Screwed Again!

Okay so we have now been royally screwed by Home Depot credit with no attempt to work with us after they mucked up our account.

Here is the story:

When we first moved to Decatur last September, we needed some yard tools and were kinda strapped from the move, so we went to the local Home Depot store (they were having a no interest or payments for a year promotion) and signed up for a credit card.

{A little aside here... I had tried to setup an account online earlier the same day, but never finished the application and it was not submitted.}

All seemed fine, we bought a lawn mower, gas can, rake, etc. and were ready to tackle lawn care. Things were fine for awhile, we received cards in the mail (they came separately), and didn't use the credit again until earlier this year when we needed some basic household stuff. This is where things seemingly went wrong.

After the second purchase (both purchases were made using the card I had, Cathy's card was never used), we received two bills in the mail roughly a week apart. We thought it was just an error and since both purchases were in deferment, we just chunked it. But after another month passed and we received two bills again, Cathy got suspicious. It turned out that there had been two accounts opened: apparently the online application that had not been completed or submitted became one account and the one we set up in the store the second.

Well it seemed OK since all purchases had been made on the one card we could just close the second account. But wait.... somehow the second set of purchases were put on the second account and was now about to be 60 days late.

Well we had already paid bills for the month a didn't have enough to cover the second bill, but Cathy was told by a CSR that they could just transfer the balance into one account, wave the late fees and make the situation right, but since I was the primary cardholder, I would have to call back and get it done officially.

So I call back and am told by a different CSR that they could not transfer balances and we would have to pay on each account. So as I am on hold waiting for the supervisor to get on the phone, Cathy points out that the second account is late and has reverted to the higher APR of 63.81%. WTF is that all about!!!!

When the supervisor gets on the phone, she concurs that they cannot help us and so I begin to argue that they wrongly set up 2 accounts and then charged 2 accounts from purchases made on one card. Her solution was to go through every single transaction and say which account it was bought from, but there was nothing they could do. The bottom line is that Home Depot is not going to fix their mistake so we will have to pay the balance of the second account off next week (on payday) and the finance charges (luckily on $15), and they finally agreed to drop the late fee. Since one rep said they could fix it and the other said they couldn't, my bet is that they would if we hadn't been good customers (or had good credit).

But now we are going to be stuck with a 60 day late on our credit report because they refuse to contact the credit agencies and clear up the mistake (they still are not coping to their mistake of opening two accounts and spreading the purchases over them).

So as you might have guessed, we will be dealing with the local Lowes from now on as Home Depot has become blacklisted for our family.

Why is it that people who are irresponsible and cannot pay their bills get lower rates and special treatment, but us responsible folks get screwed?