Credit Cards

[Elizabethd1012]

My uncle applied for a Sears credit card at the store and he was instantly approved for a $4000 credit line for a Sears Mastercard. 

He was given a temporary card that day and he used it.  He went back a week or so later and made a payment.  And then a few days after that he used it again.

It has been a few weeks and he still has not received the actual credit card in the mail.  All this time he has been using the temporary card that he was given at the store.

The problem is that when he calls Sears they say that they cannot find him on system with his social security #.   

What could be the issue?  Isn't this strange?  He asked me for my help since his English is not too strong but I don't know what to do. 

[5thWheel]

He may have went into the account deadzone....that's a term they use at Sears when something like this happens from time to time....when it does happen to get it sorted out they need you to inform them because it won't be caught automatically. What happens is when he applied for the account it wasn't fully processed and went to the account deadzone but the temporary card still works and will continue to work as long as he uses it. Now here is the situation that you are in.....the account is actually free at this time and all charges are going to a zone which has no name officially or address attached to it because the account wasn't set up properly.

I'm not advocating fraud but in most cases when this happens they don't catch this unless you inform them about it. You stated the card has a $4000 limit.....the card that you has an unlimited credit limit if you were to go in there right now and charge 50,000 dollars worth of merchanidise it would go through no questions asked. But since you are honest like most of us you can alert them to this situation and tell them you have't received your permenant card yet and you fear the account may be in the account deadzone but speak to a supervisor or store manager and they should be able to fix it.

Hope this help.

[Elizabethd1012]

Oh that makes sense.  But my question is are they going to revoke this card?  He has no credit and I don't think that he would have gotten approved under normal circumstances.  He has made purchases and even payments.  I wonder if they would at least let him keep the card and link it appropriately?

[tmoney]

 I had a similar problem ,when I applied for a card in store. I applied the beginning of DEC and as of the end of Jan I still didn't have

 the card. I called three or four times and they verified my address and said they would send a card. After another month still no

 card. Finally I just closed the account and told them to keep it. It was a MC and i really didn't need it anyway. Their customer

 service sucks