Woe is me! Way back in June of 1999 I began what I believed to be an honest relationship with Federated Financial Services in helping me to make payments to two credit card companies that I owed. I wanted to consolidate and make good on my debts. I was told by Federated Financial Services that the finance charges would be "frozen" by the credit card companies and that interest charges would be lowered. I was also told they could set me up with a payment plan for only $281.00 a month and have my debts paid in 44 months and restore my credit.
I began the payment process In June of 1999 to FFS and was faithful in making the payments each and every month. After 13 months of making the $281.00 a month payment, I was told that I needed to increase my monthly payment by $30.00 to stay in agreement with the TWO credit card companies.
Being a little angry, but also wanting to repay my debt to the credit card companies I agreed to the additional $30.00 payment bringing my monthly payments to $311.00. For the next twenty (20) months I paid (faithfully) $311.00. One of the credit card companies was sending me a statement each month, the other was not.
After making all of these payments on time (and faithfully) through Federated Financial Services, I telephoned them when I received a statement from one of the credit card companies showing that I had paid my balance in full and actually had a credit balance of overpayment for $1.56
I was told that I should reduce my payment to $109.00 a month for the remainder of the time left (meaning the last few months with this second credit card company). I inquired about a statement from the second credit card company and what I was told BLEW ME AWAY.
I was told by the representative at Federated Finacial that I owed $3,186.00 YET! When I entered this agreement with First Federated Financial in June of 1999 the balance that I owed to this second credit card company was $4,776.00! I quickly calculated what I had paid them over the past 37 months and came up with $2,310.00. HOW COULD THIS BE???
Because I had never received a statement from the credit card company that was receiving my on time monthly payments, I calculated that I still had a balance of approximately $850.00 NOT $3,186.00!!! You can imagine the shock! I asked what this was all about??? I was then told by a rather sheepish employee that... After all of these months of making this payment that my account had been sold to a collection agency and that the credit card company had never agreed on "freezing" the finance charges or accepting terms of settlement! He then told me that since it was charged off that I should discontinue making the payments and disregard any attempts by collection agencies in the future.
3 years of faitfullness and at NO TIME was I informed that my payment to this company wasn't even putting a DENT in my debt as I had been led to believe.
I was also told by Federated Financial Services that I would receive one month of my payments back at the end of the 44 month contract for paying each month on time, as an incentive/reward. Being that the first credit card was paid in full before 44 months and that I was told to discontinue payments to the second company, I was not entitled to the "incentive/reward" of my first payment of $281.00
Today my credit report shows a charge off by this company. I have recently received a letter from a collection agency that is informing me that I owe more than the $3,000.00 debt to this second credit card company and that they intend to collect it through a lawyer in my state.
I was mislead and ripped off for more than 3 years by Federated Financial, leaving me with a HUGE debt. What was meant to be a repayment and repair to my credit history has turned into a nightmare. It began in 1999 and here I am in worse shape in 2005!
Margaret
Las Vegas, Nevada
U.S.A.
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