Jane
Pittsburgh,#2UPDATE Employee
Mon, October 27, 2003
For those cardholders who are filing complaints agains Spiegel or Card Processing, you are going after the wrong companies. You shjould be after FCNB & FCNB only. Let me explain why. Many years ago Spiegel contacted a finance company called First Consumers to issue catalog "charge cards" for them. FCNB (First Consumers) issued these cards & serviced as well as collected on these products until recently. In the spring of 2003 FCNB filed bankruptcy. Because this is a totally seperate company that was HIRED by Spiegel, Spiegel itself was not effected. Spiegel still has their stores & catalogs. In fact, since FCNB went belly up they hired another financial institution (worlf financial or WFNB) to issue & service NEW cards for their catalogs. ENTER CARD PROCESSING. Card Processing Center is a 3 party credit card servicing agency. Card Processing was contracted as og june 30th 2003 to handle collections on these accounts. Card processing was not contracted to handle customer service, hence no customer service # or representative to speak to. Card Processing Center is doing exactly what they were contracted to do, COLLECTIONS. This is why any disputes or customer service issues (fee waivers, etc) must be sent in writing. To date, no company has been hired to do customer service on these accounts. Card Processing is not to blame for cardholders dissatisfaction with the way this conversion was handled. Think of it this way- It's like you contract a company to fix your roof & then file a complaint against them because they didn't fix your plumbing. Mean while you didn't hire them to fix your plumbing so of ciurse they didn't do that. It is unfortunate because in this conversion the ones who pay the price are the cardholders. I am in total agreement that it stinks. However ging after Spiegel or Card Processing is a waste of breath because these companies are not the responsible party.