And the saga continues …
It was now time for me to deal with something I will admit that I have ignored for the last two years. It was one of the few parts of my credit report that I knew was there, didn’t deserve to be there, and I didn’t have the patience to deal with. The credit agency now had me in the mood to start a war. A link from my friend from the land of Woodchucks brought me to a site that is totally devoted to credit and the legalities surrounding credit reporting, and law. I was amazed at all of the information there and set forth to use as much of it as viable on my quest to take on Capital One. Oh yeah, the great Satan of the credit card world. A little history on this one for those that have either been caught in the Capital One trap, or are peering into the eyes of the snake, would be in order here, so away we go.
After my second divorce, the ex took my kids, my money and most of my shit. She also took a majority of my paycheck, and the People’s Republic of Maine was there to do so every week. Oh well, life goes on, and I had to do what I could to make it by. My credit was terrible and my income was terrible as well. I took a credit card from Capital One with an interest rate of about 18 percent {which I hear is chicken feed compared to what they do now} and it helped me through all of the hard times, and I was never late on my payments etc. Two years later I was living in Mechanicville NY and I had two Capital One credit cards. A Mastercard and a Visa, because rather than giving me more credit they gave me more cards, so that they could get two payments out of me a month instead of one. That’s fine, I get it, and I was never late and I made all my payments. Simple story so far, but it gets complicated from there.
I had just sold my house and had plenty of disposable income at this time; I called Capital One and cancelled my cards after paying off the balances. It was confirmed and all was right with the world. I didn’t need two high income credit cards, so I went without them and used the debit card that came with my checking account. As some know my son burned down the apartment building that my ex wife was living in, and it was because of her neglect. I left NY {unfortunately} and moved back to NH to take full custody of my children, and I had to do it the day it happened before my ex wife took them all and moved away where we couldn’t find her. Long story, but she is a loser. I placed a forwarding address and dealt with all of my business in NY in one day, my landlord was fine with it and understood completely, my job was sad to see me go, but understood, utilities were paid, and I went back to NH and spent most of my money fighting the state of Maine for custody of my kids. The state of Maine being terrified that they were losing another one of the 80 percent of their population that lives on welfare, made sure that I was flat broke before I could win, but I won.
Move ahead 3 years and I get a phone call from a credit collection agency telling me that I owe Capital One 900 and some odd dollars. I was dumbfounded over this, and the person on the other end of the phone had no shame in telling me that a 10 dollar charge was put on the card and they added bounce fees and interest charges to it for 3 years. He pointed out to me that in my contract I had agreed that within 30 days of the account being closed that if a charge was placed on the card it would remain open. I was then told quite unashamedly again that they had gotten back all of the mail from the address that they had, but their mail was not forwarded, and that under the contract that was my problem as well. Now on top of my confusion I was incensed. I was especially pissed that they could find my phone number to call me out of the blue and never sent me so much as a warning that this crap was going on. I told him to stick it, and have continued to do that over the last couple of years when they call me, because there appeared to be no way out of that jam.
Last week I got the Better Business Bureau involved, and let me tell anyone reading this that most credit card companies have tons of complaints against them. I was told a few of the things that I read online last night, and used them to my advantage already. First and foremost I used their record keeping against them. “Show me proof that I owe this money,” is the first thing to say. 9 out of 10 times the credit card company in question has deleted their records of your claim the second the agency purchases the debt for pennies on the dollar. The credit collection agency doesn’t actually have any authority to the debt unless they actually are working on behalf of the company. Capital One didn’t actually just screw me in this instance, but they screwed the collectors.
By placing that erroneous 10 dollar charge they amassed what looked like a fortune to a collection agency for little money. The company paid Capital One 5 cents on the dollar for the debt owed at the time. I tricked the guy into telling me this when I was talking to him, but I will explain that in a minute. They ended up paying Capital One about 45 dollars expecting to have about 900 some odd dollars to screw me out of somehow. Even if they got it down to about 300 dollars they made a very good profit, and as Capital One had turned 10 dollars into about 45 they had made a very good profit. Pretty sick stuff huh?
Here’s how the conversation went as I called them armed with a lot more information then the average person has on hand. I pointed out to the guy that I would require the proof of signature of the fact that I owe the money on the original contract with their company name on it. He stated that that would be impossible, which I knew, but I continued by pointing out that I originally owed them 10 dollars on a closed account, but “might” be willing to pay them their acquisition fee of my account if they eliminate the poor credit mark but would require the original document with the sale of my account on it. He started giving me a spiel and I said {in typical credit collection agent fashion} that it was a take it or leave it on the spot, so I need to know the amount and will send in the amount upon my approval of the submitted document, but I had to know how much NOW.
After he cracked and gave me the amount they paid for the debt, I started laughing like a lunatic, and through tears said “Capital One screwed you guys, and you think I am going to bail YOU out? Take me to court so that the judge can laugh at how crooked you all are,” to which he ripped back like a child that this can sit on my credit report forever! I personally find it to be a badge of honor, and intend to call the collection agency once or twice a week to laugh at them and make fun of them. God lemons can be made into lemonade at the strangest of times. ;8o)
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Nothing that was printed here was intended to offend anyone, and if it did, screw ya, you begged for it. If you believe that there are some measures that can be taken to change me, then please feel free to pray for me, and while you are at it yourself, because you read this far, and if you hated every minute of it, then you are an idiot, not me, or the other people who like what I have to say! .. Jeremy
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