This is my first time delurking after getting a lot of useful advice on these boards. I'm writing because I encountered a problem last week with my Target Visa, which I've had for 10 years (it was initially a Target store card and was converted to a Visa about 5 years ago) and I have a good payment history. I paid my bill online on Dec 5 (more than the minimum, but I'm carrying about a $6300 balance). The payment was credited the same day, same as always, and I expected the money to become available the following day, as always. I thought maybe it was because the next day was a Saturday (though that was never an issue before). The following Monday, the money was gone from my checking account but the Target credit line had still not opened up. I called on Tuesday and spoke to a less-than-reassuring customer service rep, who told me to check again "in a couple days." I asked if it was a new policy since it had never been an issue before. I got a vague non-answer, so I hung up, resigned. I took "a couple days" to mean "two," so I checked back on Thursday. Still nothing. Wouldn't be a big deal if not for the fact that my husband and I are freelancers and we're both fighting for payment from three separate clients for about $6K, and we need to know the credit is available so we can do some Christmas shopping.
I called again on Friday night after there was no change in my account summary, and again got an unhelpful CSR. "Check again in a couple days." I pressed him some more, sensing a bit of a language barrier, and he said something to suggest that my bank hadn't cleared my payment. Now, I went through an ordeal a couple months ago when my bank (Commerce) merged (with TD Bank) and stopped crediting all my deposits for 3 weeks. Ironically, my Target payment was one of the few that was not delayed or bounced as a result of those issues, but I asked the CSR if I should hang up and go yell at my bank since the money had been debited from my checking. Another non-answer. I asked to speak to his supervisor. After getting more runaround, I asked if she could pin down a date when the money would be available and if she couldn't, would she please transfer me to someone who could. "No one who works here would be able to tell you that." HUH??!!! I asked how they could hold me to a policy that isn't written down somewhere for someone to recite back to me. Then she says, "It can take anywhere from 1 to 15 days to become available but I can't tell you when during that time YOURS will be available." Fifteen days? I asked if that was a policy change since I never had to wait any longer than 24 hours. "You can pay with cash in the store and it will be available immediately, but this applies to check payments." Um, that's not going to help me now. Not to mention that I paid online, which never appeared to be treated like a check payment before. "Things are changing because of the economy." No kidding---she didn't have to tell me. Yet she couldn't clarify for me whether there had been a specific change there.
Has anyone else encountered recent difficulties with Target? To add insult to injury, I got a notice the other day informing me that they're increasing my APR to 24.99%. Happy holidays!
