Get Rid of Your Amazon.com Visa card NOW
Worse and worse.
When I last left off, I had just made a payment online to Chase Bank. The rep had told me that regardless of whether I paid through them or my own bank, as long as I set it up before 4pm, it would post on their system by midnight. I had heard from the Post Office consumer affairs department, who sent me a letter for the creditors explaining the missed mail issues we’ve had.
I called Chase on March 23, which is when the rep of the day before had said everything would post.
This rep said nothing had posted and that the previous rep had been incorrect, and that it would actually have been faster to pay on the phone. I said my bank reflected the payment already, and he just said that it could take 24-48 hours for the payment to show up in
their system.
I checked on our online Chase account and our payment was shown as having been received. Of course, by then, the Chase customer service line was closed.
So today I called Chase again. This time the customer service rep said that in order to get anything done about the credit bureau reports they had sent, I would have to write a letter to the company and the supervisor could not do anything. I still asked to speak to a supervisor.
Robert, the supervisor, listened to me explain all of the above. I explained how, in all cases, we had called the same phone number to speak to someone. With every phone call and every different person we talked to, we had received different information regarding what would happen if we paid, what they were authorized to do and even how much we owed.
Robert had no comment at all on these customer service issues.
He also told me that our account had NOT been reopened. In order to reopen it, he said, we would have to reapply. Our account was permanently closed. He also said all our Amazon points would NOT be reinstated if that happened, even though we would have paid off all charges, plus late fees, plus finance charges, on the purchases that got us to those Amazon points. We had 2614 points at the time this happened. At 2500 points, you get a $25 gift certificate. How convenient for them.
The supervisor said they could not waive any further fees. He said that although they had reported both of us to the credit bureau, they could only talk about the credit bureau issues with the primary cardholder, who is my husband. He also said there was nothing they could do about it, anyway, even if I got my husband to speak to him.
He did not care that representatives of Chase had told me otherwise, apparently in an effort to simply get me to pay up. He did not care that I had a letter from our post office consumer affairs department explaing the mail issue. He did not care when I began to say very rude things back to him, things that normally I would have regretted, except that frankly, I meant every word of what I said.
In short, he treated us as undesirable former customers who they were abandoning as quickly as possible with no regard whatsoever to our dilemma, to the way Chase had failed to inform us of what was going on, and to the outright lies their representatives had told us about what would happen once we paid.
I also contacted Amazon again to complain. I emailed a complaint ending with “Thanks for hooking me up with a horrible company, Amazon!” because by then I knew Amazon couldn’t do anything and didn’t really care, and that I didn’t want to buy from Amazon ever again.
Amazon responded by sending me a $10 gift certificate.
Their email back to me repeated that there was nothing they could do, other than forward my complaint to the people who manage the affiliations. They said that the credit card is completely handled by Chase, even though when you call the customer service line listed on the credit card bills, you’re greeted with “Welcome to Amazon dot com credit services!” and not by “Welcome to Chase Bank, dicking customers over since 1799!”
All Amazon handles, apparently, is reeling us suckers in and assisting when the customer has not received the initial $30 that Amazon offers as an incentive to sign up for the card.
The ten dollars Amazon gave me yesterday, I am afraid to say, will not go very far toward our finance charges, late fee and credit issues. And in retrospect, the $30 I got for applying for the card was the worst free $30 I have ever received.
I know that for many people, this kind of thing does not matter much. “Hey, it happened to someone else…it won’t happen to me.” But if it does happen to you, no annual fee, free money, points and gift certificates for your spending will be of much consolation. At that point, it’s too late to find out that Chase customer service operates at the service of the bank, and doesn’t even pretend to be for the customer at all. Cancel your card if you have one already.
Or, even better, if you don’t have a card with them, why not sign up? Make a purchase of $30.99 at Amazon with your new card. After you get your statement, you should have a $30 credit on there (note: I’ve heard some people say they’ve had problems even getting the $30 to show up at all). Pay off your bill. Then, resisting all your natural urges to keep a no annual fee, free points card, remind yourself of what happened to us and immediately cancel your card. And write an email to Amazon telling them why you cancelled, and asking them to forward your complaint to those big people at the top who make all the affiliations and never have to deal with customer service themselves.
Our credit has been spotless until now. We pay every bill promptly and we have (or rather, had) a very high credit score. So we take these things very seriously. As soon as we found out there was a problem, we tried to fix it. But a company that doesn’t even give us a CHANCE to make things right is one that will forever dwell in the black pit where my credit score used to be.
Posted by: ssjane | March 24, 2007 | 10:21 am
Posted in: Rants