Gregory
Nicholasville,#2
Thu, September 17, 2009
Credit protector charges a very high price for very little insurance.They have no problem taking your money but it is hard as hell to get them to pay. The reason why they try to shove it down your throat is because they make a ton of money fleecing people, the program is banned in MS and AL, likely because their consumer laws don't allow such scams.
Stuffedfishie
Kingsport,#3UPDATE Employee
Mon, February 02, 2009
Credit Protector offers are made by mail or phone call to the contact info on the account, so I'm guessing the authorized user in question was someone who lives with you: roommate, spouse or girlfriend, family member, etc. The call was meant for you, but since the person they spoke with was the auth user, the offer was made to them and you had previously given this person authority to make purchases. A service was offered, they agreed, so the sign up was valid. Now when you called in to customer service to dispute the addition of credit protector, the customer service agent "took care of it" by sending a referral to a specialist who would listen to a recording of that call in which the auth user signed up for the service. If it turned out that there was insufficient authorization, such as if the person they offered to was not an authorized user or if the person was just trying to get rid of the telemarketer, the specialist would refund the charges. If sufficient authorization was present, the fees would be returned to the account and they send you the letter that the charges are valid. Now you can cancel future credit protector charges, but the ones already billed are valid. Really it sounds more like you should be angry at the authorized user rather than citicards. And regarding the line about court, yes if you tried to go to court, the concept of authorized users is quite precedented and the only issue could be proving if the authorized user really was added by yourself or not, in which Citi would provide the initial application or notes of the phone call in which you added the authorized user. Citi isn't going to worry about taking you to court about the matter, we'll just charge you late fees if you don't want to pay the credit protector charges and report delinquencies to your credit report and eventually charge off the debt as a loss. This would ruin your credit, not really worth protesting $20 or so. BTW Credit Protector isn't exactly a scam, its an insurance plan in which you pay monthly premiums based on your balance in exchange for the card being paid in the event of unemployment, disability, death, etc.
Stuffedfishie
Kingsport,#4UPDATE Employee
Mon, February 02, 2009
Credit Protector offers are made by mail or phone call to the contact info on the account, so I'm guessing the authorized user in question was someone who lives with you: roommate, spouse or girlfriend, family member, etc. The call was meant for you, but since the person they spoke with was the auth user, the offer was made to them and you had previously given this person authority to make purchases. A service was offered, they agreed, so the sign up was valid. Now when you called in to customer service to dispute the addition of credit protector, the customer service agent "took care of it" by sending a referral to a specialist who would listen to a recording of that call in which the auth user signed up for the service. If it turned out that there was insufficient authorization, such as if the person they offered to was not an authorized user or if the person was just trying to get rid of the telemarketer, the specialist would refund the charges. If sufficient authorization was present, the fees would be returned to the account and they send you the letter that the charges are valid. Now you can cancel future credit protector charges, but the ones already billed are valid. Really it sounds more like you should be angry at the authorized user rather than citicards. And regarding the line about court, yes if you tried to go to court, the concept of authorized users is quite precedented and the only issue could be proving if the authorized user really was added by yourself or not, in which Citi would provide the initial application or notes of the phone call in which you added the authorized user. Citi isn't going to worry about taking you to court about the matter, we'll just charge you late fees if you don't want to pay the credit protector charges and report delinquencies to your credit report and eventually charge off the debt as a loss. This would ruin your credit, not really worth protesting $20 or so. BTW Credit Protector isn't exactly a scam, its an insurance plan in which you pay monthly premiums based on your balance in exchange for the card being paid in the event of unemployment, disability, death, etc.