Complaint Review: Carmel Fionancial Corporation

In May 2007, while stationed at Fort Polk, La. a company called, Metropolitan Education Enterprise went door to door selling encyclopedia sets. We signed a contract, both put our contact information, families contact information and mailing addresses. Keep in mind that my number is still the same to this day. After really reading the contract 3 days later we realized how aweful this contract was. It double taxed us every month and the APR was 18%, in addition to a finace charge! So we called and tried to terminate the contract. They said No, that we had 48 hrs to drop out and we were now stuck in this contract. The contract clearly states that they would deduct $84 dollars every month until the balance of $2,674 was paid in full!.... $2,674 for an encyclopedia set! How these scammers were allowed on a military instillation is beyond me. But we were stuck in this contract and paid the $84 dollars every month that came out of our account automatically. Sometime in 2009, Carmel Financial Corporation bought Metropolitan Education Enterprise. For whatever reason, they stopped deducting the $84 dollars as stated in their contract. I didn't know I still had an outstanding balance left on these books from Nov 2009! (The month they say I made the last payments) because, per the contract, they were supposed to charge my account until there was a zero balance. They have my number in the contract I had them send me and my families mailing address. They haven't tried to contact me reguarding a past debt once through mail or phone.... for the past 4 YEARS!!! It wasn't until recently that I did a credit history report that I realized I had a delinquent charge showing up negatively on my credit, again for 4 years! I called Carmel Financial and they are not only rude but refuse to answer any questions I have and say that their not obligated to answer them. I filed a disput within their company and filed against them through the credit bureau without any luck so far. I just don't understand how for 4 years this company has been able to charge me a finance charge on a balance that is supposed to be deducted automatically from one of the two accounts on the contract. They are in violation of their own contract and because of it, my credit score has dramatically dropped because of it.