Honest Sam
Bay Area,#2Consumer Comment
Mon, January 15, 2007
since you are replying to something that was orginally posted in 2002!!
Lisa
Ballwin,#3Consumer Suggestion
Mon, January 15, 2007
I would dispute the $151 at this point. It's a lot of money. First, I would request a copy of the time date stamp from the lockbox receipt. Whenever you mail a payment to a lockbox, it's standard for the receiving lockbox to stamp when the envelope actually arrives. Recent changes to the mail delivery protocol does make it take a little longer if you are within so many hundred miles of the destination, but 10 days does seem excessive. I would also request a copy of the back of your statement to see the markings of its deposit. Verify the dates to ensure that it was not posted or deposited before they said it was. As a former Citifinancial customer, I am aware of the 10 day allowance request - and truthfully I am always suspicious when a payment magically takes that amount of time. But that is there disclaimer - nevertheless the onus is on them to prove receipt. Now, for Sue's comment. The 'financing' is a 'service' and is part of the pricing and payment package that you negotiated with the furniture store. You did nothing wrong and should not be bullied into thinking that you did. A full year relationship is meant to be that - and while you made payments all along, what you did was not out of line. If you had sent it 2-3 days before, sure - but that wasn't the case. In turn, banking relationships with retailers (Taft) are not siloed efforts that Sue may have tried to imply. Normally, it's a heavily negotiated factor in a multi-faceted relationship. (Mortgages, regular checking, investments, etc). So don't let anyone sell you the line that the bank is not making money. It's all that it's about. There are some services that a bank issues that yield less, but on the long haul, it's a piece of a very lucrative deal. As for my deailing with CFS...I pulled the plug about 5 months into the relationship. I have found that many of these 'free financing' deals are administratively out of process with how I normally do business - and by that I mean it's not convenient to do e-payments, insist on payment fees to do ebilling or throw in other hoops. Compound that by customer service issues (I suspect offshoring with a rigid script and rules applies here) - and that did it for me. Hope this helps. Good luck!
Lisa
Ballwin,#4Consumer Suggestion
Mon, January 15, 2007
I would dispute the $151 at this point. It's a lot of money. First, I would request a copy of the time date stamp from the lockbox receipt. Whenever you mail a payment to a lockbox, it's standard for the receiving lockbox to stamp when the envelope actually arrives. Recent changes to the mail delivery protocol does make it take a little longer if you are within so many hundred miles of the destination, but 10 days does seem excessive. I would also request a copy of the back of your statement to see the markings of its deposit. Verify the dates to ensure that it was not posted or deposited before they said it was. As a former Citifinancial customer, I am aware of the 10 day allowance request - and truthfully I am always suspicious when a payment magically takes that amount of time. But that is there disclaimer - nevertheless the onus is on them to prove receipt. Now, for Sue's comment. The 'financing' is a 'service' and is part of the pricing and payment package that you negotiated with the furniture store. You did nothing wrong and should not be bullied into thinking that you did. A full year relationship is meant to be that - and while you made payments all along, what you did was not out of line. If you had sent it 2-3 days before, sure - but that wasn't the case. In turn, banking relationships with retailers (Taft) are not siloed efforts that Sue may have tried to imply. Normally, it's a heavily negotiated factor in a multi-faceted relationship. (Mortgages, regular checking, investments, etc). So don't let anyone sell you the line that the bank is not making money. It's all that it's about. There are some services that a bank issues that yield less, but on the long haul, it's a piece of a very lucrative deal. As for my deailing with CFS...I pulled the plug about 5 months into the relationship. I have found that many of these 'free financing' deals are administratively out of process with how I normally do business - and by that I mean it's not convenient to do e-payments, insist on payment fees to do ebilling or throw in other hoops. Compound that by customer service issues (I suspect offshoring with a rigid script and rules applies here) - and that did it for me. Hope this helps. Good luck!
Lisa
Ballwin,#5Consumer Suggestion
Mon, January 15, 2007
I would dispute the $151 at this point. It's a lot of money. First, I would request a copy of the time date stamp from the lockbox receipt. Whenever you mail a payment to a lockbox, it's standard for the receiving lockbox to stamp when the envelope actually arrives. Recent changes to the mail delivery protocol does make it take a little longer if you are within so many hundred miles of the destination, but 10 days does seem excessive. I would also request a copy of the back of your statement to see the markings of its deposit. Verify the dates to ensure that it was not posted or deposited before they said it was. As a former Citifinancial customer, I am aware of the 10 day allowance request - and truthfully I am always suspicious when a payment magically takes that amount of time. But that is there disclaimer - nevertheless the onus is on them to prove receipt. Now, for Sue's comment. The 'financing' is a 'service' and is part of the pricing and payment package that you negotiated with the furniture store. You did nothing wrong and should not be bullied into thinking that you did. A full year relationship is meant to be that - and while you made payments all along, what you did was not out of line. If you had sent it 2-3 days before, sure - but that wasn't the case. In turn, banking relationships with retailers (Taft) are not siloed efforts that Sue may have tried to imply. Normally, it's a heavily negotiated factor in a multi-faceted relationship. (Mortgages, regular checking, investments, etc). So don't let anyone sell you the line that the bank is not making money. It's all that it's about. There are some services that a bank issues that yield less, but on the long haul, it's a piece of a very lucrative deal. As for my deailing with CFS...I pulled the plug about 5 months into the relationship. I have found that many of these 'free financing' deals are administratively out of process with how I normally do business - and by that I mean it's not convenient to do e-payments, insist on payment fees to do ebilling or throw in other hoops. Compound that by customer service issues (I suspect offshoring with a rigid script and rules applies here) - and that did it for me. Hope this helps. Good luck!
S
Dover,#6Consumer Comment
Thu, February 27, 2003
Citifinancial is fully aware that when they make these 12 mos no payment, no interest that there is a strong likely hood that account will be paid prior to that, and because of this yes, they will use any tactic necessary to collect the interest. I feel that the person was paying on the account all along and then sent them the remaining balance that probally sat on someone's desk for three or four days that it would be conveniently late. Citifinancial should credit the finance charges. Because they know they are just flat out wrong. This is a conspiracy on the part of Citifinancial.
Sue
Corinth,#7Consumer Suggestion
Sun, September 01, 2002
Obviously, you were aware that you had an entire 12 months-yes, I FULL YEAR to pay this debt in full without having to pay one penny in interest. This is a LOSS to the company, because when companies finance retail contracts which are paid in full as agreed (on time), these companies do not earn any income on these accounts. It seems to me, that you would have had the common sense to make sure your payment was RECEIVED by this company on time, since you did in fact, have ONE FULL YEAR to pay the contract. If you mailed a deposit to your local bank, would you expect them to give you credit for the deposit before they actually received it? (NO!) It is the consumers responsiblity to ensure creditors receive payments in a timely manner.