Complaint Review: Applied Bank - Cross Country Bank

I have/had two separate accounts with Applied Bank, therefore the following information submitted by me always pertains to both accounts. I have a good credit rating across the board with now the exception of Applied Bank.

In Late November 2007, my Mother died and during this time period, I had left a stack of bills due for my son to take care of for me during the 10 days I had spent waiting for cancer to take her. My son inadvertently did not see two bills due to Applied Bank. Ironically I had no real balance due to A.B. except for the two $6.50 participation fees owed for each account.(still haven't figured how they get away with that charge).

As soon as I discovered these two unpaid accounts, I immediately sent correspondence on December 14th explaining the oversight asking for relief from late fee charges. On December 17th, I received two letters, one for each account number (crossed in the mail), informing me that "because of the inactivity of my account, my credit privileges have been terminated , accounts closed with a zero balance". (they didn't mention the $50.00 Annual fee and the years of participation
fees paid by me).

On January 3, 2008, I received the reply to my December letter. These two identical letters thanked me for my letter and informed me that both accounts were reinstated and also informed me that they had waived the $50.00 reinstatement charge on each. On January 22nd, two more letters giving me a Customer satisfaction credit of $25.00.

In February, I bought $12.00 worth of gas on one of the cards. Soon afterwards I received my two statements. The one with the gas charge posted a $90.34 charge for reinstatement. The other card, a $35.00 late charge.

I then started mailing and faxing letters about these statements, (also began calling on a regular basis). They never wrote back to me until April 1st with a lame letter from Elizabeth Bowman stating " When you applied for your credit cards, all the fees attributed to your account were disclosed in the application material". The card used for the gas purchase, has now gone from a $6.50 participation fee to over $200.00.

Ironically, I had trouble with Cross Country Bank some time ago, and I had to prove to them that they received a payment by check, which they cashed but did not credit to my account.

Richard
Watertown, New York
U.S.A.