Spiegle's charge accounts are handled by FCNB (First Consumer's National Bank) and their debt collections are handled by Alliance One Recovery services.
The Report is as follows: My wife has a charge account with Spiegle's. Normally the account stayed in good standing. However, there were major disasters within our family that caused great temporary hardship. As the account grew delinquent, Spiegle's was notified of the situation and temporary arrangements were made regularly. Eventually however, the account was sent to Alliance One recoveries for debt collection.
My wife set up payments by phone, regularly and a plan was devised to bring the account current once again. My wife works in an industry that was greatly affected by the 9/11 tradgedies and at one point made arrangements for four post dated payments by phone for large amounts.
Three days after the payments were arranged with a collector from Alliance One who reached my wife at work after several times being advised that she could not recieve calls at her job, actually calling and speaking to her twice in one day there (which is a violation of FDCPA law) my wife recieved her commission check that was reduced by 3/4.
We called to cancel the transactions three days before the first payment was supposed to begin. The representative told us that there would be no problem, and in fact the account was current now and was sent back to Spiegle's and assured us that no payments would be processed through my wife's checking account. One month later, the checks all hit my wife's bank at the same time, totalling in amounts over $800 and causing her to incurr hundreds of dollars of bank charges and people who had recieved bounced checks.
My wife then called Alliance one, where management refused to accept responsibilty for the situation. They also refused to give a name of a person at FCNB who could assist us. We then called FCNB where the customer service representatives are not allowed to put management on the phone. We called Spiegle's customer service and they too refused to put management on the phone. When Management was finally "coaxed" to the phone, they listened to what happened, proceded to go on vacation and noone could be contacted for a full week until that person returned. Then They told us that they would see what they could do. We did not hear from them for another week. Then they said we had to get copies of checks to prove they cashed them and they would not guarantee to fix it.
My wife's bank said that it would take 10 days to get those copies to her. No one at this point will accept responsibility, we now have totalled over $1000 in problems that include check fees, service charges from Spiegles from checks that returned, our Utilities were shut off at one point because their check bounced, cell phones - shut off, Cable TV - Shut off.
I had to obtain a second job to compensate for the situation. Still when we call, they will not let us speak to anyone of executive level, i was able to speak to a manager who had no "power" to resolve the situation. I even called to advise them the day our utilities were shut off. They were very rude and did not care. When I asked the name of the Vice President of FCNB the manager stated that she did not know and said that she had an organizational chart at her desk, but "did not feel" like going to get it.
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