Need advice on fighting credit card issue with bank

[ck2010]

I am currently fighting with my wife's bank (credit union) over an old credit card she had with them.  She had opened the card before we were together and they gave her a $500 limit.  She had them set it up to autopay from her checking account with them as well as an auto loan and a personal loan she had.  All was well with the payments it was making but shortly after we were together she got a late notice.  She called to find out why and they said they see the payment was made and not to worry.  So this happened again a few months later and then ultimately it went 30 days late.  Her other two loans (auto and personal) both were still being paid without a problem via autobill.  So we called to try to get it cleared up and they said they see a payment was made even though my wife didn't manually submit a payment.  This whole charade continued a few more times (and we later found out reporting 30 day late several times on her CR) and finally resulted in them issuing a letter that they were cancelling the card.  The balance at the time was a bit under $500 because she had just used it for a purchase.  We tried to call them to again to find out why if they were auto paying it, it was being paid late and were passed around from person to person.  We both took an afternoon off of work to go to the head office and was told the person we needed to speak to wasn't there (they suggested we come down!).  We both worked and it was hard to play phone tag with these people and after countless phone calls, no answers and promises that the correct person would return our calls, her card continued to rack up $25 late fees and $25 over the limit fees.

Here we are 5 years later and still fighting this.  We've both called more times than we can count at this point.  I had offered in the very beginning to just pay the entire card in full if they would remove the few 30 day lates since THEY were supposed to be making the auto pay.  Now that the balance is nearly $1200 we find out that the reason all of these years those payments were mysteriously being made is because the collections person at the bank was going in and making a withdraw from my wifes checking account!  They are trying to say her balance and limit all along was $1k (even though I have her past statements that prove otherwise) and are threatening to take this to court since my wife quit using that account and there is no more money for them to pull.

As a result of this my wifes credit is now shot.  Everything else she has is absolutely perfect (long history, never late, great debt/credit ratios, etc...), even her other loans she had with this credit union that were running simultaneous to all of this credit card crap were paid in full and never late.  I've been fighting that I'll still gladly pay the balance (they've made a killing off of this card by now with what they have been withdrawing every month for the past 5 years) but I want them to delete this from her credit file, but they refuse to remove it.  They said it is completely our fault and the best they will do is settle for $700 and it will remain on her credit report.

I want this to go away and I want them to own up to their part in this horrible mess but I have no clue what to really do.  It's not worth my time to go to court over this and I don't want to continue to lose even more money on this.

So with that horribly long story, anyone have any suggestions?

[llecs]

If they are willing to settle for $700, then I'd send a PFD for $700.

[RobertEG]

I must say that I dont fully understand your post.

My reading.  You have a legal issue of first, her agreement with the CU on autopay, and second, whetther the funds authorized to make that autopay were available at the time of due date of payment.  They say they werent covered, you say they were.  That is an issue for the courts to decide.

Thereafter, they closed the account, apparently with an unpaid balance still pending.

But if the account still had a balance, what payments did you therafter make to eliminate that debt?  Was the debt ever paid?

Or did you just rely on their improper acceptance of prior payments, or their closing of the account, to then argue credit reporting issues, without payment of the debt?

Prior credit reporting disputes  and debt payment issues are very different.

You want deletion of five-year old derogs from her CR.  The CU gains nothing by doing this.  They want payment of the debt.

It appears that they have told you that PFD deletion is not on their radar screen.  YOu can offer a new PFD, but ot may just lead to their referral of this contentious account out to a CA, and thus a new derog in her CR.

If the prior derogs are minor, at five years or more, CR deletion would not be my major concern.  You might want to consider a simple PIF, thus eliminating the chance of CA referral, or even legal action on their part.