Complaint Review: Family Credit Counseling Corporation

I signed up with FCCC in April of 2003. At the time, I was making all of my payments on time, but I was concerned that my balance on one account had gotten out of hand.

51 months later, I received a notice from one creditor that I've completed the program and my balance will be zeroed out. The other says that I still owe $16,000 and that my account is past due. Based on what FCCC has been taking out of my account every month, I show that I've overpaid that account by about $2,500.

I first called FCCC on June 1, and was told they'd send the issue to their disputes department, and that I'd hear back from them in 3 to 5 days. I gave them a month, and then I wrote a letter to Jack Armstrong detailing the problem and demanding that they send me a detailed account history, showing when each payment was received and when it was paid out. I mailed the letter on July 3.

On July 12, I called again. The CSR I spoke with agreed that basic math indicates that there's a problem. She also told me that although one account is paid off, they'll still be taking the same amount out of my checking account and supposedly applying the rest to the other creditor. She told me someone would call me back.

Shortly after that, I got a notice of a class action settlement. After reading through the documentation and the original complaint, I see that I'll be getting a whopping $40 back if I agree to the settlement.

I called today, July 26, and asked to speak to a supervisor. When I mentioned that I'd sent a letter to the president of the company, the customer service rep transferred me to his office. His assistant started going on about interest, blah, blah, and how they didn't have any record of my letter, so I asked for a fax number and told her I'd fax a copy. She said she'd look into it and I made her commit to contacting me again no later than Monday. I faxed the letter just now, along with a copy of the letter from Amex and a note saying that I was aware of the lawsuit and that I'm planning to submit a statement to the court that the proposed settlement is inadequate.

I'm now considerably worse off financially, both because of the late payments they made and because of the huge amount (20% of my monthly gross income) that they're deducting. I was appalled when I learned that I'm far from alone, and that even with the settlement, we're still going to be screwed over by these fraud merchants.

Nancy
Sacramento, California
U.S.A.