Letters
Letters to the editor, Feb. 18
TBO.com
Published: February 18, 2012
Credit card conundrumPublished: February 18, 2012
Being 80 years young and fairly well versed in business matters, I felt comfortable when paying various bills and accounts with one of the largest bank's plastic VISA credit cards.
I have always paid the charges in full monthly. I have, for years, believed the customer services statements about taking care of patron's dissatisfaction with vendor's merchandise or services. I have recently been involved with this type of problem involving auto brake repair to a classic collector Jaguar auto, and asked the credit card company to stop a payment due to such poor service that could have cost me my life.
After several months of aggravation and a great waste of my time, I have come to the conclusion that I paid with a check, a stop payment order would have been done as I directed.
A small fee for this service on my checking account would have been so much less than the incidental expenses that my credit card bank caused me to spend. I must admit that they could not take any immediate action since the vendor did not render the charges for several days.
However, when he did the computer told him promptly only to catch the error several days later and credit my account with the billing. Customer service then required me to document the poor workmanship to the extent of having the proper repairs estimated by another competent repairer, but then responding to the original repairer's complaint that he was not given an opportunity to correct the problem also required me to pay to tow the disabled car back some 25 miles.
The repairer disavowed any responsibility and I was not required to have the car towed home again in an inoperable condition. A third tow was required to bring the car to the second repairer and get the brake repairs and incidental damages (caused by the first repairer in Hudson) fixed at an added cost of almost $1,200.
The whole event caused the car to be out of service for almost four months and only then the credit card bank notified me that they had no choice but to pay the original bill of over $1,400 which was again billed to my account. This is what they provide as customer service.
Avoid the credit card nightmare, write a check and be in control.
W. R. Marques
Spring Hill