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  • Report:  #135760

Complaint Review: Household Finance Corporation III - Elmhurst Illinois

Reported By:
- Dupo, Illinois,
Submitted:
Updated:

Household Finance Corporation III
961 Weigel Road Elmhurst, 60126 Illinois, U.S.A.
Phone:
800-365-9699
Web:
N/A
Categories:
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good? What's this?
Household sent me unsolicited loan "checks" in the mail in 1996 with no terms, disclosures, interest rate, etc. for $5300. I cashed them and made payments for 6 years for a total of $7000--Not knowing I had a 26% interest rate revolving loan. So they say I still owe them $5600.

They refused repeatedly to "close" my loan or lower interest rate when I found out. In 2002 one of their collection agents told me the only way to get a lower rate was to quit paying!!

After I made no payments for 3 months, sure enough they called me, nice as pie, and offered to close my loan so I could pay it off, reduce my interest rate to 7.99%, AND loan me an additional $200!! Like a fool I signed the papers, which now meant I had an actual legal document with them saying I owed them money.

I have made no more payments since then, so they are in the process of trying to sue me for the $5600. In 2002, Household was found guilty in a class action lawsuit of predatory lending practices, and ordered to quit sending checks in the mail without proper disclosures like they did to me in 1996. But it is too late for me, because I signed the rewrite of the loan in 2002.

Had I known it would cost me almost $14,000 to borrow $5300, I never would have taken the loan in the first place. By the way, my gross income in 1996 when they sent me the unsolicited checks was $15,000 a year!

Household Finance are scum who prey on people in desperate situations, and know how to skirt around the law in order to take advantage of people who don't know any better. I will warn everyone I can to never do business with them.

Cathy

Dupo, Illinois
U.S.A.


1 Updates & Rebuttals

Tom

Houston,
Texas,
U.S.A.
Easy to get sucked in

#2Consumer Comment

Mon, March 21, 2005

Our Credit Union, which I felt was above reproach, sent out Visa checks to use for Christmas. I glanced at them and read the fine print and realized they were just cash advances with a very high interest rate. Needless to say I threw them away.

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