Complaint Review: NextCard/Master Trust

True, I am only a college student and am apparently therefore both naive and irresponsible. However, seeing so many other reports on this site has made me feel that perhaps my student status isn't the reason I'm having such trouble with this company.

I pay quite alot of bills each month, as does anyone who owns a car, has student loans, has a few credit cards, has housing expenses, etc., and to save myself the stress of opening so many bills and writing so many checks, in August I switched from physical check writing to a very efficient online bill pay website. I switched my bills from paper to online, and I soon received an online bill from NextCard. I paid it through the bill pay website.
Now, at some point either before or after this - I don't remember - I was informed that NextCard had gone out of business or something and that some company bought my debt (although it was unclear what the company was).

I received no bill in September (online or otherwise), and in October I received a paper bill stating a past due balance for September. I paid this promptly. I also sent off a change of address form to them, since I had moved in August and this bill had been sent to my old address (though it seems to me I tried to change my address with them back when I actually moved, too, though it didn't apparently work).

I wanted to contact NextCard (or whomever!) and request that I continue to receive online bills, or at least to ask them to let me know if that was no longer a possibility because of the change in the company that held my debt.

However, I could find no working phone number that would get me past the "Enter your Account Number Now" prompt and speaking to an actual person, though I did find an e-mail address on NextCard's now-defunct website. I sent them an e-mail and received no response.

Meanwhile, I ceased to receive any paper bills, too, whether forwarded from my old address or at my new one. I heard nothing from NextCard until today, 1/18, when I checked my mailbox and pulled out a threatening letter from a collection agency whom NextCard apparently asked "to assist them in collection of the above past due amount."

So I know that NextCard is out there somewhere! There are people in an office somewhere who run this company, because these people contacted a collection agency even though they have chosen to make themselves completely unreachable by any normal means of communication!

This is the first time anything close to this has ever happened to me. The most angering thing of all about this is that I could easily pay off the entire balance - I haven't been "evading" payments due to lack of funds or lack of desire to pay - I just didn't receive any bills from them and was unable to contact them in any way! Throw me a bone here, NextCard! Or Master Trust, or whoever you are now!

Anon.
Evanston, Illinois
U.S.A.