I searched through past topics, and I didn’t find anything on this, so I’m asking…
How often have you received bills after you’ve paid off your credit card, student loan, mortgage…etc? It just happened to me again–twice on the same day. I got two bills for credit cards that I’ve paid off completely. They included the dire warnings about my credit rating plummeting, warned me that interest is continuing to accrue, and that they would turn it over to a collection agency if I didn’t pay up.
I called one of them. The woman was nice about it, but she told me that “payments are handled by another division, (wtf?), and they’re closed until Monday,” and that I should call them on Monday.
Ok, I will. But it burns me that I have to waste my time looking up copies of cancelled checks just to straighten their books.
I’m wondering if there’s anything else I can do to make sure that it doesn’t happen anymore.
PS- I’m a newbie still flushed with the excitement of locating this forum.
:::Placing right hand on monitor:::
I will uphold the high traditions of intellectual discourse that I’ve witnessed. I shall endeavour not to evidence troll-like behavior. I’ll cite references whenever I can. So help me Cecil.
No, I wasn’t delinquent; they weren’t “Final Notice - Now You Must Die” things.
As it happens, I inherited a modest chunk of cash when a relative died, and I paid off everything I owed (student loans, credit cards, outstanding bills…everything except the mortgage). I cut up a couple of cards and only keep one now for emergencies.
BTW…I got two dunning notices after the student loan was paid off as well.
How come these agencies can know (?) exactly how much you supposedly owe up them up to the second, but it takes them months to realize that they’ve been paid?
I hope this is usefull, but it might not apply. I have had business vendors’ proxies (i.e., collection agencies) dun me for an invoice that was paid a year before. Most of these collection agencies recognize that they’re getting faulty information and will let it go w/some minimal proof of payment. It can get really topsy-turvy sometimes. We’ve now got a (probably former) client’s collection agency, on the eve of their IPO, trying to collect from us an invoice that they owe us! Since 1/99!
I guess what I’m trying to contribute is the realization that there are a lot of big, interactive databases out there, and we’re all in a lot of them and probably you’re going to need to help some of these database operators find where you should be. In other words, they ARE going to screw up and you need to document your payment trail.
I once had to deal with Citibank Visa about a non-received payment. They claimed they had never received my check. My bank, NationsBank, sent every canceled check with my statement for that particular month except for the Citibank check, although it was debited (~$700). Citibank wanted a photocopy of the check and NationsBank claimed that the check was physically “lost” and so sent me a photocopy of some “internal replacement check”. This photocopy was pretty much illegible and Citibank was like “we can’t read this and it isn’t proof of payment”. NationsBank was like “that’s the best we can do”.
Doesn’t solve my problem-Citibank still wants the money they’ve already got (my check was cashed by them) and NationsBank tells me that they’ve done their best-there is no “more readable photocopy”. Great, even better, the local NationsBank branch told me I’d have to deal with the branch where I had started my account-as a 16 yr old in a faraway town (I do this and am told that it’s BS, the local branch service rep is just lazy). Months went by as both Citibank and NationsBank tell me the other institution had all the documentation that is needed, and Citibank is charging me the interest on the $700 every month!
To make a long aggravating story short[er], I had to provide Citibank with my entire checking statements for 2 years. Why was this needed? I had already sent the copies of the statements for the months prior to, including, and after the month that the check was cashed. Anybody out there work for one of these operations?
My own opinion is that both these guys are too big to give a shit about any one customer, no matter how much they crow about customer service.