Getting Past Statements from Comenity

[Anonymous]

I have 3 30 day lates in 2014 from a Comenity bank store card. I do not have the statements and can only view as far back as 10/2014 on their website. I sent them a request for all statements in 2014 and they came back with this:

Thank you for your recent inquiry to our Customer Care Department.
Comenity Bank issues your account and responds to all credit related
inquiries.

We apologize for the inconvenience; however we may only send three (3)
statements out unless you have a court order. Please submit a request
for the three (3) statements (including months and years) you would like
for us to send and we will get them out for you right away.

We hope this information is helpful. For the security of your account
information, we ask if there are any follow up questions you have
related to this concern, please click on the reply button.


Is this true? And why? Why am I not entitled to all my past statements? Can anyone help me understand this?

[FinStar]

Well it appears to be the case and part of an internal policy. If you need clarification on that policy, why don't you call them?

[Anonymous]

This nonsense is another reason I always opt for paper statements. There should be a law requiring any entity that offers on-line billing to make available 5+ years of past statements for both current and past account holders.

As of now, statement retention and access policies are all over the map. Heck, I've run into multiple instances of companies updating their computer system and dumping all the old on-line statements in the process, despite originally promising X months worth being accessible.

A more common issue, beyond the typical 12-24 months retention, is that often when one's account is closed, access to all statements is promptly lost. Similar goes for many financial firms too, including banks and on-line trading sites.

Shame to read Comenity won't assist you. You could try requesting 3, wait a bit, and then request another 3. Might work. A more drastic route would be litigation against Comenity and/or some party relating to your use of that account in order to obtain a subpoena for the statements; contacting an attorney for assistance.

As for the lates, if they were spread out over time, that may be viewed more favorably than a string of lates, though it depends. Sending a goodwill letter to Comenity, repeatedly if need be, asking for the lates to be rememoved may work, but could take many months before success, if ever all.

Another route is disputing the lates with the credit bureaus - may not eliminate the lates (especially, if they're legit), but could be another way to get access to the past statements.

[Anonymous]

This exact situation is the reason I've created folders in my Google Drive account for every card and bank account. Every month, I save a pdf copy of the statement for each of these accounts to their respective folders.

I never used to save these types of documents, however, the one thing I've learned since I decided to take my credit and finances seriously is to save what you can. You never know when you need to go back to something in the past.

[Kutuzov]

Avoid paperless at all costs. I save all statements for 7 years. Unless you wanna trust a monkey with a gun, go the safe route and have your own records. I get offers of up to $50 on a gift card to go paperless, and I still didn't take them.

Anyways they did not say you could do multiple requests. Do one for 3 months, a week later another one, until you got all 12.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the responses. I will try the multiple requests and save everything from now on!