alfredheart
NY,#2Consumer Comment
Fri, February 17, 2012
My fiance has her Bloomingdale for the last 10 years. We are getting married this month and want to buy a second house by the summer. She paid off her balance and refrained from using that card. A month after she gets a bill for $2.00. Normally the instinct is to shred it thinking it is junk but for some reason she opened it as she was about to shred the thing expecting to see $0 balance but there was a fee charged. She called them and got the run around to a credit company that claimed the store charges card holders an extremely high interest fee for not using the card and having a $0 balance on the card. This makes absolutely no sense and it is just a scam to either force you to use the card or force you to pay the fee.
When she asked to cancel the card they told her it would ruin her credit score even though she was cancelling a $0 balance credit card. So she is forced to keep the card and pay these idiots $2 a month for not using the card.
But I can see how this situation would lead to a credit disaster if someone who had paper-free billing was to stop using the card, pay off the balance and not check their account online again whiles they were silently getting billed every month and not know it. After 5 years or 10 years that would be a disaster!
Horrible business practice by Bloomingdales and their creditor cohorts! This should be illegal!