I am devastated over what just happened and I need some support

[Anonymous]

I need some serious support today.  Like so many others, I have spent YEARS paying all of my bills on time.  Slowly climing my way up to recovery from a divorce 5 years ago where I defaulted on accounts.

All of my payment history has been perfect since that time.  

I have Care Credit and I have paid them diligently for the last few months.  Last month I entered in my montly payment, put in my checking account number, received an email confirmation from them and didn't think much about it.  Cue the credit alerts yesterday.  I got hit with a 30 day late from Care Credit and my credit score instantly plummeted over 115 points.

I had no idea what happened.  I called them in tears, sobbing and crying on the phone.  Only for the lady to tell me my payment didn't process (they said I entered in the wrong account number on their website and I did not). I received no alerts from them, nothing from my bank, no emails, nothing.

She said there's nothing she can do to reverse it.  What's done is done.  I was 35 days late and had NO idea.  All over $77.

Needless to say I am absolutely devasted.  I feel numb.

[Anonymous]

Ugh.  Sorry that happened to you.  I cannot offer any expert advice, I can only tell you what I would do.  Working for a utility that takes online payments I see customers "fat finger" an account number or routing number all the time when they make an online payment.  I'm certainly not saying this is what you did - it's simply what I see.  When the customer calls, our reps are empowered to remove any lp's assessed by us and to send an internal request to have that 30 late removed from the credit bureaus.  I see you having a few options right now.  I would call them back and ask to speak to a supervisor.  If the rep can't remove it maybe they can.  Or - do they have an online secure message portal ?  We also receive many of these requests via email.  Finally I would find an email address for the CEO and plea my case that way.  Best of luck to you !  I hope you are successful.

[Anonymous]

This sounds like a case where a goodwill campaign would likely be successful but what I am curious about is how have you been making payments before if your account number has been wrong? Don’t they store that? If you have a confirmation that you paid and you didn’t get notification that they were unsuccessful in taking the payment or get charged a return payment fee, clearly something happened on their end because one of those things should have occurred. 

[Anonymous]

That’s why I’m so upset! I told her on the phone! She said she sees “where I attempted to make a payment” but it didn’t process and that it was NOT from insufficient funds. No letter from them, no letter from Chase. Nothing. Just an email that says my payment was processed. And then according to them, returned.

I also found out that my CL of $7500 was dropped to $2700 yesterday as well. I owe them $2200. So my util went up to almost 100%. I got a double blow from them that caused the 115 point drop. It’s devastating. I’ve worked so hard. And to see it all just fly out the window over an accounting error that they will never admit was theirs.

Regardless, I printed out every payment confirmation email I received for the last 4 months, copy of my current balance of $0 and wrote a pretty strong letter with exact dates of payments and the documentation to back it up. So help me, if I get back notification from the dispute that they won’t fix it, they will receive a letter from me every day. I am PISSED. This is their fault and they need to fix it. This situation is more than a goodwill campaign.

[Anonymous]

Notification from the dispute? Did you dispute with the CRA’s? That would not seem like the best approach here. Neither would a strongly worded letter at this point, IMO! Sending angry letters every day is not going to help you. You admit the payment didn’t go through so technically the payment WAS 35 days late. If you push the wrong buttons they may come at you saying they say it will take 3-5 days for your payment to process and that it is your responsibility to verify the funds were taken from your account... So while the payment was late, you have a reasonable defense and a good shot at a goodwill adjustment. But that won’t work if you are reacting in a way that shows you are pissed.

I think that you’d have more luck calling back when you aren’t (understandably) frantic and sobbing, and talk to the customer service person politely and without blame. Ask to speak to a supervisor if that goes nowhere. Being polite and not angry is important. Nobody wants to help someone who is reaming them out.

If that doesn’t work, I would email the executive office emails and nicely outline the issues and ask for them to adjust their reporting because you attempted to make your payment in good faith and received confirmation of that, but didn’t receive any notification that it didn’t work. Once you have tried this method, then get more firm. Don’t just jump out the gate being aggressive. I’m sure this will get resolved in your favor but it may be harder if they think you are being rude.

[gdale6]

I would be sending a written letter through the mail to the CEO of the creditor and asking for some help on this.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your response.  I've calmed down a bit, but I'm still super upset.  I guess I feel defeated because the person I talked to on the phone said there's nothing she can do.  Does that mean I need to keep calling back?  And hoping for someone else?  Yes, I made the payment in good faith.  I had no idea it wasn't processed.  That's the truth.  Should I not go straight to the credit bureaus?  I'm at a loss....

[Harmony12]

Have you tried asking them to reset your CL back to the higher amount? I did this with Comenity about a year or so ago and it worked.

[GApeachy]

OP, call your bank and see if they have record of attempt.  I transposed my number one time and called synch to ask why my pymt hasn't come out yet and that I needed to recheck the bank acct. number I entered.  Synch took my pymt over the phone and their website stilled showed it was processing my original pymt.  The original pymt. never got processed (didn't matter) but I called my bank to see if they could let it go through anyway, the bank rep. could see the attempt on their end. 

Point is: If you can get some kind of confirmation from the bank the attempt was made to your name and it IS the correct acct. number then you are fine.  If bank rep. sees that the transaction was to a wrong acct. number (like I did) then you know.

[AverageJoesCredit]

Irregardless of the reason, when there is a late payment, Synchrony will often start to balance chase as a measure to control what it might view as trouble arising with that account. You have seen it has slready begun. Hopefully, no one else follows suit. I hope you can get it taken care of via goodwill. Good luck