of calls and requests.
See, my parents have been happily married for thirty years. My mother’s maiden name is shorter and easier to spell, so about sixteen years ago she legally changed back to it. So she and my dad have different last names, but are still married and still have joint accounts and such.
Sears couldn’t comprehend this. My mother tried for well over a decade to get them to put her legal name on the card. But every time they sent her a card, it said Momblink Marriedname. Their system seemed incapable of making the change.
So my parents cancelled the account. From what I’ve seen in this thread, their experience was about par for the course.
You got that straight!! Some years ago, I had a credit check done, and it appeared on my report that I had never paid off my Sears Card. Here’s the punchline: I’ve never freakin’ had a Sears Card!!
I work at Sears, and occasionally I’ll scan a credit card through the machine, and a message will come up: “Congratulations, you’ve been upgraded to a Sears Mastercard! Enter Social Security Number to put this on your new Sears Mastercard.” From this screen, you can clear back and they can use a different card, or they can give you their social and get a S MC, but there’s no way (that I know of, at least) for them to put the purchise on their regular Sears card. Even if they don’t want a S MC. Even if they’ve had their current card for decades. They have to leave the register, and call the credit people, and hassle it out with them.
Oh, and the starter interest rate for the regular Sears card is 21.some%. Yeah. I work there, and they won’t give me one, I guess because I just turned 18 a bit ago and have no credit yet. However, people who work there aren’t able to get their associate discount if they pay with a credit card other than Sears - I have to pay with cash or check. There’s a loophole to that, though - I buy a giftcard with my debit card for the amount of the purchise, and then pay for it with the gift card, and still get the discount. I’m sure they’ll remove that loophole eventually, I just thought I’d share.
When I talked with them on Saturday, they did mention that as an option. But the nearest Sears is almost half an hour away, and I definitely don’t have faith that I would’ve been dealing with a cashier who’d be able to figure out
a) how to pay off a credit card; and
b) that I didn’t owe them $50 in interest; and
c) how to cancel the card.
So I sent the check in the mail. Hopefully that’s the end of it.
Daniel
I don’t know how to do the quote-y things, but I can assure you that a) any casher would be able to do a payment on a credit card, since we do umteen of them the first couple weeks of every month, b) they wouldn’t hassle you about the $50 intrest, since we can’t see what the balance is, and c) if you were nice to them, they might call the credit people for you, but it’s more likely that they’d tell you that you were on your own re:cancelling the card.