As part of the effort to get my sister's finances under control, I am canceling some credit cards. While talking to one of the cusomter service reps, I instructed him to close the account and asked about opening a different one. I thought that might work to cut off the automatic billing that any number of outfits were doing on the soon-to-be-closed card.
Wrong! He told me two startling things. If sis opened up a different account with the same credit card company and some vender billed the closed account, they'd just bill the charge to the new account. So I passed on the new card. He then told me it didn't really matter. If the vendor insists, the credit card company will bill the closed account.
That's right. There is no way for us to avoid having the charges placed on the account, even though the account is closed. Our only recourse is to dispute each charge we disagree with. Jeez.
The credit card guy did say that most vendors don't push it, and that closing the account does fend off most charges. The credit card company is a reputable one; USAA.
One of her credit cards is now charging 32% interest. Good grief. Maybe it's time to bring back usury laws.
Oh, and here's a delightful little twist. You know that these days when you get a credit card you have to call a number to activate the card. So right off the company has your phone number. When you activate it, you get a sales pitch for identity theft protection, or some such thing. My sis agreed to some of these, and of course the card company just puts the charge on the card. Month one, charge for identity theft protection. Sis failed to pay on time, so month two, second charge for ITF, late fee of $29, and a bit of interest. And it just snowballs from there.
2 comments:
My sympathy for the whole situation. It sounds like your sister may not be competent to handle her own affairs. That's always hard when a family member goes through that.
Thanks. It's going to be a rocky path for a while.
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