I went to firestone for tire change 3 years ago and was trapped into this CFNA credit card for 6 months to pay the purchase amount. After I received the credit card, I then realize its a "credit card" and a new account was created in my credit history. My ignorance initially as I was relatively new to american financial culture.
While my credit history was always good to excellent from past 7-8 years of my existence in USA, I received a phone call from CFNA back in october 2013 where customer service personnel asked me to make an outstanding payment with CFNA (apparently I missed one of my payment on this occasion). So I let her know I am ready to clear up any due pending and don't want any further interest and if she can help me avoiding additional charges that might have been paid. She never told me about minimum payment due and that she wasn't even taking care of the late payment charge of 20$ which was already applied prior to her call. Anyways, I paid the amount she asked and verified with her if that takes care of any outstanding amount? Answer was yes.
Come January 2014 I took another service at firestone and towards the end of month on 1/29/2014 I went to verify online if I can now pay the new balance. Instead what I see there was another 50$ additional Late payment charge which was due to an outstanding balance still from Oct'2013. So when I called Firestone, the customer service informed if I pay in full there will be no issues. However this time I was firm on the fact they should atleast excuse the additional 50$ which they charged as it was communication gap during the october'13 conversation. And this made them talk quiet harshly and they were ready to term my account. When I asked that can I get the contact where I can file my complaint regarding my dissapointment with the customer service, they said we will take care of your 50$ late payment. So it ended up well for both of us.
Now these shrewd and crooked customer service executives of CFNA reported regarding delinquency of my account on 1/29/2014 when I spoke to them. Now I am surprised how can my account be delinquent after I already made the payment in full??? If they had to report why didn't they do it earlier??? And now my credit history rating changed from excellent to fair losing close to 100 points :-(
As of today, 1/31/2014, when I called them back, the Customer service executive "Melissa" was very rude and said there is Law that we can't report back to credit bureau that your account is now current.
I am very dissapointed with these folks! and sincerely hope these people rot in hell!!!