I mailed my normal payment of 129.00 plus 171.00 for a total of 300.00 to HRS on 1/12/2007 as I have been doing since the first payment was due in April of 2005. For unknown reasons HRS claimed to have never received my payment by mail and sent me a late payment notice and an additional charge to my account of 35.00 as late fees. I called HRS on 2/9/2007 and spoke with a rep. about what had happened and was told to mail in the late payment plus this month’s payment (293.00) and once they received it to call back and request the late fees be reversed. I sent 600.00 by mailed on 2/9/2007 (I personally delivered this letter to the post office).
I started monitoring my checking account for the check to clear. By 2/21/2007 the check had not been cleared at my bank. I then setup with my bank an EFT payment to be sent on 2/22/2007 for the 600.00. The morning of 2/22/2007 I checked to make sure the EFT of 600.00 did process and check for 600.00 had not cleared my bank. I then found HRS had now processed the 600.00 check. I call HRS customer service and requested the reversal of the 35.00 to be told they would only reverse 50% of the late fee. I then asked to speak to her supervisor. The supervisor said she would reverse 75% but not the complete late fee charge. I explained that HRS is receiving 1200.00 instead of the requested 293.00 and all the effort I had put into making sure they received the money. I also explained that if she would review at my account history she would see I have never missed a payment since they issued this account back in April of 2005.
In fact I have always sent the payments in ahead of the requested payment date and for more money than was requested. Paying the additional amounts should have my account ahead of the amount due. In over 57 years of my life I have never had mail lost by the post office until now. I believe HRS maybe could have misplaced the mailed payment, not the post office. Several other letters mailed that same time all arrived to their destination on time. As it stands now HRS gets the additional interest plus the 35.00 late charge and I have to figure out how to cover the additional 600.00 EFT payment because of HRS slow processing time.
Editor’s Note: HRS is the former Household Retail Services, now the retail services division of HSBC Finance Corporation. Since this is a revolving account the next payment due is always on schedule. One cannot pay ahead. The assumption above which states ’I believe HRS maybe could have misplaced the mailed payment, not the post office’ is probably 100 percent correct. They are predators. Write to your state attorney general.
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